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The Global Financial Class: Global Class Formation at the Juncture of Organizations, Places and Markets
The Global Financial Class: Global Class Formation at the Juncture of Organizations, Places and Markets
Tuesday, 12 July 2016: 10:45-12:15
Location: Seminar 31 (Juridicum)
RC17 Sociology of Organization (host committee) Language: English
Market-orientated globalization has transformed the logic of economic organizations. Instead of “retain and reinvest”, we find downsizing and outsourcing; instead of growth in size and production volume, we find orientation to financial indicators like share price and return on capital; instead of being anchored in local, protected markets, we find firms displaying global opportunity-seeking behavior.
These transformations correspond to changes in the social structure. Financial elites take on a divisive role in the global economic process. Their collectively shared social and cultural capital, their knowledge and practices, set them apart from other corporate elites and enable them to transform the economy in their favor.
The guiding thesis of this session is that there is a process of class formation taking place among professionals in the financial markets, i.e. the formation of social, cultural or organizational “collectivities” in the pursuit of economic interests. This session presents research into the question of whether there is a new class of financial professionals emerging that shape financial markets and thereby transform the entire configuration of the modern economy.
It addresses the reciprocal relations between the global financial market and those actors that populate, produce and reproduce it. To what extent do they form a global financial class interconnected in a network organization of capital, culture and everyday life?
Session Organizer: