Liquidated: An Ethnography of Wall Street by Karen Ho
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Against Excellence

If you want to understand the source and the consequences of the rhetoric of modern finance, this is your book.

Ho is an anthropologist who lived and worked among the natives of Financeland and survived to tell about it. Her analysis is brilliant, her anecdotes are priceless, her insights are thrilling.

The way in which companies like Goldman Sachs and McKinsey create personalities, even for those who never work in finance much less who work for them, is remarkable. These are the real sources and defenders of modern American, and global, elitist culture.

The tool of this culture is language. Learning the language is inseparable from adopting the culture of self-proclaimed excellence. It is this central idea of inherent superiority that justifies both ambition - one owes it to one's talents and to the society which needs these talents - as well as the superior rewards that result.

The public ideology of this culture is economic, specifically financial, efficiency. And indeed this ideology is applied ruthlessly by the culture to itself. If you don't produce or if circumstances dictate, you are permanently expendable. Loyalty is at best a conditional virtue. Nevertheless the elite will always be in demand. Excellence is malleable and can readily find new ambitions with their own rewards.

The costs in terms of relationships like family and even the most liberal interpretation of personal integrity are enormous but simply inexpressible in the culture. A must read for any young person tempted by the popularised magic of Wall Street.

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