Secrecy, Simmel and the New Sociology of Wealth

Brooke  Harrington

doi:10.6092/issn.1971-8853/13565

Authors

Brooke Harrington Department of Sociology, Dartmouth College https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5741-6846

Brooke Harrington is Professor of Sociology at Dartmouth College in the United States. Her research examines the social underpinnings of finance, focusing on the professionals who manage the offshore financial system. Her book on global wealth management and offshore banking —-- titled Capital without Borders: Wealth Managers and the One Percent —-- was published in September 2016 by Harvard University Press and became a best-seller, as well as winning an “Outstanding Book Award” from the American Sociological Association’s Inequality, Poverty and Mobility section. Capital without Borders has been translated into Japanese, Danish, Korean and Russian.

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.1971-8853/13565

Keywords:

wealth, secrecy, inequality, mobility

Abstract

What relevance does an early twentieth century thinker like Simmel have for the contemporary sociology of wealth? This paper suggests that Simmel’s classic work on the secret and secret societies is embedded but largely unacknowledged in twenty-first century wealth research. Thus, the purpose of this discussion is to make these contributions more visible and sketch their implications for new directions in the field.

References

Alecci, S. (2018). Former Pakistan PM Sharif Sentenced to 10 Years over Panama Papers. International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, 6 July. https://www.icij.org/investigations/panama-papers/former-pakistan-pm-sharif-sentenced-to-10-years-over-panama-papers/

Arrighi, G. (1994). The Long Twentieth Century. London: Verso.

Beckert, J. (2007). The Longue Durée of Inheritance Law: Discourses and Institutional Development in France, Germany and the United States since 1800. Archives of European Sociology, 48(1), 79–120. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003975607000306

Chesterton, G.K. (1909/2011). The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare. Eastford, CT: Martino.

Clignet, R. (1992). Death, Deeds and Descendants. New York: Aldine de Gruyter.

Conte, J., O’Neil, M. (2007). Studying Power: Qualitative Methods and the Global Elite. Qualitative Research, 7(1), 63–82. https://doi.org/10.1177/1468794107071421

Curran, D. (2021). Risk Mismatches and Inequalities: Oil and Gas and Elite Risk-Classes in the US and Canada. Sociologica, 15(2), 57-74. https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.1971-8853/12395

Dearden, L. (2017). Refugee Crisis: More than 200 Migrants Drown and Freeze to Death as First Fortnight of 2017 Sets New Record. Independent, 17 January. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/refugee-crisis-latest-drowning-freezing-snow-mediterranean-hypothermia-greece-bulgaria-deaths-toll-un-iom-drowning-libya-italy-a7532091.html

Demick, B. (1990). The 400 Richest: Many Folks Try to Stay Off List. Philadelphia Inquirer, 7 October. https://www.forbes.com/forbes-400/

Didion, J. (1968). Slouching Towards Bethlehem. New York: Farrar, Strauss & Giroux.

Durkheim, É. (1912/1965). The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life. New York: Free Press.

The Economist. (2006). Flat-Pack Accounting. 11 May. https://www.economist.com/business/2006/05/11/flat-pack-accounting

Frankel, T., MacMillan, D. (2021). IRS Records Show Wealthiest Americans, Including Bezos and Musk, Paid Little in Income Taxes, Report Says. Washington Post, 8 June. https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/06/08/wealthy-irs-taxes/

Gaither, C. (2006). Salary of 4 Cents Has Status. Baltimore Sun, 3 May. https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-2006-05-03-0605030050-story.html

Goodkind, N. (2017). Queen Elizabeth Stashed Millions in Offshore Tax Havens: Paradise Papers. Newsweek, 6 November. https://www.newsweek.com/queen-elizabeth-paradise-papers-labour-party-royal-family-702649

Greenspan, A. (1999). The Value of Values. Harvard Magazine, July-August. https://www.harvardmagazine.com/sites/default/files/html/1999/07/jhj.alan.html

Harrington, B. (2016). Capital without Borders: Wealth Managers and the One Percent. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Harrington, B. (2017a). Trusts and Financialization. Socio-Economic Review, 15(1), 31–63. https://doi.org/10.1093/ser/mww014

Harrington, B. (2017b). Studying Elite Professionals in Transnational Settings. In L. Seabrooke & L. Folke Henriksen (Eds.), Professional Networks in Transnational Governance (pp. 39–49). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Harrington, B. (2019). Aristocrats Are Anarchists: Why the Wealthy Back Trump and Brexit. The Guardian, 7 February. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/feb/07/why-the-wealthy-back-trump-and-brexit

Harrington, B. (2020). Trump’s Very Ordinary Indifference to the Common Good. The Atlantic, 10 October. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/10/trumps-very-ordinary-indifference-to-the-common-good/616675/

Harrington, B., Strike, V. (2018). Between Kinship and Commerce: Fiduciaries and the Institutional Logics of Family Firms. Family Business Review, 31(4), 417–440. https://doi.org/10.1177/0894486518780868

Hart, K. (1990). The Idea of Economy: Six Modern Dissenters. In R. Friedland & A.F. Robertson (Eds.), Beyond the Marketplace, (pp. 137–161). New York: Aldine de Gruyter.

