A Model for an Anthropological Economy: Beyond the Universal and the Particular

A dissertation submitted to the University of Manchester for the degree of Master of Arts in the Faculty of Humanities

2010

Alexander Parkinson School of Social Sciences

Introducing the Eye of Providence Economic Model ........................................................................................... 7 Bridging the Intellectual Divide? ......................................................................................................................... 12 Why the Great Transformation Today? ............................................................................................................... 7 Outlining the Eye of Providence Methodology .................................................................................................. 8 Dialectical Interconnectivity of Components ................................................................................................. 11

Introduction ......................................................................................................................................................................... 5

List of Contents

Theorising with the Eye of Providence Model ..................................................................................................... 14 Political Economy ...................................................................................................................................................... 14 An Interpretative Theory of Value...................................................................................................................... 18

Wall Street in an Anthropological Economy ....................................................................................................... 23

Migrant Remittances in an Anthropological Economy ................................................................................... 34 Remittances and the Eye of Providence Model............................................................................................... 41 Conclusion ......................................................................................................................................................................... 49 What the Economists Say ................................................................................................................................... 34

Articulations of Value Realms ..........................................................................................................................45 Summary ...................................................................................................................................................................47

Transnational Dynamics of Remittances .....................................................................................................42

Remittances and Macroeconomics .................................................................................................................37

Remittances and Microeconomics ..................................................................................................................35

Summary ...................................................................................................................................................................33

Masters of a Symbolic Universe of Value .....................................................................................................30

The Politics of Shareholder Value in a Finance-led Economy .............................................................27

The Economy, The Whitehouse, Wall Street, and High Financiers ...................................................23

The Values of Price ................................................................................................................................................21

The Problem of Economic Value ..................................................................................................................19

Local Expressions, Global Forces, and Elite Interests ............................................................................15

Word count: 17,594

The Eye of Providence model10

List of Diagrams

This paper critiques the privileged place of economic expertise in contemporary society and introduces the Eye of Providence model - intended for economic anthropology - that directly engages and challenges knowledge from the discipline of economics. The formal and substantive elements of the economy are situated in dialectically embedded relationships with individuals, institutions, and ruling powers. I exemplify how an anthropological approach to value is useful when highlighting the limits of economic knowledge. This is achieved theoretically by blending ideas from political economy with perspectives from interpretive or symbolic anthropology. The result is an approach that, on the one hand, pays careful attention to wider systems of power, such as those embodied by the term neoliberalism, and how these articulate with local political contexts. On the other hand, it uses the concept of value or values to probe the social, political, and cultural dynamics of economic value and to interpret meaningfully how values shape economic action from the perspective of economic actors.

ABSTRACT

The model is tested comparatively, firstly with financiers that operate in a formally instituted market environment but that are shown to also function through institutionalised culture and forces of political power. Secondly, it is tested on the case of remittance makers that operate more informally through gift exchanges with their kin. This allows me to contrast the place of economic expertise in a market environment familiar ground for economists with a context that does not sit so comfortably with its methods. I argue for a more humanistic approach to the economy and highlight specific points of collaboration with economics. I also emphasise that anthropologists should pay more attention to the processes through which economics ideologically represents the world, rather than channelling efforts into disproving the universality of economic models.

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The Author
I obtained a Bachelor of Arts with First Class Honours in Corporate Communication from Manchester Metropolitan University in 2006. This included two years of study at Indiana-Purdue University Fort Wayne.

In September 2009, I embarked on the Master of Arts (taught) in Social Anthropology at Manchester University and began specialising in economic anthropology over the summer of 2010. With special thanks to Karen Sykes, Mia, David, Jarle, Irene, and Jennifer.

I worked as a stockbroker and investment manager in Manchester, UK, from 2006 to 2009, obtaining the Certificate in Investment Securities in 2007 and the Certificate in Investment Management in 2008 from the Securities and Investment Institute.

For Mr Alan Cave

sciences is all too well known in anthropology. The Economic and Social Research

anthropology than it did to economics in 2009 and it received just over a quarter of the described as intellectual imperialism and in order to problematize the current status this paper asks what are the implications of privileging one form of knowledge over another? What is economic expertise? In what ways and in which places can we study

number of applications (p. 64). In response to the trend that William Milberg (2009) has that economists occupy as the high priests of our [Western] culture (Wilk 1996, p. 33),

Council (2009) granted less than one-fifth of the number of research awards to social

The astounding dominance of the discipline of economics over the other social

Introduction

understanding of contemporary economic life? In what ways can it engage

constructively with economics, not only to challenge the axioms upon which the these are among the big questions of today, for anthropologists and for us all.

discipline rests but to provide new insights that connect with its understandings? Given the centrality of economic thought in modern social and political spheres, in my view, enhance, the value of anthropological expertise. To this end, I introduce what I shall refer to as the Eye of Providence economic model that offers methodological and What is at stake in answering these questions is an anthropology of value that regarding the disciplines own brand of knowledge. Indeed, by arguing for the theoretical guidance for the subdiscipline of economic anthropology. It is here that In this thesis, I will present a critique of the high value placed on economic expertise in contemporary Western society and, in doing so, emphasise, and hopefully questions about the value of knowledge meet questions about value more generally. what is good, which as a matter of no coincidence, also includes judgements made certain interests are served by value structures that pattern such judgements. An influence and constitute our economic lives.

the economy? How might an anthropological perspective enable a greater

overcomes the current rule of economics as the queen of those social sciences that judge importance of understanding dimensions of power in relation to value, I reveal how

anthropology of value can mark out the limitations of economic expertise embedded ideologically in our social knowledge and practice by negotiating those areas of life that currently fall outside of the rubric of the discipline of economics but nonetheless

and of theory that I should avoid reiterating the conceptual dichotomy of the

universal and the particular that seems to echo through so many connected debates. connection between economic knowledge and anthropological knowledge. In addition to this, I argue that anthropology should focus on the ways in which economics political dynamics that can draw the two disciplines closer together. (mis)represents the world and should vie for a more humanistic intellectual perspective on the economy. In the space between economic representation and economic reality lies a distinct opportunity for anthropological analyses to highlight social, cultural, and to individuals, institutions, and ruling powers. To add theoretical direction, the second The opening section outlines the methodological areas of the Eye of Providence Thus, I believe that we must go beyond simply arguing that the world everywhere is different and that universal principles do not hold up in reality. Rather than merely refuting economic expertise, I hope to engage it directly to highlight potential areas of

It became apparent to me while developing the overall framework of method

part considers how the model relates to political economy and interpretative

approaches to the anthropology of value. I do not suggest that these two theoretical this paper, they should be considered part and parcel of the conceptual apparatus.

model, which situates the economy as a set of both ideas and functionings in relation

and epistemological in a more concrete fashion and across two very different contexts. Hence, the third section reinterprets ethnographic research conducted with finance part investigates the less-instituted practices of international money transfers anthropologists. This comparative analysis not only shows anthropologically how undertaken by remittance-makers to contrast economists understandings with that of

workers to reveal the influence of culture in a formally instituted environment. The final people live economic lives in spaces of divergent degrees of (in)formality. More setting.

blend of prescriptions for an anthropological economy theoretical, methodological,

perspectives are the only ones compatible with my model; however, for the purposes of The remainder of the paper endeavours to emphasise the importance of this specific

importantly, it also enables me to contrast the nature and place of economic expertise

vis--vis anthropological expertise, as well as the place and role of money in each social

Introducing the Eye of Providence Economic Model

rethinking of Polanyi in a contemporary context. Polanyi was principally concerned with the relationship between the market and society, particularly with tracing how the former became central to the latter and emphasising the destructive social consequences that ensue when self-regulating markets form the bases of societies. natural social evolution, contradicting common belief. He was not opposed to the Importantly, he showed that this was achieved through political power rather than The inspiration for my model initially came from Hann and Harts (2009)

Why the Great Transformation Today?

when the market principle reigns supreme. Hann and Hart (2009) have similar concerns today, characterising unrestrained markets as engines of inequality and arguing that the notion of markets as a natural force beyond social regulation serves also to society, 2 as well as Polanyis notion of embeddedness. 3 legitimize [sic] wealth and even to make poverty seem deserved (p. 3). In structuring my model, I have largely drawn on the idea of the interplay between the market 1 and economic practices. Certainly, his fears may have been quelled with the rise to Polanyi believed that the market fundamentalism to which he was opposed

utilisation of markets to allocate goods and services from a more marginal position in society but to the dominant position that self-regulated markets can come to occupy

would ultimately lead to a political reaction and a withdrawal to more socially sensitive perpetuated by market fundamentalists epitomised by Reagan and Thatcher, Keynesian dominance of the U.S. as an economic superpower, enabled through market expansion (Hart 2000). However, with the global spread of neoliberal ideology since the 1980s,

nonetheless imbued his ideas with a new resurgence (Hann & Hart 2009). There are
1

has arisen that Polanyi did not envisage when writing in the 1940s but that has

and socialist forms of economic management were dislodged; consequently, a situation

I take the market to be both an economic idea and a functioning of the economy. I conflate the terms market, finance, and economy throughout the paper. 2 In the model, I have split society into individuals, institutions, and ruling powers. 3 Although it has been argued that embeddedness is not one of Polanyis main concepts and that it was actually transformed by sociologists into the mainstream of the discipline (Beckert 2009), it is the rethinking of Polanyis ideas that I am concerned with here, rather than tracing a genealogy of ideas. I hope to show that Gudemans (2009a) concept of dialectical embeddedness is useful when understanding contemporary economies.

parallels between Polanyis description of European societies during The Great

Transformation and the current revival of self-regulating markets through neoliberal this resurgent wave of Polanyian (re)thinking.

globalisation, as the market is once again considered vital to the functioning of society (Servet 2009, pp. 72-74). With the focus on market relations, it certainly seems that a Hann and Hart (2009) argue that the discipline of economics has mainly

concerned itself with individuals assumed to be economic decision-makers and market participants. Yet people per se do not feature in their calculations; hence, the idea of an

quest for a better understanding of contemporary economic life 4 should begin by riding

social integration (Beckert 2009, pp. 38-41). Anthropologists, too, have felt obligated to address the main views of economists, as economics became the ideological and

economy with humans has been left for other social scientists to pursue. The baton was the perceived rise in the importance of understanding economic concerns in relation to

partly carried by sociologists whose interest was invigorated from the late 1970s due to

practical arm of global capitalism (Hann & Hart 2009, p. 12). The editors (2009) call for global economic analysis in order to assess the world economy in whole and by part conceptual groundwork for this type of study by offering a model for economic walls of a library-based study. However, I hope to still set out specific research objectives, as well as some general questions to be explored. and investigate further whether or not capitalist economy rests on human principles of universal validity (p. 13). The remainder of this section and the one that follows lay the

more anthropologists to directly challenge economists at their own game of national and

anthropology. My work is not based on research experience and is thus restricted by the

component for economy that encompasses both economic ideas per se and the actual functionings of an economy that occur out there in the world. The world of ideas, for instance, would consist of neoclassic theories ranging from hypotheses of efficient markets to notions of individual rationality but also more socially sensitive concepts,

