Doug Henwood on Mon, 27 Sep 1999 02:52:44 +0200 (CEST)


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Re: <nettime> Re: some observations on the bias of financial networks


Felix Stalder wrote:

>Because the financial markets have had, long before the computer networks,
>a network structure, the patterns they established in now are indicative
>for the environment in general. Understanding the financial markets, then,
>can help to understand basic organizational patterns of our society in
>general. As much as the factory can be said to have provided a basic
>organizational blue print for 19th century western societies at large.

I haven't read the book chapter, but what you say here is pretty 
intriguing. I'd want to emphasize though that it's important not to 
underestimate the depth & complexity of 19th century financial 
arrangements, or the ancientness of most complex financial 
instruments. By many measures, capital was more mobile in the 19th 
century than it is now. Also, for all the proliferation of trading, 
prices of major instruments, like stocks and interest rates, don't 
behave all that differently from the way they did 20, 40, or 150 
years ago. And last, while labor markets today may seem more like 
financial markets than they used to - in the sense of more casual, 
more transactional - that exaggerates the casualization of the 
workforce in most first world countries and also exaggerates the 
stability of the past.

Doug

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