Spectacular speculation : thrills, the economy, and popular discourse / Urs Stäheli ; translated by Eric Savoth.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Stäheli, Urs, 1966- author.

Standardized Title:

Spektakuläre Spekulation. English

Language:

English

German

Subjects (All):

Speculation--United States--History.

Speculation.

Speculation--History.

History.

Finance--Social aspects--United States--History.

Finance.

Finance--Social aspects--History.

Social aspects.

United States.

Physical Description:

vi, 299 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Stanford, California : Stanford University Press, 2013.

Summary:

Spectacular Speculation is a history and sociological analysis of the semantics of speculation between 1870 and 1930, a period when speculation began to assume enormous importance in popular culture. Informed by the work of Luhmann, Foucault, Simmel, and Deleuze, it looks at how speculation was translated into popular knowledge and charts the discursive struggles of making it a legitimate economic practice. Noting that the vocabulary available to discuss the concept was not properly economic, the book draws attention to the underside of putting it into words. Speculation's very success depended on non-economic language and morally questionable thrills: a proximity to the wasteful practice of gambling or other "degenerate" behaviors and the experience of financial markets as feminine seducers, or as uncontrollable crowds. American discourses of speculation take center stage here, and Stäheli covers an unusual range of material: stock exchange guidebooks, ticker tape, moral treatises, plays, advertisements, and newspapers. In tracing the struggles over the boundaries between the economy and other spheres of existence, he shows how the stock speculator became an ambivalent embodiment of homo oeconomicus. The practice of speculation remains at the center of public debate, and this window onto the past makes a significant contribution to the sociology of the present. Book jacket.

Contents:

Gambling and speculation : entertaining contingency?

The normalization of "wild contingency" : stabilizing the distinction between gambling and speculation

Charles Mackay : the spectacle of equality

Speculative vistas : crowds and speculation in the USA during the nineteenth century

Alone against the crowd : the communicative techniques of the contrarians

The eroticism of the market and the gender of speculation

The rhythm of the market.

Notes:

Translation of: Spektakuläre Spekulation : das Populäre der Ökonomie.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780804771313

0804771316

9780804771320

0804771324

OCLC:

794838405