The model, as outlined in figure 1 below, has within its triangular enclosure a

Outlining the Eye of Providence Methodology

I use the term economic life to incorporate the perspectives of production, distribution, exchange, and consumption.

such as the domestic moral economy. The physical functionings are the substance of the marketplace, such as that on the London Stock Exchange, as well as activity in the components at each of the three points of the triangle. area to illustrate the dialectical embeddedness (discussed below) with the other housing market, which is perhaps more loosely enacted through the market principle The top point of the model the pyramids tip represents the ruling powers than through a physical marketplace. I have situated the economy within this enclosed and their rulings and interests. It may, for instance, reflect modern capitalist state not simply signify economic phenomena relating to organisations or to economic meaning that they attach to their economic lives. In accordance to the Polanyian to understand economic life.

market. They would, for example, consist of the actual buying and selling that occurs in a

institutions themselves but also includes institutions, such as the household or family. actions highlights the importance of considering peoples economic agency and the

agendas to protect the economy from inflation through monetary policy. The component of the model that points to institutions and their knowledges and practices does

rethinking that I have outlined above, these four main elements of the framework

Finally, the point of the model that incorporates individuals and their thoughts and

represent the fundamental perspectives from which I believe social scientists should try its structure resembles the symbol of the Eye of Providence, which is probably most words Annuit Coeptis God favours our undertakings placed above it. Taken ubiquitously represented on the Great Seal of the U.S. one dollar bill and that has the

I have named my economic model the Eye of Providence for two reasons. Firstly,

together, these signs are said to refer to the many divine interventions for the American cause (U.S. Department of State 2003, pp. 6 & 15). Given that the all-seeing eye can be state may intervene but it acts only in the divine name of a Capitalist Democratic metaphor of the eye. I use it interchangeably with the economy in order to interpreted as God watching over all of humanity, it is rather fitting with a central tenet capitalist societies that we can think of this Great Transformation as an apotheosis. The

of this paper; namely, that the economy, or the eye, has become so important to modern Economy. Therefore, my second motive for labelling my model this way is to invoke the

emphasise the piety towards, and the power emanating from, the associated ideas and functionings. Figure 1 The Eye of Providence Economic Model: *
Rulings
Monetary policy De-regulation Confer chiefly title Force state governments to act

Ruling Power

Interests
Control inflation Reduce trade barriers Increase chiefly power Encourage investment of remittances

Economy ** ***
Functionings
Capitalist transactions Banking deals Cycling gift system Total remittances

Ideas
A market economy Marketplace Domestic Moral Economy Remittance phenomenon

Institutions
Practices
IMF policy pressure Raise capital Serve chief and kin Remit to kin

Individuals
Knowledges
Economic reports Analyst reports Services rendered Kinship ties

Actions
Sell labour Buy stock Share food with kin Migrate and remit

Thoughts
Accumulate money Make a profit Value sharing Value family

* The borders on each component are intentionally dashed to emphasise the crossover the following order: 1. Market economy; 2. Marketplace; 3. Domestic Moral Economy; 4. Remittances. I have ordered the examples in every sub-component box of the model between the concepts. ** All connections are dialectical.

correspondingly.

*** Economic ideas discussed in this essay are mapped onto the sub-component box in

10

any embeddedness as a flaw to the ideal functioning of the economy. Even the New Institutional Economists overlook the a priori relationships that constitute actors,

industrial society. Neoclassic economists would happily leave things there, perceiving

relationship between the parts. Polanyi emphasises how the economy became

disembedded from existing social relations as the Western world made the transition to despite observing the emergence and form of economic institutions (Gudeman 2009a,

Having outlined the main components of the framework, I now depict the

Dialectical Interconnectivity of Components

value realms that surround each. On the one hand, people are only connected through market trade by alienating and impersonal contracts. On the other, there is a mutual of others within the base. Gudeman (2009a) argues that this division is a continuing dialectic in all economies, where it assumes different historical forms and degrees of

pp. 32-34). To rectify this, Gudeman (2009a) argues for a dialectical approach to society and the market as both embedded and disembedded and considers the two different

economic base of shared interests and holdings of people who are themselves products have become submerged in the market, but it is also undermined by the very market tension (p. 37). Mutuality is essential to the existence of all economies, even those that

exemplified when companies mystify downsizing by presenting themselves as dynamics.

communities to the employees on which they depend, while the downsizing itself undermines mutuality and holds wages down, despite the rhetoric of increased

practices and models that it supports, while this dependency link is itself erased. This is

productivity (Gudeman 2009a, pp. 28 & 29). My model supports the illumination of such depict the social order as an ongoing human production where action becomes model is characterised by dialectical mutual constitution. Berger and Luckman (1966) We could posit further that the relationship between all four elements of the

patterned and the patterning eventually becomes habitually typified into institutions product. Society is an objective reality. Man is a social product (p. 79). Once this first-

order of social institutionalisation has been established, it must be made plausible by a second-order process of legitimisation, for which Berger and Luckman (1966) identify
11

(pp. 69-78). This world is then objective and antecedent to individuals, as the product

acts back upon the producers in a dialectical relationship whereby: Society is a human

economy, one could say that these are: incipient transmission of a vocabulary of selfinterest, such as you have to think of yourself in business; basic theoretical lifts all boats; explicit theories of an institutional sector with a separate stock of order, such as a universe of value.

propositions that explain sets of meanings, such as the economic proverb a rising tide knowledge, such as economics; and finally, at the highest level, the symbolic universe that amalgamates discrete provinces of meaning and encompasses the institutional

four distinct and ascending levels (pp. 110-122). Reinterpreted for a neoliberal capitalist

The Great Debate. I do not revisit the formalist-substantivist debate but invoke it only to demonstrate the models capacity to draw together these divergent views. Wilk with individuals, considered to be rational self-interested maximizers, while the social context. (1996) believes that the debates disengagement derives from each partys starting substantivists start at the level of societies, the institutions of which they say act as structures for economic life (pp. 1-13). Thus, the methodology of the former view debate run much deeper and farther back. Carrier (2009a) traces the universalpoint, which he claims made the perspectives mutually exclusive. The formalists begin

considering the history of economic anthropology. Having outlined my model, I can now explore this a little further. The divide was perhaps most pronounced when it manifested as the opposing force between the two schools of thought that comprised

As I alluded to in the introduction, a great intellectual split can be discerned when

Bridging the Intellectual Divide?

assumes the universality of the individual and the latter implies the particularity of each The roots of the intellectual dichotomy at the heart of the formalist-substantivist

particular divide back respectively to the individual contract posited by Spencer and the social contextualisation of Durkheim. The divide continued to the primitive acquisitive context of self-interest that Mauss argued for (pp. 20-22). Disputes between those that even to the time of Plato and Aristotle (Blavatsky 1939). I assume that in reality the truths in either view that are worth exploring. This leaves me with one caveat and one saw a world of ideas and those who tried to understand things as they are date back divide is more of an intellectual continuum than a dichotomous split and that there are

tendency that Malinowski identified in the Trobrianders against the social and historical

12

challenge. Firstly, I must avoid the pitfalls of adhering too strongly to either perspective; these prescriptions. namely, by positing that everything is like this or that everything is different. Secondly, I should aspire, where possible, to productively reconcile this age-old epistemological separation. Indeed, my model is designed to encourage adherence to

13

in that it highlights four conceptual areas where researchers might examine the

the aspirations of the paper. Navigating through the notions of the universal and the will take more than conceptual cartography. We also need a theoretical compass to which are key themes from Hann and Harts (2009) edited volume, because they

particular, of representation and reality, and of anthropological and economic expertise, value, I have chosen to invoke political economy and interpretive approaches to value, and institutions, whereas interpretative value theory is generally more applicable to the element for individuals. These complementary perspectives, though, are not open up the economic realm in a unified fashion. I now introduce the two lines of cases of finance workers and remittance makers. direct our way. As I mentioned at the outset, in developing an anthropological theory of

economy. Although it does include some theoretical discussion, such as dialectics and embeddedness, it is necessary to further elaborate the theoretical account in line with

The Eye of Providence economic model, as outlined so far, is more methodological

Theorising with the Eye of Providence Model

theoretical apparatus of political economy lends itself to studies of the ruling powers

generally differ with respect to their orientations to society and to the individual. The

exclusive to the stated domains, allowing me to interweave the theoretical analysis and

investigation that constitute the final parts of my model and that I will later apply to the At the societal level, I have opted for a view of political economy, rather than say

stress on [a] more accurate study of the interplay between economic thought,

(2009) criticism of Polanyi vis--vis the Durkheimians for not attending to the

emphasising a Durkheimian functional approach, to allow for a political slant when

connecting with economics (Wilk 1996, p. 83). This may seem at odds with Steiners

Political Economy

institutions, and the economy does seem to superimpose comfortably onto the

functioning of the market, assuming market mentality to be obsolete, and for endorsing rather than challenging its economic assumptions (pp. 68-71). Indeed, Steiners (2009)

framework of my model (p. 71). Moreover, his discussion of the importance of the

teaching of economics, which is powerfully employed to extend the market, and on how economic knowledge is embodied by market tools and apparatus, such as the use of

14

and power dimensions of economic life rather than simply observing the functional aspects of an economy, as if it were a component of something that derives from a and functionings directly, I clearly do not ignore Steiners (2009) concerns. Local Expressions, Global Forces, and Elite Interests

economic models in contemporary financial markets, seems to link well with the

dialectical interconnectivity of the model (pp. 68-71). While this approach may also fit my model, I develop a more Marxist stance on this occasion to emphasise the political

unified structure (Wilk 1996, pp. 83-93). Nevertheless, by dealing with economic ideas I begin with a less extreme case of political power, which nonetheless shows that

investigating the dynamic relationship between political powers and economic forms is market growing free and expanding to other areas of life, as money itself becomes the we must attend to economic beliefs, motivations, institutions, and practices (pp. 240conservation in Jamaica. In a political economic milieu where the heavily indebted government, owing to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), had no money for 242). To exemplify this, Carrier (2009b) discusses his research of environmental conservation, activists had to appeal to the commercial advantages of protecting the vital if we wish to comprehend the latter. Even in situations where the connection may ostensibly be trivial, power is prevalent. Carrier (2009b) augments this point when he

measure and value of individuals. He argues that neoliberalism permeates many aspects of life that are not ostensibly economic; thus, in order to understand these phenomena,

compares our current moment of neoliberalism to Polanyis notion of the self-regulating

environment came to mean a profitable space for attracting tourists, a profitable space, that is, for large overseas corporations (Carrier 2009b, pp. 242-255). I revisit this case briefly below but for now wish to note that it raises an

to operate through extending the market principle to commodify the coastal land and local labour force. Nevertheless, the market reach was largely realised as park management eventually became reduced to the financial bottom line and a good

coastal areas through an emphasis on tourism. This was not simply a consequence of the self-regulating market model but an outcome of the way the environmental activists had

important point about how ethnographers should think about engaging with political

economy, since it essentially represents a local expression of global and national forces.

