The Ritual of Capitalization
The ritual of capitalization starts with the institutional act of exclusion — namely property.
Highlights
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the first person who, having enclosed a plot of land, took it into his head to say ‘this is mine’ and found people simple enough to believe him … (Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 1755)
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Having enclosed a plot of land, the first capitalist took it into his head to put a number on his property and found people simple enough to believe him.
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The ‘true value’ of property is whatever capitalists define it to be. This arbitrariness is why capitalists need a ritual.
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The ‘science of finance’ is first and foremost a collective ethos.
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Make no mistake, the regularities of corporate finance are majestic in scope. But these regularities stem not from any laws of nature. They are regularities from ritual. Gesture the cross. Discount present income.