Cultural representations of finance 

From One Market Under God, by Thomas Frank, loc 2230:

For all the revulsion expressed by books like Liar’s Poker and Barbarians at the Gate, the dominant note was starstruck wonderment at these “masters of the universe,” at their millions and their manses, at their Gulfstream jets and Mercedes cars, at the high quality of the sex and luxuries they enjoyed. Occasional digressions to consider those shafted by the pros served only to heighten this sense, to establish just how satisfying it was to bring misfortune to some dope on the phone. The more monstrous the manipulation the merrier.

This was written almost two decades ago but the trend has only intensified since then. As someone who has spent a lot of time reading these books, I’ve become curious as to what exactly the appeal is. They’re the kind of thing I inevitably buy  when bored in airport and train station bookshops, before devouring in a couple of journeys and feeling vaguely guilty afterwards.

I wonder if these representations of financiers make finance itself more tractable. Narratives about individuals give shape to diffuse systems which influence all aspects of our lives in spite of their distance and abstraction. What has struck me as odd is the cultural prominence of the banker-hedonistic at precisely the time when such figures are in decline. Could there be something comforting about the wolf of Wall Street as we enter an era of algorithmic trading and flash crashes?