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.

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Secrecy, Simmel and the New Sociology of Wealth

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