15

Marcus and Fischer (1986) call for ethnographic fieldwork to represent external ethnographic subjects (p. 39). However, it is not sufficient to simply reveal these

systems[through] their thoroughly local definition and penetration, and [that] are

Marcus and Fischer (1986), these political economic forces should be the object of study for anthropology, even if this macrosystem perspective entails traversing multiple field sites (pp. 90-95). 5 By connecting economic forms and individuals to the forces of and how can it complement an understanding of local economic forms? David Harvey (2005) offers a particularly Marxist view of these broader research that the authors envisage. But what might this type of macrosystem view be processes, interpreting neoliberalism a sweeping abstraction that he invokes to for elites to accumulate capital. Combining his arguments with Carriers (2009b) institutions and ruling powers that shape them, my model notably advocates the kind of

formative of the symbols and shared meanings within the most intimate life-worlds of

expressions per se, as we must also consider the broader scale of political economy. For

describe a plethora of different actions as a political project that creates the conditions research in Jamaica, we could posit that the neoliberal ideology forcefully circulated through the IMF allowed it to continue charging crippling interest payments to an indebted country and force the reduction of trade barriers and capital flows to allow

foreign tourism corporations and investors to gain capital opportunistically within the 29), the precedent set by the New York fiscal crisis that favoured a good business default, whereby it will always protect financial firms (p. 73). Indeed, when the million IMF loan in 1978, those opposed to the move predicted lower wages for

countrys borders. From Harveys (2005) standpoint, the unlikelihood of Jamaica simply attributed to neoliberal reforms that made the borrower take the losses on defaults (p. Jamaican government accepted stringent fiscal controls in order to obtain a U.S.$240 calamitous consequences of this from the Jamaican perspective are perhaps most
5

defaulting on its debt and its inability to negotiate more socially-friendly terms would be climate over social well-being (p. 48), and the full authority given to the IMF in cases of Jamaican workers and higher profits for multinationals (Bolles 1983, p. 138). The

passionately communicated in Stephanie Blacks documentary Life and Debt (2001).

At the time of their writing, this was perhaps a more innovative statement than if it were made now. The notion of a multi-sited ethnography has indeed become part of the mainstream in anthropology.

16

nonetheless instructive in showing the importance of attending to the ways in which empire of debt does seem to echo these concerns. It is characterised, he says, by we only partially accept Harveys (2005) depiction of the uneven spread of

external influences can forcefully shape a given locale. This is particularly crucial even if neoliberalism around the globe. Graebers (2009) depiction of our current era as the electronic consumer transactions, national economies driven by consumer debt, and financialisation that is increasingly detached from direct relations to commerce or

While Harvey (2005) offers a rather radical perspective of political economy, it is

debt but this age has also witnessed the establishment of the first effective planetary administrative system, operating through the IMF, the World Bank, corporations, and debtors (p. 130). I am not suggesting that neoliberalism is the only broad systemic

other financial institutions, largely in order to protect the interests of creditors against abstraction because it exemplifies my point about external forces. However, since it is usually employed to encompass notions of market fundamentalism and processes of neoliberal institutions such as the World Bank and the IMF may be a decent those that we would usually refer to as capitalist. starting-point when thinking about external influences on economic forms, especially boundaries or making models is problematic since what we call social or economic according to completely different principles (p. 131). He argues that the market:
credits ultimately cancel one another out (pp. 131-132). creating a totalizing model within which the books all balance and all debts and

production. Not only are we seemingly devoid of the social controls in place to curtail

force to be reckoned with, nor am I ignoring alternative views of it that de-emphasise its homogenising and hegemonic character (Ong 2006). I have merely chosen to utilise the global spread, tracing the influences of neoliberal ruling powers that operate through

ideas themselves. Graeber (2009) emphasises this point when he argues that drawing systems are, in reality, an endless interweaving of dyadic relations that often operate

The dynamics of political economy can also be fathomed by unpacking economic

is a model created by isolating certain principles within a complex system [] and then

If markets, like societies, are ideological gestures that do not exist out there in the

world but rather are a specific way in which a society represents itself, it is important to

look at whose interests a particular model is serving and question the types of value that

17

market justifies capitalist principles (p. 132), such as the commodification of Jamaica or of humans and nature more broadly. attempt to understand more than the functioning of a market and probe the influences even entail challenging the raison d'tre of existing ideas about the latter. In short, it and interests of political powers and their effects on that facet of the economy. This may If we accept Graebers (2009) argument, it indicates that anthropologists must

are being realised. As Graeber (2009) illustrates, a market sells a house, where as the

would be insufficient, for instance, to argue abstractly that defaults on subprime mortgages can be understood as what Stuart Kirsch (2006) might refer to as

unrequited reciprocity rather than, say, failed market exchange. We also require a better comprehension of the positioning of different actors in such practices, the institutional context that enabled the loans to take place, and the states neoliberal

means asking why this is happening, rather than just what is going on. My point is that it

that may not be truly achievable in modern ethnography; however, it is a step towards a for interdisciplinary dialogue. better understanding of the forces that shape economic life and a further opportunity Leaving things there would do no justice to the dialectical relationships that I

political dynamics that constitute economic ideas themselves. This is a holistic ambition

external political influences on economic actors and institutions, as well as the internal

agenda that promoted less regulation. In our empire of debt, it was quite acceptable it back. In sum, we must aspire to interpret the interplay between the local and the

for greedy opportunistic creditors to loan money to people who could not afford to pay

value(s) in different contexts to effectively map out a symbolic structure of meaning,

versa with a Marxist take (Wilk 1996, p. 110). To achieve this, I probe the meaning of

economics as something that is embedded deeply in culture and belief, rather than vice18

the world of minds and presents the possibility of revealing a more Weberian view of

inherent meanings would be left unexamined. If the previous section brought the

individual into the picture as an activist within a Jamaican political economic system,

this part tries to reveal the picture as seen from the individual. This allows us to enter

have depicted above. Economic life would simply be a socio-political product and the

An Interpretative Theory of Value

thus, extending the concept of an anthropological theory of value and its connection to economy, the Eye of Providence model should hopefully encourage [a]n interpretative anthropology [that is] fully accountable to its historical and political-economy implications (Marcus & Fischer 1986, p. 86). The Problem of Economic Value

forms of economic life. By meshing symbolic anthropology with the dynamics of political

instead how value is determined through relations between different groups. In doing as natural and isolated from politics and where exchange counterparts in the market could have complete freedom to make choices, maintain an equal standing to one
by nature an egotistical individual) and a world of things where others exist only through competition for access to those things (pp. 89).

so, it becomes apparent that there are alternatives to our current world configuration,

which was manufactured by economists and based on relations of self-interest (Servet

in the purely rational economic terms of labour, scarcity, and utility, and considers

Developing a symbolic theory of value takes us far beyond thinking about value

theories were:

another, and have the ability to act with full rationality. Servet (2009) argues that these
objective [since] they rationalized the relationship between a person (conceived of as

2009, pp. 87-89). Economic theories of value were developed through the myth of value

Polanyi made explicit, of recognising both the needs of the individual and of society (pp. 89-90). This is something that I hope an anthropological theory of value will achieve. expertise do we miss by assuming a narrow view of value? Graeber (2005) maintains that contemporary economists have limited the focus of their discipline to the production of mathematical models of resource allocation for profit or consumer birth of the discipline, have been sidelined and left for anthropologists and other To understand the problems surrounding past and current theories of value(s),

This conflicts with the notion of humanity as having the potential for solidarity,

interdependence as a community, and being obligated to future societies. Classical

economists, positing their world of self-interest, could not resolve this problem, which

we must venture much deeper than these logics of exchange. For instance, what kinds of preferences; consequently, questions of value, which were central to economics at the
19

scholars to explore. Moreover, he highlights that it was questions of value that set neoclassic economists apart from their predecessors, as the meaning of value (p. 440). From here on, the price and value of objects became increasingly

transcended the physical altogether, and became simply a subjective measure of desire indistinguishable from one another. Adam Smith developed the labour theory of value to explain the difference between the exchange value and use value of objects. Ricardo identified the problem of depressed wages. Marx critiqued the wage system, economics as a discipline devoted to studying the formation of price (pp. 441-443). traversing material to which some scholars dedicate an entire career. My point is, I kindly ask for the readers patience here, as one may recognise that I am characterising it as destructive of all that is worthwhile and meaningful. However, this kind of intellectual insight was swept aside by the marginalist revolution that redefined however, that there was a fundamental change, a paradigm shift perhaps, that makes

this whole process work. Was this shift in economic expertise simply down to myopia? I suspect probably not. Maybe it can be better viewed as a constructive distinction that was produced largely through political power when making the shift in perspective key economic activities of men and women; that is, the movement from mid-nineteenth

situation. Significantly, a contemporary study of value would typically surpass what we territory that is very hard to reduce to rational calculation and science (Graeber 2005, p. 453). Grasping the particular is not a calculative act but judging the universal is. an anthropological theory of value, Graeber (2005) outlines three uses of the term: system of value that defines the world in terms of what is important, meaningful, desirable or worthwhile in it (Graeber 2005, p. 439). In the sections below, I will values in the socio-philosophical sense, value in the economic usage, and value in of the same thing, it implies a common foundation for the three meanings, a symbolic So how else can we theorise about value(s)? When questioning the existence of

century U.K. production to consumption at the turn of the following century. While the underlying dynamics of the change are important because they allow us to see how

away from the theorists mentioned above, one that followed on historical changes in the

economic ideas change vis--vis economic functionings, so too is the state of the present

would usually refer to as economics, for it leads us into moral, aesthetic and symbolic

the Saussurean linguistic sense. If one considers these terms to essentially be instances

20

attempt to delineate such a system by analysing different usages of value(s). With difference, I specifically investigate Graebers (2005) claim that it may be able to

regards to the latter of the three usages, the Saussauran approach to value as meaningful mediate understandings between individuals and systems. Moreover, Graeber (2005) able to become inverted at different levels. This may be especially pertinent to this not because Westerners value equality but because the supreme value is now the become the highest sphere (pp. 447-50). paper since, as he argues, Dumont believed Western society is no longer hierarchical, invokes Dumonts notion of classic structuralist ideas as values that are hierarchical and individual, which has allowed the market, as a sphere of individual self-realisation, to If value is conflated with price in our current economic world, then perhaps it The Values of Price

will pay to also scratch below the surface of commodity prices to reveal the social price provides a suitable account with which to close this section because it political power. She shows how, in the twenty-first century, economic actors are

processes behind them and popular understandings of them. Guyers (2009) work on increasingly aware that composite elements constitute prices, rather than simply amalgamates an expanded notion of value with an awareness of the concealment of the fabrications of prices, such as those encompassed by currency exchanges. The hidden amongst the traditional elements (pp. 203-205).

which nevertheless retain the mystery of their components (p. 205). Thus, she argues that we should investigate the components encompassed by prices that are diffusely U.S. rose sharply by a dollar and rocked the projections of budgets from households to

assuming prices to be singular wholes. As shrewd consumers, we are now reminded of outcome, Guyer (2009) claims, is a moral economy of transparently composite prices,

corporations. Forced to explain the rise, petroleum companies claimed that despite the rise in the nominal price of oil, there was a steady proportional return and they and marketing. They did not include profit on capital as a composite category, which made costs of finance imperceptible; thus, the public representation of price was as