Keister, L., Yavorsky, J., & Lee, H.Y (2021). Gender and Wealth in the Super Rich: Asset Differences in Top Wealth Households in the United States, 1989–2019. Sociologica, 15(2), 25-55. https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.1971-8853/12394

Krippner, G.R. (2005). The Financialization of the American Economy. Socio-Economic Review, 3(2), 173–208. https://doi.org/10.1093/SER/mwi008

Krippner, G.R. (2011). Capitalizing on Crisis: The Political Origins of the Rise of Finance. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Kolhatkar, S. (2006). Inside the Billionaire Service Industry. The Atlantic, 1 September. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2006/09/inside-the-billionaire-service-industry/305117/

Leigh, D., Frayman, H., & Ball, J. (2012). Offshore Secrets: British Virgin Islands, Land of Sand, Sea and Secrecy. The Guardian, 25 November. https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2012/nov/25/offshore-secrets-british-virgin-islands

Marcus, G. (1995). Ethnography In/Of the World System: The Emergence of Multi-Sited Ethnography. Annual Review of Anthropology, 24, 95–117. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.an.24.100195.000523

Marcus, G., Hall, P. (1992). Lives in Trust: The Fortunes of Dynastic Families in Late Twentieth-Century America. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

Maurer, B. (1995). Complex Subjects: Offshore Finance, Complexity Theory, and the Dispersion of the Modern. Socialist Review, 25(3–4), 113–145. Retrieved from: https://escholarship.org/uc/item/3pr7f1d4

Mazzucato, M. (2018). The Value of Everything: Making and Taking in the Global Economy. New York: Public Affairs.

McGoey, L. (2021). Hiding the Rentier Elephant in Plain Sight: The Epistemology of Vanishing Rent. Sociologica, 15(2), 75-93. https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.1971-8853/12720

Mears, A. (2020). Very Important People. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Munzinger, H., Obermaier, F. (2017). The Kings of the Offshore Business. Süddeutsche Zeitung. https://panamapapers.sueddeutsche.de/articles/573b17ac5632a39742ed3a14/

Patrick, M. (2017). Jet-Set Debt Collectors Join a Lucrative Game: Hunting the Superrich. Wall Street Journal, 7 November. http://www.wsj.com/articles/jet-set-debt-collectors-join-a-high-stakes-game-hunting-the-superrich-1510070473

Perrow, C. (1986). Complex Organizations: A Critical Essay, 3rd Ed. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Piketty, T. (2015). Foreword. In G. Zucman (Ed.), The Hidden Wealth of Nations, (pp. vii–xii). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Shane, S., Woodman, S., & Forsythe, M. (2017). How Business Titans, Pop Stars and Royals Hide Their Wealth. New York Times, 7 November. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/07/world/offshore-tax-havens.html

Shaxson, N. (2011). Treasure Islands: Tax Havens and the Men Who Stole the World. London: Random House.

Sherman, R. (2021). Against Accumulation: Class Traitors Challenge Wealth and Worth. Sociologica, 15(2), 117-142. https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.1971-8853/12558

Simmel, G. (1906). The Sociology of Secrecy and Secret Societies. American Journal of Sociology, 11(4), 441–498. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2762562

Smith, H. (2004). Tax Me If You Can. Transcript of Frontline documentary film. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/tax/etc/script.html

Spilerman, S. (2000). Wealth and Stratification Processes. Annual Review of Sociology, 26, 497–524. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.soc.26.1.497

Surak, K. (2021). Millionaire Mobility and the Sale of Citizenship. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 47(1), 166–189. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2020.1758554

Tokar, D. (2020). Panama Papers Case to Net First US Conviction. Wall Street Journal, 7 February. https://www.wsj.com/articles/panama-papers-case-to-net-first-u-s-conviction-11581110011

Torpey, J., Brockmann, H., & Hendricks, B. (2021). Excess Profits, Taxpayer-Subsidized Philanthropy, and the Coronavirus Crisis: Charitable Giving by the Tech Elite in Response to the Pandemic. Sociologica, 15(2), 95-116. https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.1971-8853/12435

Veblen, T. (1899/1994). The Theory of the Leisure Class. New York: Penguin.

Weber, M. (1925/1968). Economy and Society, Vol 1. New York: Bedminster Press.

Wehr, K. (1994). The Power Elite at the Bohemian Grove: Has Anything Changed in the 1990s? Critical Sociology, 20(2), 121–124. https://doi.org/10.1177/089692059402000205

Wexler, M. (1987). Conjectures on the Dynamics of Secrecy and the Secrets Business. Journal of Business Ethics, 6, 469–480. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00383289

Wilson, M. (2014). IKEA is a Nonprofit, and Yes, That’s Every Bit as Fishy as It Sounds. Fast Company, 15 September. https://www.fastcompany.com/3035734/ikea-is-a-nonprofit-and-yes-thats-every-bit-as-fishy-as-it-sounds

Wyatt, T. (2020). Former Spanish King Juan Carlos Who Fled Corruption Allegations “Staying in Luxury Hotel in Abu Dhabi”. Independent, 7 August. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/juan-carlos-king-spain-exile-abu-dhabi-luxury-hotel-a9659926.html

Zucman, G. (2015). The Hidden Wealth of Nations: The Scourge of Tax Havens. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Zweigenhaft, R. (1992). The Application of Cultural and Social Capital: A Study of the 25th Year Reunion Entries of Prep School and Public School Graduates of Yale College. Higher Education, 23, 311–320. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00145019

Secrecy, Simmel and the New Sociology of Wealth

Authors

DOI:

Keywords:

Abstract

References

Downloads

Published

How to Cite

Issue

Section

License

Information

Make a Submission

Keywords

Current Issue