Fragments on the black swan: money, credit and finance in The Arcades Project of Walter Benjamin

Estrada, Fernando (2010): Fragments on the black swan: money, credit and finance in The Arcades Project of Walter Benjamin.

Abstract

The main objective of this paper is to present a reading of The Arcades Project by Walter Benjamin in the context of the financial crisis, in particular, reflect from a few fragments of Benjamin's work appear to lie around a Black Swan. The recovery of the fragments of The Arcades seems appropriate at a time when the financial crisis should be taught as a deeper crisis. Walter Benjamin is placed beyond its time, with a powerful sense of observation worthy of emulation analytical.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Financial theory, markets, Black swan, stock markets, financial crisis, risk, Walter Benjamin, Arcades Project.
• Subjects: A - General Economics and Teaching > A1 - General Economics; G - Financial Economics > G3 - Corporate Finance and Governance; G - Financial Economics > G3 - Corporate Finance and Governance > G33 - Bankruptcy ; Liquidation; D - Microeconomics > D8 - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty > D84 - Expectations ; Speculations; D - Microeconomics > D7 - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making > D70 - General; D - Microeconomics > D8 - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty; C - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods > C7 - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory > C72 - Noncooperative Games; B - History of Economic Thought, Methodology, and Heterodox Approaches > B5 - Current Heterodox Approaches; D - Microeconomics > D8 - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty > D81 - Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty; B - History of Economic Thought, Methodology, and Heterodox Approaches > B5 - Current Heterodox Approaches > B50 - General; D - Microeconomics > D8 - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty > D82 - Asymmetric and Private Information ; Mechanism Design; C - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods > C7 - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory > C70 - General; C - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods > C7 - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory; G - Financial Economics > G0 - General > G01 - Financial Crises; D - Microeconomics > D0 - General; D - Microeconomics > D0 - General > D03 - Behavioral Microeconomics: Underlying Principles; D - Microeconomics > D7 - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making; A - General Economics and Teaching > A1 - General Economics > A13 - Relation of Economics to Social Values; A - General Economics and Teaching > A1 - General Economics > A12 - Relation of Economics to Other Disciplines; G - Financial Economics > G0 - General

References

Abbas, Ackbar, 1989. “On Fascination: Walter Benjamin's Images”, New German Critique, No. 48 (Autumn, 1989).

Arnold, Dana, 2002, “Facts or Fragments?, Visual histories in the age of mechanical reproduction”, Art History, Vol. 25 No. 4.

Benjamin, Walter, 1999: The Arcades Project, Cambridge (MA).

Benjamin, Walter. “The Stock Market, Economic History”: The Arcades Project, [ed. Spain. El libro de los pasajes, Madrid, Editorial Akal, 2007, pp. 781 – 785.

Benjamin, Walter, 2009. Obras, Ensayos estéticos y literarios, libro II / Vol. 2. Abada, Editores.

Bernstein, J. M. 1999. “Benjamin's Speculative Cultural History”, Theory Culture Society; 16; 141

Cowan, Bainard, 1981: “Walter Benjamin's Theory of Allegory”, New German Critique, No. 22, Special Issue on Modernism.

Chisholm, Diane, 2002: “A queer return to Walter Benjamin”, Journal Urban History, Vol. 29 No. 1.

Ferguson, Niall. 2008. The Ascent of Money, a Financial History of the World, the Penguin Press, New York.

Foucault, Michel, 1972. Histoire de la folie à l'âge classique, Paris: Gallimard.

Foucault, Michel. 1975. Surveiller et Punir, Paris: Gallimard.

Gaines, Jeremy. 1993. “Research on Walter Benjamin”, Theory Culture Society; 10; 149

Greenberg, Udi, E. 2008. “The Politics of the Walter Benjamin Industry”, Theory, Culture & Society, and Vol. 25(3): 53–70.

Harvey, David, 1982: The Limits of Capital, Oxford.

Harvey, David, 1989: The Condition of Posmodernity. Oxford.

Harvey, David. 2006. Paris, capital of the modernity, Rutledge, Taylor & Francis Group, Nueva York. [ed. esp.: Paris, capital de la modernidad, Ediciones Akal, S. A., 2008].

Kahneman, Tversky. 1973. “On the Psychology of Prediction”, Psychological Rewiev, 80.

Keynes, John Maynard, 1998. Teoría General del Empleo, el Interés y el Dinero. Madrid, Ediciones AOSTA.

Koepnick, Lutz, 1999: Walter Benjamin and the Aesthetics of Power: University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln/London.

Lescure, Michel. Les sociétés immobilières en France au XIXe siècle, Paris, 1980, p.19 [cit. David Harvey, 2006]

Musil, Robert, 1985. El hombre sin atributos, Madrid, Seix Barral.

Nielsen, Arno Victor: “Walter Benjamin and Technology”, Orbis Lifterarum 48: 135-144. 1993.

Plessis, A, 1982: La Banque de France et ses deux cents actionnaires sous le Second Empire, [cit. Harvey, 2006].

Rolleston, James, 1996. “The Truth of Unemployment: Walter Benjamin Reads His Own Times”, Atlantic Review, Vol. 61, No. 2.

Seyhan, Azade, 1984: “Walter Benjamin and the Critique of Fragmented Academic Sensibilities”. Pacific Coast Philology, Vol. 19, No. ½.

Skidelsky, Robert. 2009. El regreso de Keynes, Madrid, Editorial Crítica.

Taleb, Nassim Nicholas. 2009. “Common Errors in Interpreting the Ideas of The Black Swan and Associated Papers”, Available atSSRN:http://ssrn.com/abstract=1490769.

Taleb, Nassim Nicholas. 2007. The Black Swan, Random House, Nueva York.

Tapiero, Charles, S., 2010. “The Future of Financial Risk”, Third annual conference of the Cass-Capco Institute Paper Series on Risk Management.

Watts, Duncan J, 2003: Six Degrees. The Science of a Connected Age: W.W. Norton & Company New York.

Wolin, Richard. 1993. “Aestheticism and Social Theory: The Case of Walter Benjamin's Passagenwerk”, Theory Culture Society; 10; 169.

Zola, Émile. El dinero, 2001. Versión castellana de M, García Sanz, Madrid, Editorial Debate, pp., 425.