Guyer (2009) demonstrates this through a case where the price of gasoline in the

distinguished between crude oil costs, taxes, refining costs and profits, and distribution

21

determined to be the impetus behind the rise, which itself created further incentives to invest in oil. However, these factors, and indeed the great resulting profits made from investment banks, can only constitute part of the market price of crude from the view benefactors seem to be investment banks, are diffusely hidden (pp. 208-210). Guyers (2009) analysis may be useful here not only because it suggests that presented to consumers. Risk management and consulting costs, from which the great values are composite and allows us to investigate them as such. It also portrays a case

proportions of the retail price that was itself based on market actors from producers to contracts, driving up the price, was the composite component that was eventually retailers. Furthermore, financial speculation on the commodity through futures

where companies produced socially important economic expertise by (mis)representing the very factors that they were supposed to explain. Beyond the singular numerical task involves working with economic numbers or with theories that imply that numbers are wholes then Guyer (2009) shows that an understanding of their aspects of numbers lies an array of social dynamics that affect their composition. If our

composite structure and how it is negotiated is crucial if we are to probe the concealed it is not just economic models that we must unpack but also the numbers that are fed political aspects. into them. If numbers cannot simply be taken at economic face value, this presents a clear point-of-entry for anthropology to interpret their associated social, cultural, and

interests, motivations, and forces that are masked by these public ideologies of price. So

22

Ho (2009) offers a unique view of Wall Street, having initially worked there as a management consultant and later through probing her network of financial and

economic actors when conducting fieldwork. Her ethnography allows us to understand an aspect of capitalism from the perspective of financial market actors and institutions in mind, a broader view can also be attained of the effects on both the trends in the is in the best interests of corporations from that of employees is a new feature of on a Street that is a well-instituted environment and an icon of modern market capitalism. The Economy, The Whitehouse, Wall Street, and High Financiers economy and in the structure of corporate America. For Ho (2009), the divorce of what capitalism, whereby long-term social institutions have transformed into short-term liquid spaces under the dictates of Wall Street. Thus, we can investigate how people actually use and produce economic ideas and functionings not only on-the-ground but

Providence model and pursue the theoretical approaches of value and political economy.

Hos (2009) monograph of high finance 6 on Wall Street through the lens of the Eye of

Having set out the conceptual framework of this paper, I now reinterpret Karen

Wall Street in an Anthropological Economy

that possess a considerable degree of economic and political agency. With this influence

that the labour market in high finance operates freely from stringent social ties, a

meritocracy that is based on individuals competing fairly and equally for such highly would amount to a grave neglect of the organisational mutuality that governs this process. As Ho (2009) shows, Wall Street institutions and elite universities maintain for the schools, with a huge bias to recruiting students from Harvard and Princeton.
6

remunerative and prestigious places in todays society; however, such an assumption

If we accept the notion of the market being disembedded from society, it implies

huge feeder relationships that naturalise banking careers as the main destinations for

top graduates of any discipline. The investment banks actually operate a quota system

Candidates are actively poached from these two schools regardless of whether they can demonstrate technical banking ability, whereas candidates from other universities lack

As with the market, I consider finance and financial markets to be both an idea and a functioning of the economy.

23

the socio-cultural capital and must prove themselves otherwise. Moreover, that

intelligence is not considered a quality of a person but a currency that proves a persons worth attests to the mutual ties that underlie the dealings in this currency (pp. 39-72). success that one may have once hired, as there are better opportunities to meet with hard work, and compensation. Furthermore, these connections also influence the On the one side, investment bankers are recruited and constructed through embedded ties of mutuality and are patterned into Wall Streets culture of smartness,

directors who themselves graduated from these elite schools. This is exemplified by the case of a talented black woman who left banking because she felt alienated for having paths. African-Americans generally assumed roles that required less networking and The privileged client-facing roles with the large bonuses were mostly earmarked for

attended a non-elite school (pp. 61 & 62). Despite the culture of hard work where green

is supposedly the only colour, Ho (2009) shows how ethnicity greatly determines career harder work, while Asians normally ended up in technical or product-focused positions. white upper-class males (pp. 106-121). Such filtering could not take place without preexisting social ties and dispositions being transposed as conduits onto the supposedly On the other side, one could argue for the disembeddedness of the actions of

neutral marketplace. Peoples way on the Street is largely already paved by social that can afford an elite education.

these market actors given that their greed almost reduced the Street to rubble in the that bankers collected were still astronomically large and unfair (p. 225). The labour

relations and institutions, although it does seem that money can still buy status for those latest crisis, never mind helping to engender a global recession. Meanwhile, the bonuses

Glass-Steagall act in the late 1990s that allowed deposit-taking banks and casino banks
7

disembeddedness. Ho (2009) alludes to this process by mentioning the rollback of the

disembedded from concern for society at large. This was largely enabled through acts of deregulation by the ruling power 7 that instantiated a greater degree of

only able to accrue such high levels of risk and large amounts of wealth by functioning as

force might recruit through strong ties of mutuality but, once operational, bankers were

A contrast can be made with this Western view to Hertzs (1998) monograph of stock market traders in Shanghai. She shows that the traders interpret the market in political terms, thus in China, you cannot look at economics without looking at politics (p. 26). The market is more overtly embedded in the rulings and interests of the ruling power. In Hos (2009) book, the lines between what constitutes the ruling powers and the financial institutions are much fuzzier.

24

much about disembedding as it is about power relations (p. 34), I would note that in the dialectical embeddedness.

disembedding describes a process, where as power relations suggest how this process may have been enacted. Whatever the case, my model clearly highlights the need to The dialectical mutual constitution of the elements of the model can also be

While Ho (2009) purports that a finance capital-led version of capitalismis not so

to operate as one (p. 7). She also mentions how the takeover movement of the 1980s could only occur through deregulation and favouring of private ownership (p. 136).

discerned from Hos (2009) monograph. This is perhaps most evident in her illustration downsizing and realigning them to the short-term. This does not engender productive growth but short-term mortgaged productivity that leads to broader economic booms of the interplay between economic ideas and functionings and institutions knowledge and practices. A major theme of her book is how the institutions of Wall Street have incredible influence over those of corporate America through encouraging their

attend to both the cause, as the political power through institutions, and effect, as shifts

and busts (p. 293). Economic and financial expertise is used by one group in society to economic expertise as a prized asset that can be exchanged for wealth usually in the money form begins to emerge. nexus of investment banking culture and strategy and the intersections with corporations, markets, and economies (pp. 213-215). On the one side, employment (p. 227). While Wall Street prides itself on reacting much more quickly to market More specifically, through her focus on employment, Ho (2009) analyses the

realign social relations throughout the country. This is achieved by both acting out and

perpetuating particular ideas about the way in which the economy should function. If we also consider that investment bankers are paid huge sums for their services, an image of

decisions bear a relation to, but do not mirror, the stock market, and shareholder value movements than other corporations (p. 229), these corporations are also pressured to rationalise the prevalence of rampant downsizing. In this case, it was not the from the cultural dynamics of Wall Street to adopt downsizing as the general model for workplaces (p. 247). Any tension deriving from bankers self-concern or concern for company intentionally promoting itself as a community that mystified downsizing but

others was reconciled by them resorting to market externalisations as economic ideas

25

the institutional culture and individual beliefs of bankers. Like some sort of religious their own hype, and the market trends that they help to engender, further attests to notion of the creation acting back upon the creators (pp. 318-324). the other side of the dialectic; to wit, the role of investment banks in constructing unstable financial markets and jobs (pp. 234 & 235). Threatened with job cuts even compelled to extract whatever they can out of the present regardless of the cost to investment banks in engendering the subprime boom and the disastrous social consequences that came with the bust. Through generating a global market for

doctrine, people actually refer to economic ideas when justifying the undermining of

mutuality and of themselves. Moreover, that investment banks actually get enrolled in

during boom times, perhaps to protect the bonus pools of elites (p. 240), bankers are

For Ho (2009), this fetishization of the invisible hand obscures what happens on

society (p. 233). In addition to past crises, Ho (2009) discusses the substantial role of mortgages by creating various sophisticated instruments, hyping them, and peddling them around the globe to investors (pp. 297-302), Wall Street eventually created a those acting within, and dually transforming, the institution of investment banking. the market since bankers appeals to naturalized market cycles must also be

economies and present functionings of economies are shaped by the collective agency of within the well-instituted hub of the worlds financial markets actually operate largely through culture. Hence, she argues that we should look behind abstracted notions of space of human values, emotions, and institutional standards, a site of everyday Hos (2009) ethnography is intriguing because it shows that the economic actors

global web of risk that they themselves could not decipher (p. 321). Future ideas about

work life, not reification of market dominance (p. 242). She re-imagines the market as a practices as opposed to an abstract concept. Wall Street has not simply reconstructed the bankers cultural model of themselves as coeval and identified with the market (p. the world to its image of shareholder value but has actualised a model that is [in fact]

understood as particular cultural self-representations borne out of everyday Wall Street

252, italics in original). In this case, the market principle has become submerged into the organisational structure of investment banking compensation schemes (p. 260), while also expressed through the culture of Wall Street whose members are socialised into this elite world of market-centricity, short-termism, and rampant-insecurity. The high

26

(2009) emphasises the importance of anthropological insight in examining these forces. economics. In fact, the notion of economic cycles being produced by Wall Street would not fit into any of the economic models of market cycles that I have come across, since there is no place in them for the human factor. When I became qualified as a stockbroker and investment manager, I was taught how to conduct a combination of watch for the excesses of Wall Street culture. I spent three years looking at charts of share prices and share indexes to try and establish where the prices were going but This cultural understanding is clearly beyond the repertoire of neoclassical

financiers of Wall Street are humans with culture, not just machines with calculators. Ho

technical and fundamental analysis 8 but was never shown where to look on the graph to ignored the actions of Wall Street that allegedly caused the whole market to bottom out. Nonetheless, Ho (2009) does not explore the huge implications of her argument for the fascinating if she had elicited their take on her theory by perhaps asking whether they considered economic and financial market models and formulas to be relevant, could also be said for their views on the notion of a jobless recovery. fascinating to also consider that she did not decide to pursue this research. Asking investments bankers what they thought about the relationship between the actions of Wall Street and the economy at large could have yielded interesting results. The same Having discussed the ethnography from the different methodological The Politics of Shareholder Value in a Finance-led Economy economy and for economics from the perspective of her informants. It would have been

perspectives of the model, I can now turn to the first of the theoretical approaches. In the new modes of production in the age of neoliberal financialisation. The distance bankers perform reiterates the need to look beyond the models themselves to the
8

keeping with the Marxist stance that I have highlighted for political economy, I read Hos between the ideal of shareholder value and the particular version of it that investment

(2009) ethnography as an account of financial hegemony and competition over access to interests that are being served, as I mentioned above. Ho (2009) unpacks the notion of

shareholder value to show that it is part of a wider scheme on Wall Street to promote its
For an accurate and accessible explanation of these two financial strategies see (Janssen, Langager, and Murphy 2010).

