<nettime> the secret financial market, p.s.

[allan siegel <allan@allansiegel.info>]

Hello,

Armin started to zero in on an aspect of this discussion that has been largely invisible or at least off to the sidelines:

"there is a philosophical aspect to that discourse on [h]umans/non-humans 
that has someting to to with Virilio, Latour and Barad which I would 
love to elaborate on more now, but unfortunately I have some other work 
to do today in order to 'earn a living' as the saying goes"

The infrastructure, both human and virtual, of brand 'neo-liberalism' has precious few rules and those that do exist for the 1% are different for those in the majority. It is probably hard to grasp this simple reality but not everybody plays by the same rules and for that matter the venues, the economic and institutional edifices, which are at the heart of our daily lives are woven together via a fragile ethos. 

'Secret financial markets' have been around for quite some time; long before the advent of high speed trading, hedge  funds, credit swaps and other devices designed to maximise and squeeze out whatever profits can be garnered from the various market places that connect the hubs of global finance. Within this realm there really are no rules; certainly not the 'rules' that affect the majority of people's lives and this kind of 'lawlessness' (yes, I know it sounds simplistic and moralistic) filters into other sectors of society. Is the distance between secret financial markets and NSA spying that far?

Virilio, Latour et al have been struggling with these questions for some time now - in a sense battling against the ethical devolution of critical aspects of Western post-industrial societies and to chart out other possibilities; unfortunately, the degree of entrenched power nested in the 1% and their vast networks of enablers and enforcers is a largely invisible glacier and those of us who to try to imagine and piece together an alternative road map sometimes seem stuck in a dream world of impossible possibilities. Yet, the glacier is by no means implacable; its subject to its own rivalries and forms of self-destruction. 

best
allan




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