How does Wall Street dominate the United

States?“The more the world bought into Wall Street,

the more leverage it has to hold the globe hostage”---p. 323

Forms of Power: Which are used by Wall Street?

• Violence and the threat of violence• Structural violence• The power to name or represent• Worldview (cultural hegemony)• The body (habitus)• The production of persons

Cultural Hegemony: Dominance by Consent• The cultural worldview of the dominant group is accepted by other non-

dominant groups, even though that worldview does not always fit their daily experience.• That worldview legitimates the power and position of the dominant

group, thus keeping them in a position of dominance• Thus, the dominance is by consent: p. 296• Easier or harder than dominance through violence?• Worldview is out of sync with reality but resistant to reality, p. 157, p.

159 (conversation with Joseph Tsai)• Questions by Lucy Lescota and Nadean Hall

History of CorporationsThree characteristics of corporations:• Legal identity separate from the legal identity of the persons who own them; they are

legally persons (Citizens United 2010)• Ownership is in stock that may be held by multiple people which may be sold in the market

(stock market)• Liabilities of corporations are not liabilities of owners, who can only lose the capital they

invested

• Initial conception: based on monasteries which had property and rights to govern their members

• Not a small business owned by an entrepreneur: p. 172, 173

• A corporation is a cultural institutions: shared and learned ways of thinking about these institutions

History of Stocks and Corporations

• Dutch East India Company (1602-1800): first company to issue stock to fund Dutch control of the spice trade; given a 21-year monopoly on the trade by Dutch government• Stock is a share in a corporation which can be purchased by

an individual or group of individuals (to raise capital for the business). The share invested guarantees a share of the profits or losses.• Previously, ship voyages had been invested in on a voyage-by-

voyage basis (including slave ships to West Africa).• Stock market in England and Netherlands defined by bubbles

and busts: tulip bubble; Debt, p. 348

Who buys shares?• Pension funds,

insurance companies, governments (foreign and US), endowments, non-profits

• Individuals, mainly through mutual funds or private retirement account

• Note: in for the long term

Share: An Imagined Value

• The value of the share is meant to correspond to the value of the business and its potential profitability• How do you determine the value of the business? Of its assets

(building, equipment, skills of its employees)?• How do you determine the value or worth of a house?• Question by Kelsey Collier

• What are the problems of this approach?• What other kinds of value might there be for a business?• What do investment bankers to raise the share price?

How Wall Street sees itself as superior to corporate AmericaDownsizes and builds up easily:• No infrastructure• No technology• Major asset is labor, and that can be downsized in 30-45 minutes• No long-term plan or strategy• Wages are low in comparison to bonuses (so major cost linked to

profits); very similar to share-cropping (no risk to owner)

Wall Street as a Political Force

Headlines based on a Google search “Wall Street responds elections”• “Wall Street’s latest panic: Trump could win” • “Markets React Cautiously to Canadian Election Results”• “Wall Street Responds Favorably to Republican Victories” (last midterm

elections)• “Why Wall Street Tycoons are Panicking about the 2016 elections”

• Economy trumps politics? Similar to rain-making for east and southern African kings? But in the case of Wall Street, whose economic wellbeing?

Wall Street also a beneficiary of government largesse (redistribution)

• Investment banks are “too big to fail”: seen as so central to the economy, that their failure will result in economic failures or shocks• Therefore, government “bails” them

out: e.g., 2008 mortgage-fueled crisis, a loan of $1.2 trillion• Therefore, taxpayers subsidize the risks

of Wall Street decisions• Questions about today: Isabelle

Kaminer, George Michael Sandoval, Olivia Crenny

What does hegemony mean under these circumstances? Whose consent is required?

Fooling themselves also

• “The market” as an external, abstract force driving their own downsizing, p. 214• They believe their own spin, p. 292• Does Karen Ho also fall prey to the spin? Lucy Lescota’s critique.