27

benefits to the economy at large, perpetuated by an origin myth where investment banks provided the capital to allow corporate America to grow. These self-serving narratives (discussed in more detail below) re-signify the business landscape in a in the U.S. (pp. 26-30).

to engulf U.S. culture as the central reasoning and explanation for the restructuring of

manner that promotes inequality and prevents a more democratic approach to business firms, shifting concepts of inequality and wealth, and the condition of the U.S. economy

at large. To understand this phenomenon, Ho (2009) unpacks the ethnographic present, which leads her to the takeover movement in the 1980s when Wall Street hardened its the plural sociological sense and establishing values that are more market-oriented. The shift was from the old concept of the firm as a social institution, valued for its permanency and role in the community, to the new notion of the corporation as a mutuality upon which it rests, as Gudeman (2009a) might posit, for Hos (2009) network of liquid investors, now measured by efficiency, liquidity, and short-term profits. While one could interpret this as an instance of the market undermining the value means cutting jobs, the tension is averted because the company has become a necessary evolutionary progression from stakeholder value-orientations to market to society is rendered imperceptible. grip over corporate America. Essentially, this entailed supplanting existing values in

During her fieldwork, Ho (2009) maintains that shareholder value was beginning

informants, the championing of shareholder value was mission-driven and considered economically and morally the correct thing to do. Even when increasing shareholder

defined by its owners and not its employees (pp. 122-129). The dependency link of the

shareholder value-orientations. I am referring to the contrast of values that can be discerned between the stakeholder economies of Japan and Western Europe, where stakeholder economies create social attachments to firms, which surpasses a mere

I would suspect that bankers would instead perceive this unfortunate scenario as

company profits go to long-serving employees, with the shareholder economies of the rewards for loyalty and the latter for individual gain. The institutional loyalties of the

economic relationship. This loyalty is reciprocated from the companies, who in turn

U.K. and U.S., where profits go to the owners of the companies shares. Thus, the former

offer more than simply a market rate wage. There is a greater inherent valuation for

28

group ties, as rewards are given for occupancy and role within the firm, rather than composites of shareholder value were packaged together and represented in one any conflicting values.

individual achievement and ability (Blim 2005, pp. 314-316). Ostensibly, the economists economic usage of the term as a market valued share price that ignores and conceals calls forth the case of Safeway to show the real purpose of creating shareholder value in these contexts. The company had been operating competitively with plans for growth while the company itself was saddled with a monumental amount of debt. Thus, Ho in capital improvement plans. Essentially, this enacted a significant transfer of wealth (2009) argues that takeovers should be understood as power struggles over cultural mergers and acquisitions prevalent in the 1990s were really about high financiers the firm became their interests (pp. 129-153). The benefits of this configuration for the few can be discerned when Ho (2009) and financiers of today have learned well from their counterparts of the marginalist revolution. Just as values, such as these, were abandoned for price back then, today the

until a leveraged buyout (LBO) led to massive downsizing, lower wages, and a reduction from the firm to top company executives, investment banks, and the private equity firm, values and practices that are hierarchical and diverging. Contrary to the worldview of

her informants, who believed that Wall Street unlocked value and improved efficiency in corporate America, Ho (2009) argues that the takeover movement of the 1980s and the the stock market and Wall Street. To counter the perceived inefficiencies of managerial long term decline in the value of the target company, as Ho (2009) illustrates with the capitalising on the downturn of the previous decade to align corporate values to those of capitalism, managers were made into shareholders through LBOs so that the interests of These revolutions in the name of shareholder value often, paradoxically, caused a

example of Daimler-Benz and Chrysler. Hence, she argues that shareholder value must be viewed as a political tactic to monopolise control over corporations and to support power of economic ideas and their utility as political tools. Although some informants

the demands of short-term financial profiteering. Moreover, the way that her informants none robustly challenged their assumptions and resorted instead to neoclassic explain this tension, as advocates of shareholder value, highlights the representational were more hesitant over the benefits of shareholder value, downsizing, and efficiency,

29

the Marxist analysis of political economy changes that I outlined above. Elites created the conditions for financial accumulation through the financialisation of corporate America and by perpetuating neoclassic ideologies that became so pervasive that the very actors who currently carry the flag for shareholder value do not recognise their From the standpoint of investment bankers, the use of the share price as the

rationalisations (pp. 153-168). This interpretation of events sits rather comfortably with

amount of wealth to be transferred to those who access it.

contributions to these unequal transfers of wealth. In this view, we also begin to see why economic expertise is perhaps such a valued service, since it allows an enormous primary measure of a company was about restoring the correct harmony between centric short-term decisions on corporations. Ho (2009) purports that part of the

discursive power of the market derives from these abstract, flexible representations and 38). As she argues, Wall Street also maintains its own hegemony through [t]he culture of smartness [which] begets global spread, justifies global financial influence, powers and institutions have cultivated the market economy to their benefit, then how of the human economic mind. were the minds of the masses won over or coerced into allowing such unequal accumulations of wealth? Combining these transformations with an interpretative

control and ownership of firms. Here, shareholder value enables investment bankers to

allows Wall Street to maintain its current position as producer of U.S. hegemony (pp. 35-

package their values into a single number and fight for elite interests by forcing market-

naturalizes imperialist practices, and produces financial dominance (p. 72). If the ruling theory of value may throw light upon these questions, as we travel deeper into the realm The manner in which investment banks and their worldview of shareholder value Masters of a Symbolic Universe of Value

became institutionalised and then legitimated resonates clearly with the levels of legitimacy that Berger and Luckman (1966) outline. The explicit theories of an

institutional sector, in this case comprised of economists and financiers, brewed its own stock of knowledge to support shareholder value through what Ho (2009) shows to be stock market, and investors, but also on decontexualized extrapolations (and new a crude reinterpretation of the historical relationships between corporate America, the

30

adaptations) from neoclassic and classic economic thought (p. 169). Accordingly, to denaturalise bankers worldview of shareholder value, Ho (2009) contests the myth funds predominantly through bonds issues for most of the twentieth-century and of the stock market (p. 343). Although shareholder value is in reality a socially

upon which its legitimacy rests whereby the shareholder was situated as the original fund provider and controller of corporations. She points out that corporations raised

early 1970s (pp. 179 & 202), while it was actually corporations that financed the growth axioms to fit their worldview indicates how it was able to reach and maintain such a None of these changes could have taken place if they did not occur within a

funded the vast majority of their capital expenditure from internal resources up until the constructed justification for institutional practice, the manner in which bankers selected

symbolic universe of value, a fourth level of legitimacy that also suggests the existence of a system of meaning that Graeber (2005) alludes to. There are numerous indications that such a phenomenon exists. Firstly, this universe is characterised by Dumontian Her informant describes Wall Street as a fighter plane when making decisions in comparison to other corporations. As Ho (2009) points out, this implies a value loyalty are abandoned for shareholder value that, in spite of the single number power that my discussion in the previous section crystallised. hierarchy, which is perhaps best exemplified when Ho (2009) recounts an interview with an analyst that moved from investment bank Morgan Stanley to Pepsi Corporation. hierarchy where Wall Streets quick adaptation and flexibility are favoured over slow and rigid firms, bankers are superior to the average worker, and liquidity is preferred to

high level of legitimacy.

represented on the stock exchange, is a composite that includes notions of liquidity,

spheres of value encompassed by the modern universe. Ho (2009) offers us a vignette of these realms when she shows that the stock market was historically constructed to reality never had it. Ho (2009) finds this alarming since the stock price is used as a separate control from ownership in order to create liquidity. This contradicts general beliefs about corporate history that saw control returned to the shareholder, who in

flexibility, and short-termism. This notably contains and conceals the dimensions of

illiquidity (pp. 243-248). The values in a sociological sense of trust, commitment, and

Secondly, the hierarchy above implies that there are different segregations or

31

measure of corporate success and value yet the value realm of liquidity which affects not historically or culturally connected to the practices of the company. Against Wall retail company could be making lots of sales and performing well but this would not Streets claims, stocks are not merely representations since they belong to a divergent

the share price is ill suited to the operations of the firm, while the share price itself is

prevent general market fear operating in a different value sphere from depressing the price and attracting pressure from investors, which might lead to downsizing.

social construction that functions apart from corporations (pp. 183-188). For instance, a Thirdly, these segmented hierarchies of value may be imagined to have varying

degrees of attachment to a broader social order. Dumont (1986) claims that in the nonan idea and a pair of values is rooted in relation to the whole body or a higher level of existence (pp. 248-250). In the modern view, determining the values of the pair would only entail a look at each of the hands. Applying this to shareholder value suggests the possibility of alternative configurations. Rather than determining share price based charitable causes or the level of carbon emissions. This may be a step to fixing the our current economic crisis (pp. 262 & 263). share value in relation to some broader social measure, such as contributions to

modern view, the values of the right hand and left hand which he invokes to exemplify

modern formation that has arisen from the break between the element and the whole. contemporary consciousness, then Hos (2009) informants have used the scientific, or the economic, to directly realign and then justify what should be considered moral. fanned out into a collection of flat views of this kind (Dumont 1986, p. 249). At that over left or right. Finally, we need not look beyond the very structure of the phrase point, there is no inversion of values at different levels since everything is measured the word first. It makes the inversion, valued shareholders, conceptually harder to

solely on cash flows and the like, market mechanisms could be established that increase

Certainly, Dumonts (1986) claim that [t]he whole has become a heap resonates with

The more that shareholder value gains legitimacy and begins to take on the form of an against share price. Whatever the context, we do not even make the value judgement

Fourthly, if as Dumont (1986) argues, the scientific is replacing the moral in our

ideology if indeed it has not already the previous hierarchical universe[becomes]

shareholder value, which clearly denotes the superiority of the shareholder by placing
32

imagine. Hence, there can be no value in who the shareholders are, long-term or shortterm, nurturing or predatory, forgiving or relentless. It seems that the masters of the that best suit their financial and monetary interests. Summary universe, as the name implies, are capable of manipulating and oscillating these value structures by asserting a particular type of economic expertise into configurations

examine a single ethnography in significant detail because it largely conforms to my specific relation to the economic lives of investment bankers. Wall Street is a place

framework. This has enabled me to think through the key perspectives of this paper in where people go to make money as individuals; money is central to peoples being on the Street and is also the key product that the financial institutions are structured to institutional on the Street and far beyond.

existing ethnographic research on powerful market actors and institutions. I chose to

I have tried to show how the Eye of Providence model is useful when interpreting

manufacture. This is all made possible through the rendering of instituted financial and

unattended. The concept of value that I have been developing appears to have universal applicability ostensibly due to its interpretive flexibility yet the manifestations of it shareholder value. Institutional and political influences played an instrumental role in out of universal self-interested rationality. While the universal-particular debate dynamics that motivate them. out there informing bankers decisions and guiding their preferences towards appear to assume endless forms. On the one hand, there appears to be a realm of value

the ruling powers, it is hard to doubt that they play a significant role in perpetuating the worldview of shareholder value; thus, these elements of the framework cannot be left

economic expertise that has essentially liquidated social relations both individual and

Whether or not one chooses to accept the hegemonic view of the institutions and

crafting these values. On the other, one could argue that all bankers are really just acting continues into the section below, I have verified that interpretive value theory can speak of both individuals and of societies in the same breath, while political economy unearths the

33

Migrant Remittances in an Anthropological Economy

society and later critiqued an ethnography that offers a view of this relationship from language and think in its logic. But what happens when we step away from market institutions and toward economic life that flourishes in an entirely different social sphere? To address this question, I turn the optic to the case of international cash arena for economic rationality. Investment bankers were shown to largely talk in its

the market itself, or at least from the perspective of very influential market actors. In

addition to the cultural influences, investment banking is very much an institutionalised

I began this paper by drawing on theories about the relation of the market to

transfers that are sent by migrant workers to recipients who have remained in their of the market economy. Assuming that remittances are less of a formally and for some potentially the most important 10 example of economic activity that

origin country. The migrant-remittance phenomenon is perhaps the most significant 9 institutionalised economic function, I suspect that the transferring agents are much then contrast this with an anthropological perspective through the conceptual

operates to principles other than those that we might consider to come under the rubric more distant from the discipline of economics than financiers. Thus, I first examine how economists try to build expert knowledge about the remittance phenomenon, since it

framework of this paper.

entails dealing with peoples actions that operate outside the disciplines comfort zone. I

point out that since the 1980s, there has been increasing acknowledgement in

microeconomics of the familial and strategic motives behind remittances, while in

9

Against other international flows, even just the recorded transfers were estimated to be only second to Foreign Direct Investment and were much more resilient during the global downturn (Ratha, Mohapatra & Silwal 2010, p. 3). 10 Given the development potential of $316 billion+. 11 The work was prepared for an independent non-profit organisation that researches labour and was later published in a handbook for economics. See Rapoport and Docquier (2006).

macroeconomics there has been a shift of focus from the short-run effects of transfers to

discussion of migrant-remittance economics. 11 To introduce remittances, the authors

I begin with a summary and critique of Rapoport and Docquiers (2005)

What the Economists Say

their long-run role in development and reducing inequality (p. 4). The authors recognise

34

that poor data quality circumscribes the macro analyses of remittances and that the

difficulty in discriminating between competing microeconomic theories makes their Moreover, they emphasise that the method of conducting household surveys from

study more challenging; however, they argue for further investigation since remittances various countries has revealed that a significant percentage of households rely on improve the material well-being of family members in the recipient countries. Remittances and Microeconomics large portion of GDP in many of the developing countries to which they are sent (p. 5).

often significantly increase GNP, are a major source of foreign exchange, and constitute a

remittances as an important source of income (p. 6). In this view, money is used to

loans component, an insurance component, an inheritance component, and exchange of individual rationality, which underlies every motive that they inspect. Moreover, determine and shape the impetus to remit. a variety of services (p. 10). Rapoport and Docquier (2005) seem to recognise that the money transfers are a composite of categories, as with Guyers (2009) oil prices. However, while the authors acknowledge more than self-interest, they still assume

a complex mixture of motives that combine an altruistic component, a repayment-of

predicated on the characteristics of remitters (pp. 8 & 9). Remittances are claimed to be

remittances from a microeconomic perspective. They reference a comparative and

statistical study from the 1980s that showed migration and remittance decisions to be

interrelated but determined by different factors; thus, suggesting that transfers are not

Rapoport and Docquier (2005) begin their analysis by attempting to understand

economics is located in individuals minds or more specifically the psyche of men and values are packaged into single numbers and played off against one another when the materialise if the motivations were combined with different variables (pp. 11-36). authors proceed to present their theory. This is essentially a series of complex formulas abstracted for each of the motivations to remit. From this and for each women but with no consideration of the social, political, or cultural forces that might In spite of the recognition of these composite structures, whole collections of

motivation, they present a corresponding set of predicted outcomes that would allegedly

35

Several claims and hypotheses that are testable and relatively straight-forward are contrasted, such as:

pure altruism can be singled out as a motivation[A]ssuming that altruism decreases with time and familial distance, the size of remittances should be negatively related to these two variables in the altruistic case. [U]nder the investment motive, remittances geographic distance (pp. 37-38). and/or moving costs[and should] increase with the migrants education and with shouldbe related to the amounts invested by the family in the migrants education

Here, the form of the argument is transmitting a considerable part of its meaning and case the hypotheses are proven wrong in the future. In the section that follows, Rapoport and Docquier (2005) offer a prcis of the

However, cracks in the woodwork begin to appear when the authors conclude the

persuasive power (Gudeman 2009b). The solid form of the argument its simple causeeffect statements replaces the woolly content, while the disclaimer acts as a caveat in develop their theories. Interestingly, the authors note that the empirical evidence where community characteristics were not overlooked. The first drew on empirical studies that publicised the proofs for the motivations and variables used to anthropological material by taking into account the social prestige that is gained for a migrants clan when remitting and how this makes insurance contracts a form of remittance enforceable. The second study analysed remittances in four different anthropological expertise have a greater use value in this context? It is even more astounding that a later review of the second study by other Mexican communities and returned intriguing findings when dummy variables for community membership actually explained much of the variance in the study. Might

theory section by noting that working with a limited data set makes it impossible to

reach any decisive conclusion regarding the underlying motives for remittances (p. 39).

neglects social determinants of the propensity to remit and underscore two exceptions

burn the vast majority of anthropology books published since Malinowski (1922)

determine that which operates at the level of community, in which case, we may as well

economists argued that the study was unable to determine the factors that operated at & Docquier 2005, pp. 40-48). This implies that single-site research is unable to

community levels because they only have information from four communities (Rapoport

36

underlying motives that Rapoport and Docquier (2005) search for, even if it were to be only applicable to those communities. Further, if competent anthropologists had

conducted a comparative extended-case study of the four Mexican communities, I doubt that they would have returned with little explanation. The economic researchers allude tape measures and spirit levels when what we really need are good old-fashioned familiar institutional environment, it seems that economists struggle to formulate economic ideas from economic functionings. They have a toolbox full of sophisticated

in one community would shine a much brighter light upon the cultural determinants and

established our method. I predict that a traditional long stint of participant-observation

to the necessity of this kind of study but seem incapable of suggesting it. Outside of their

hammers and chisels to chip away at the surface and reveal the hidden treasures of cultural forces. Remittances and Macroeconomics

amounts to, we can turn to their macroeconomic analysis. On the short-run side, they endogenous determination of wages and prices[but that] there is no study on the

point out that modern econometric research is based on a systematic exploration of the short-run effects of remittances that apply these techniques. They attribute this to the lack of necessary data, the immeasurability of data, and the potential bias in developing countries (p. 50). After outlining some general theories about trade, relative prices, and

Now that we know what Rapoport and Docquiers (2005) native point-of-view

equilibrium, 12 showing that[receivers and non-receivers of remittances] may be better off with higher migration rates if lump-sum transfers between residents are available them with each other in bulk transfers, there is less inequality. (p. 54, footnote added). In short, if there are lots of remittances and the recipients share
I interpret this as showing that there is less inequality with higher migration.

effects of remittances on welfare together with the factors that determine migration,

welfare in relation to international transfers, they criticise the research for only

which found that the high-migration equilibrium Pareto dominates the low migration

analysing remittances for a certain level of migration and treating this variable as

exogenous (pp. 50-53). The short-run analysis concludes by referencing a study of the

12

37

(2009) depiction of the methodological shifts in economics where he argues that the

discipline has moved away from the hypothetico-deductivism of the general equilibrium the 70s to a more inductive methodology. For Milberg (2009), an economist by trade, this has established a new type of beachhead for economic research across the social sciences, which was no longer rooted in rational choice, but rather in statistics and econometrics (p. 55). It seems that, although economics is aware of its past anthropology to prove its worth in collaboration with economists, as they seek to are not, in my opinion, so obvious.

era the problems of applying this to the real world have purportedly been known since

The problems that the researchers encountered appear to be related to Milbergs

shortcomings in perpetuating universal models, it does not currently have the capability to apply the necessary a posteriori techniques. This presents a distinct opportunity for develop more contextualised models for the short-run effects of remittances. Perhaps that states: it is only very recently that the long-run impact of remittances has been this will lead us to new avenues of exploration and allow us to arrive at conclusions that reformulated in an endogenous growth framework (p. 55). This appears to be a case of economists cascading their market models to convert the exogenous socially shared (2005) outline two models that demonstrate that remittances promote investment in physical and human capital and then extend their investment model from the 2009b, pp. 64 & 65). With the social now rendered workable, Rapoport and Docquier Rapoport and Docquiers (2005) long-run examination begins with a disclaimer

benefits of remittances to endogenous and calculable market transactions (Gudeman

microeconomic section to analyse the effects of inequality. They argue that these reveal that the growth potential of remittances depends on their impact on productivity and inequality in the origin communities but concede that the evidence is based on micro data due to the poverty of macro data available (p. 66). The authors conclude that remittances tend to have an overall positive effect on origin countries long-run

economic performance and suggest two modest policy issues (p. 75). Firstly, the 76).

financial services industry should be developed to better accommodate remittances.

Secondly, investment of remittances should be encouraged rather than consumption (p.

38

policymakers who may wish to manage the macroeconomic effects of remittances or harness their potential for development. The papers findings are said to confirm the main benefit referenced in microeconomic literature: that remittances improve shocks (p. 1). The authors initially appear to have similar concerns to Rapoport and to establish a useful basis for classifying and distinguishing among theories of

are more directly linked to the interests and rulings of the ruling powers. Writing for the IMF, Chami et al (2008) maintain that their ultimate aim is to outline implications for

It is intriguing to compare this academic research with that of economists who

households welfare by lifting families out of poverty and insuring them against income

Docquier (2005) as they warn that literature on the causes and uses of remittances falls remittance determination (p. 21). When doing so, they later criticise the categories of motivation that Rapoport and Docquier (2005) use and propose to reconsider the literature on remittance determination and recharacterize it in a way that renders it that allegedly proves the case of the former parameter (p. 25). The recommended

far short due to a lack of data and theoretical and empirical consensus. Hence, they seek

more useful for thinking about remittances economic impacts (p.25). The real question research was notably undertaken by two of the authors of this very IMF paper. The authors then reference work that shows the best evidence for this question and the results of a regression analysis that shows that workers remittances decrease in significant determinant of remittance flows until after 2001, although this should apparently be considered with caution, and that income differentials are a highly significant determinant of remittances. All this apparently points to a strong

for Chami et al (2008) is whether or not remittances are compensatory or opportunistic. To advance the notion of compensatory remittances, Chami et al (2008) present

response to [recipients] currency depreciations, interest rate differentials are not a indication that remittances behave like compensatory transfers such as insurance,

rather than like opportunistic transfers such as capital flows (p. 27). Essentially, the it in order to establish a degree of supposed correlation between variables. This is

researchers are further abstracting from the evidence representing and manipulating seemingly how their arguments are constructed. Moreover, as James Carrier (2009b)

argues, the simplicity of the form of economic arguments is potent rhetoric in itself (p.
39

15). In this case, the diversity of life is cropped into convincing and calculable categories that leave the un-captured elements for other social scientists to discover. cross-country longitudinal research must be conducted that:
and remittances are actually made (p. 30). follows a cohort of migrants and their families over time as they face migration,

Nonetheless, the study concedes that the current literature is insufficient and that
remittance, and repatriation issuesand must involve conducting interviews of migrants and family members to determine, as closely as possible, how decisions about migration

the anthropology word. Could anthropologists not be situated in various communities The case for participant-observation is confirmed yet they dare not blasphemously utter through extended-cases in an attempt to understand the value universes within which there is no room for knowledge of our kind, or at least under our name, in this grand neoliberal stalwart. 13 Geertzs (1963) ideal of the two disciplines being joined in a

single framework still seems some way off (p. 6), irrespective of the depth and realism [that anthropology can add] to the more abstract and formal analyses characteristic of aggregative economics(p. 143). of remittances while preserving poverty reduction, they suggest making the recipient offer policy advice. With the intention of improving the long-run development potential countries more investable, such as through improvements in infrastructure, effectively Even with their self-confessed partial knowledge, Chami et al (2008) are able to

remittances operate from the perspective of the migrants? Unfortunately, it appears that

poverty and inequality that has historically followed the advancement of markets and the uneven accumulations of wealth they bring (Harvey 2005). However, I am not 384). Given the weak foundations upon which Chami et als (2008) policy
13

simply reiterating Marxs (1867) concern that [o]ne capitalist always kills many (p.

governments around the globe have so far seemed largely incapable of curtailing the

(2008) fear that remittances might reduce the political will to make these improvements and suggest that governments may need to be reformed through outside influences (p. 81). This is an incredibly precarious suggestion for poverty reduction. State

arriving at the same conclusion as Rapoport and Docquier (2005). However, Chami et al

The International Monetary Fund (2010) offers only careers in Economics, the department where its knowledge is produced, and Other Fields, which are mainly its operational roles.

40

recommendation is based, I interpret it as a neoliberal ideological gesture to extend the al (2008). Remittances in the Pacific a case which I discuss in more detail below are

reach of the market. As Carriers (2009b) case illustrates, the big winners are most likely Nevertheless, the gesture is made in a notably de-politicised manner by Chami et

21 & 22). Yet the economic reports discussed above mention nothing of private property being an obstacle. By recommending that entrepreneurial activity be encouraged through intervention, though, they do imply that a system of private property rights be established. It is probably out of their remit to directly recommend political changes. values of the domestic moral economy be realigned to those of the market economy, tries to storm through the streets. Instead, they target values. The economic researchers are suggesting that the existing

overwhelmingly used for consumption due to the absence of established property rights, which makes it practically impossible to invest in production (Hughes & Sodhi 2006, pp.

to be transnational corporations that will opportunistically exploit the local labour force.

whereby the supreme value would become the individual entrepreneur, rather than the kin group. The imperial march of economic expertise descends from the ivory towers and

probe the various ways in which economic knowledge is constructed by economists. social domain. With an anthropological view of remittances, a very different picture emerges to that which economists depict. Thus, continuing through the conceptual that economics cannot seem to capture with its blurry view of remittances and the implications that this might have. A whole gift economy practically fades into analytical depth, I restrict my scope to the case of remittances in the Pacific. These that operate within a market economy, as economists might prefer.

Anthropologists can carefully traverse the uneven ground that economists lay, yet they framework of this paper, the purpose of this section is to reveal the type of knowledge

are not restricted by the same frontiers, allowing them to venture much further into the

The previous section has demonstrated how an anthropological perspective can

Remittances and the Eye of Providence Model

insignificance in the world as represented by economics. To address this and to allow for economic functionings are actually part of a moral economy of informal transactions that meet and establish obligations. They should not be considered as formal exchanges

41

formally embedded in institutions cannot help us here. Whereas in the case of

investment banking, interpreting the institutional culture was central to understanding how that aspect of the market operated, the acts of remittance cannot really been seen a lot less consensus in economics over what these transfers actually are. Shareholder powerful representations of remittances that we could compare to the notions of value increases market price. What do remittances do? Indeed, there appears to be no

Thus, due to the informal nature of remittances, the notion of the market as

as strongly related to any market, or market institution. Moreover, it seems that there is neoclassic economic models or shareholder value. Nevertheless, assuming that they do

not operate on a purely arbitrary individual basis, remittances must logically be guided greatly submerged in a galaxy of socially institutionalised constellations of kinship and chieftainship. As Mauss (1990) would remind us, where exchange-through-gift is the only one feature of a much more general and enduring contract (p. 5). Transnational Dynamics of Remittances rule, the economic transaction is only one element in which the passing of wealth is

by either some ruling power or institutionalised practice. As I will show, they are, in fact,

distinct sources of significant influence. Remittances occur transnationally as part of the ongoing flow of people, money, goods, ideas and so on, between those at home and rapid expansion of Fijian migration that followed three political coups over the last overseas, and across the diaspora (Lee 2009, p. 13) . This indicates that we must think twenty-five years (Lee 2009, p. 8). An example of the latter form of influence are the about the interests and rulings of the powers of the origin countries, as the first source, and of the destination countries, as the second source. The former is exemplified by the

The political economy of remittances is inherently complex. I can identify three

sources of political force that brought migrant-remittances into being through the

Pacific migrants that are shown to have greatly shaped the patterns of migration and remittance (Lee 2009, pp. 9-12). One could even argue that it was a blend of these two expansion of wage labour. The state influences of the origin and destination countries can be considered external forces that act upon migrants and remitters; however, we must also investigate the political elements of the phenomenon intrinsically. Thus, the

state policies of New Zealand, Australia, and the U.S. as the three main destinations for

42

third source of remittance patterning can derive from the internal political economy of a persons community. communities that transfer money to their homeland. Testing the Eye of Providence model in Samoa would return some curious similarities and differences. I consider I now briefly discuss the case of Samoa from the perspective of the migrant

chieftainship to be a traditional form of ruling power, 14 kinship as an institution, and wage labour as an economic idea and functioning, an aspect of the broader external and, thus, mobilise and shape economic practices. Economic expertise of the

investment banking variety does not feature here; however, Samoan remittances are embedded in kinship relations just as investment banking is submerged in the marketplace and Wall Street culture. Although land tenure and the lineage mode of rather than individual profit maximisation, that became the reason and vehicle for 2009; Lilomaiava-Doktor 2009, p. 61). In this context, money is not just a medium social relations are maintained and expressed (Strathern 1975). land access, social and political statuses, and conferring chiefly titles, as well as

system of capitalism. In Samoa, kinship and chieftainship structure social organisation

production were not significantly transformed by the monetary system in Samoa, wagework was still the most powerful dynamic for social change. However, it was kinship, expanding the sphere of political economic obligations (Macpherson & Macpherson transnationalism. 15 The institution of kinship has itself survived because it is crucial to

kinship as the basis, migrants have elaborated traditional ceremonies, increasing the size and cost of them to compete for social prestige. They have also created new ceremonies, such as those held for graduation, which were also used as sites for
14

altered the way in which remittances function. The commitment to kinship is changing in the migrant enclaves, as relations are transforming to meet changing needs. With

through which individuals gain wealth for themselves but an operator through which There have been substantial changes to these configurations recently that have

demonstrations of wealth by chiefs and extended kin. By the 1980s, migrants started to
One could argue that the ruling power has itself become instituted; however, as I mentioned when outlining the model, the lines between the elements are blurry. I still believe that it is necessary to differentiate ruling powers from other institutions, which is something that I hope the political focus of this paper has emphasised. 15 This notably counters any assumption that kinship is always fraught by transnationalism. Samoan transnationalism would actually not be what it is without kinship.

43

feel the social and financial pressure of these demands, while financial expectations

from kin continued to grow (Macpherson & Macpherson 2009). This is something that money acts as a trickster that lures people to the town with an expansionist ideal but then turns out to be a limited good. Money in urban areas is spent on subsisting and maintaining an urban lifestyle, where as in rural areas it is an extra. This can lead to

Strathern (1975) also identified in her study of Hagen migrants in Port Moresby, where migrants kin making demands on them that they struggle to meet, which causes some

the aiga system and began to feel more obligated to kin within the enclaves, while nonthat there will be fewer transactions and remittances between Samoa and the migrant destinations (Macpherson & Macpherson 2009). redefined the matai chiefly system and the tautua service system. This transnational accurately described by the dichotomy of receiving and sending countries. Many community has cultivated indigenous notions of home and reach that are not On the Samoan island community of Savaii, transnationalism has actually

migrants to feel trapped in town because they have not made enough money to return home with and others to feel resentment towards those from home that make such

demands (pp. 345-362). In the case of Samoa, people assessed the costs and benefits of

migrants looked after obligations in their homeland. If this process continues, it is likely

interest in matai recently as overseas transmigrants obtain power and desire chiefly power to accumulate wealth, enhance their close family kin group, and enrich their commodified, as was evident in an investiture ceremony where chiefly titles were for honours exemplifies how an indigenous institution is being transformed by

titles, thus adding weight to the matai status. People are using this chiefly institution of personal status. A significant aspect of remittances, then, are the tautua services that

people are not simply uprooted but operate as transmigrants. There has been increased

they contribute to in order to acquire chiefly standings. The matai system has itself been effectively bought (Lilomaiava-Doktor 2009, pp. 61-64). This Samoan version of cash of ideas. As an integral part of this process, then, remittances are much more than migrants access to new forms of wealth. Most gifts in the matai ceremony are now cash, which increases demand for remittances back home through the transnational interplay simply cash transfers motivated by a variety of individual drives. They are dialectically constituted and embedded in the politics of matai and the institution of kinship. This

44

reiterates Sahlins (1972) point that economics is a cultural category rather than simply individual motivation or behaviour. The study of remittances makes explicit the notion that every exchange, as it embodies some co-efficient of sociability, cannot be understood in its material terms apart from its social terms (p. 183). transfers are still part of the broader gift economy, a system of processes that are marked by a continuous flow in all directions of presents given, accepted, and However, even if we were to limit our scope to the material world, remittance

instance, while some remittances may be altruistic and others self-interested, almost all are bi-directional. These contra-flows have significant value, yet since economics does way from replacing cloth, which it ranks below in Tongan society. Koloa cloth can be overlooked. While cash is being used increasingly in ritual exchanges, it is still a long occur (Lee 2009, p. 23). Another consequence of this is that traditional wealth is not try to understand the principles of a gift economy, the contra-flows may as well not used as either a gift or a commodity and comprises a substantial amount of the contraflows. While money can make things more manageable, cloth regenerates people culturally. Moreover, money still needs to be accompanied by cloth to be gifted economic analyses described above that only see the value of cloth as its market operates for individuals. Cloth is cloth; shells are shells; cash is King. Articulations of Value Realms 2009, pp. 43-55). It is hard to imagine where the practice of koloa would fit into the inequality, as traditional forms of wealth are rendered valueless, while money only

reciprocated, obligatorily and out of self-interest (Mauss 1990, p. 29). In Tonga, for

aesthetically. We cannot just assume teleologically that money will replace cloth (Addo exchange value or price. From their perspective, state currency income is the index for

all remittances in the Pacific function this way but emphasise general trends that begin to show the social, cultural, economic, and political complexity of remittances that escape economists analyses. The incredible diversity of Pacific communities indicates cannot just be assumed that modernity is homogenous or homogenising, given the

The examples that I have listed thus far are relatively broad. I do not suggest that

that there will be a multitude of different ways that peoples engage with wage labour. It divergent meanings that money assumes in different contexts (Bloch & Parry 1989), as
45

interpret the local definitions and understand remittances from the perspective of

economic actors in the origin communities and in the migrant enclaves. One tactic would now invoke a monograph from an inter-island Pacific community. migration and remittance mean to the current inhabitants. To hypothesise about what such research might yield and to emphasise the strength of ethnographic accounts, I Writing from the view of symbolic anthropology, Nancy Munn (1986) offers an be to apply and expand a theory of value at the level of community to comprehend what

well as the resilience that Melanesian communities have shown to state money (Akin & Robbins 1999). Clearly, there is a need for theoretically-informed ethnography to

account of how value is created and destroyed in Gawa. Although her fieldwork began in of traditional values and capitalist values, as has been shown to be the case on the the 1970s, it is highly unlikely that the Gawan value system has since been completely of remittance mean to Gawans in this milieu? As Munn (1986) shows, the economic within a hierarchical realm of value, where consumption is subordinated to eradicated by money and markets. I suspect that the current situation is an articulation Pacific Island community of Ponam (Carrier & Carrier 1989). What, then, might the act (p. 117) of individuals and the community. Exchanges of food, for instance, operate

externalising the islands internal resources, a migrant externalises his self by leaving the person even after being abandoned. Through it the giver has a hold over the beneficiary (pp. 11 & 12).

Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that, for Gawans, migration and remittance expand the web of relations and obligations, as well as the fame of Gawa, outside of the kula trade ring and into a transnational monetary space. Just as food-giving entails

islands resources and transacting them across the inter-island community (p. 6).

transmission, as the former creates negative value and the latter positive value. In this and fame. Fame is thus produced by externalising the internal elements of Gawa the

activities of Gawans are geared towards increasing the fame as a virtuality of influence

context, the value of an act is determined by its potency, its capacity to expand relations

the island and offering part of this self back in the form of remittance. As Mauss (1990) would argue, the thing received is not inactive because it still possesses something of How might Gawans that stay at home experience long-term migration that then

leads to estrangement? Such cases can be considered to generate negative value for the

46

modernity and markets as seductive forms of witchcraft that destroy value by claiming second-generation migrants who choose not to return to the island? One may be they will not lose touch with the hard surfaces of life (Geertz 1973a, p. 30). Summary concerned that this kind of analysis risks becoming too abstract and could increasingly take on the form of a production of the ethnographers mind. However, by suggesting that researchers incorporate value theory with the Eye of Providence model, I hope that Geertz (1963) once wrote that a nation is not simply the small town writ large,

suggests, the younger generations of migrants are expected to receive the messages of self-interest and economic individualism (pp. 28 & 29), then would Gawans perceive

community, much like when there is suspicion of witchcraft, whereby the positive

potentialities of inter-island relations have been subverted into negatives; witchery is experienced as encroaching from the wider island world (p. 220). If, as Lee (2009)

since it has its own social system, dynamics, characteristics, problems, and purposes. Therefore, to generalise from the village-level to the country-level is to commit the fallacy of composition in an egregious manner; it is to confuse the elements of a synthesis with the synthesis itself (p. 142). When constructing micro and macro

expertise for remittances, economists appear to take this flagrant myth to the next level. They use empirical data from communities in different nations to develop a patchwork quilt of theoretical propositions and models, which are then used to justify policy that I have highlighted, even the practice of calculating economic functionings through under considerable scrutiny (Lee 2009, p. 15). If a complex network of people, groups powers that may explain the prevalence of such measures, which are nonetheless produces to fit both state agendas and its own institutional environment. prescriptions for nations and villages. Given the transnational flows of wealth and ideas

measures that rely on the notion of a nation-state such as GNP or GDP can be brought and institutions stretch beyond national borders, what is the use of national statistics? Under my model, anthropology can help to illuminate the hidden interests of the ruling shadowed by the rhetoric and dominance of economics and the representations that it But more importantly, the main point that I have tried to communicate here is

that in order to theorise about remittances or about how their patterns might change in

47

the future, we must locate individuals thoughts and actions within the context of the associated socio-political knowledges and practices that frame them, as well as the 2009b), and included the role of institutions in its analyses, it has predominantly focused on those institutions that enforce property rights. It has missed the social

transnational gift economy at large. Although the New Institutional Economics has taken a step away from models of rational choice, however small this step might be (Gudeman a marked opportunity for anthropology to contribute to economic expertise and, in groupings that give meaning to peoples lives (Milberg 2009, pp. 59 & 60). This presents doing so, begin to tie it more firmly to the actions and thoughts of the peoples that it work constructively with economics to provide a better representation of the social to community, whilst also interpreting the inherent values that shape economic that is more socially-minded is perhaps a more appropriate service to summon. claims to represent. Perhaps guided by the framework of the Eye of Providence model, a comparative anthropology that aims to build general theory through ethnography can institutions and internal political dynamics that structure remittances from community

behaviour in each locale. In societies where money occupies a more social role, expertise

48

accordingly, have developed a methodological and theoretical framework to assist this venture. It has been demonstrated that an investigation into economic ideas and to feed off one another as they mediate between, and rotate around, the four functionings should begin by examining the dialectically embedded and constitutive relationships shared with economies, ruling powers, institutions, and individuals. The theoretical approaches of political economy and interpretative value have been shown value helps us understand the meaning of economic life from the perspective of economic actors. Thus, a broader anthropological theory of value must seek to incorporate these factors if it is itself to produce contextual and meaningful representations of the economy.

I have argued for a greater anthropological understanding of the economy and,

Conclusion

methodological areas. Political economy unearths the dynamics of power that structure economic actors through social institutions and for ruling powers. A symbolic theory of

I revealed indications that economics has been used ideologically and politically to serve the interests of ruling powers. I do not claim that all economics is purposefully adverse. Indeed, the discipline appears to be attempting to change its methods and epistemologies, which at the very least shows a postmodern sensibility. However, the

To highlight the implications of favouring economic knowledge over other forms,

history of intellectual disputes appears to be characterised by struggles over

representation as economic ideas and reality as economic functionings. Social problems recoveries can been seen as socially good. Paradoxically, economics appears to be the discipline most at fault of either losing touch or being unable to grasp much of the

seem to appear when particular representations become more important to society than economic world and it is anthropologists who constantly try, with little effect, to reel what is actually going on out there in the real world, such as that downsizing and jobless

them in and guide them. Yet this is more than a crusade against abstraction; it is a battle against a particular kind of institutionalisation of knowledge and practice. economic ideas but it is far from doing this in the case of remittances. The more prescribed functionings of the market that I have discussed, such as investment banking and transactions for shareholder value, are institutionalised with all the necessary
49

Economics tries to institutionalise economic functionings through perpetuating

associated levels of economic legitimacy. The more informal phenomenon of migrantremittance transfers is yet to reach the status of formal institutionalisation in economics, although it is still enacted through its own existing institutions, such as however, a model that engages with economic expertise universal, general, or to institutionalise remittances brings us back to the polarised epistemologies of the

kinship and ceremonial exchange. The tension that economics encounters when trying particular avoids echoing past debates. Besides, even if we assume that rational selfthrough Wall Streets institutional culture or the plethora of Pacific kinship patterns. are socially unfair, such as those perpetuated by high finance. Therefore, should we Perhaps the pertinent question is not whether homo economicus is the natural human condition. Indeed, we could think rationally in a hierarchical universe of values that or on improving the hierarchy?

universal and the particular. This difference may seemingly continue to divide scholars; interest is universal, it still must be channelled through a diversity of contexts, whether

focus our efforts on proving or disproving the universality of the underlying motivations economics does, nor should it endeavour to. But through unpacking economic expertise, it can offer a better understanding of how nations represent their wealth, who these representations serve, and what is actually being represented in this process. This Anthropology may never represent the Wealth of Nations as comprehensively as

and calculability over social reality. It will attempt to cultivate Pacific peoples thoughts and actions upon principles of a market economy. That is, of course, unless economics

to aspire to a mechanical simultaneity in this unfamiliar territory and privilege control

familiar environment. In the Pacific, the economic eye is trying drastically to grasp a

retinal image of the remittance phenomenon but the vision is foggy, clouded by tradition and non-market principles. Misquoting Durkheim, I predict that economics will continue

strongly evidences the power of the discipline of economics in a well-instituted and

economy of the Eye of Providence has reached such celestial heights on Wall Street that investment bankers even interpret their actions in classically economic fashion, while their actual undertakings are shown to be predominantly culturally patterned. This

knowledge can then be cross-referenced with the perspectives of the economic

individuals whose actions are being narrated. This should draw economic expertise

more closely to social reality. My comparative analysis has allowed me to see that the

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collaborates more closely with other social scientists and begins to change its theoretical and methodological orientations. more than highlight areas for collaboration, as I have above. Over generations, it seems contemporary economics represents the world in order to manipulate it. Just as the of the particulars. Perhaps we should concentrate our efforts more on illustrating how the particular is made to act as though it is universal or general; namely, how that some have argued for the particularity of universals and others for the universality However, to make the case for our expertise, anthropologists clearly need to do

human eye provides the brain with a representation of reality, in the Eye of Providence, the discipline of economics with sacred symbols formulates its own image which reality and the reality itself, then a further implication of worshipping economists then becomes embedded in society. If we believe with Geertz (1973b) that the essence of our economic lives. We must find ways to counter what Keith Hart (2009) calls a of our humanity is being able to recognise the structural similarity between models of

dehumanized expert ideology remote from peoples practical concerns and from their ability to understand and aspire to more socially-minded representations of the economy. Only then will our economic lives be human once again.

expertise construing it to be an apt view of reality is that we deny the human aspect

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Addo, Ping-Ann (2009). Chapter 2: Forms of Transnationalism, Forms of Tradition: Cloth and Cash as Ritual Exchange Valuables in the Tongan Diaspora, in Lee, Helen and Steven Francis (eds.), Migration and Transnationalism: Pacific Perspectives, Canberra: Australian National University Press. Akin, David and Joel Robbins (eds.) (1999). Money and Modernity: State and Local Currencies in Melanesia, Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. Beckert, Jens (2009). Chapter 3: The great transformation of embeddedness: Karl Polanyi and the new economic sociology, in Hann, Chris and Keith Hart (eds.), The Market and Society: The Great Transformation Today, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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