Finance theory shapes markets through the linguistic infrastructure it provides practitioners
Evidence
A second way in which finance theory has been incorporated into the infrastructures of financial markets is linguistic. The theory offers a way of talking about markets, especially about markets whose complexity might otherwise be baffling. Much of the attractiveness to practitioners of the Capital Asset Pricing Model’s “beta” was that it seemed to offer a simple way of summarizing the relative riskiness of different stocks. — Donald MacKenzie, An Engine, Not a Camera, 1128
Categorization
- DEFINE: Introduces the ‘linguistic infrastructure’ as a distinct category of performativity alongside the material and legitimatory forms — a key organizing framework for the book’s argument.
- XREF: connects to: The commodity structure shapes language itself in modern literature. — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 757; Critical finance studies treat markets as discursively constituted rather than merely material — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities: Living with…, 578; Market conversations do not merely transmit information but perform the economic action itself — Karin Knorr Cetina & Urs Bruegger, Global Microstructures: The Virtual…, 29 (+15 more)
Broader Connections
- Finance theory often shapes managers’ vocabulary without changing their actual practice
#qualifies(0.85) — Donald MacKenzie, An Engine, Not a Camera, 1136 - Financialization colonizes culture through diffuse metaphors, narratives, and techniques
#expands(0.80) — Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, 35 - Cultural industries shifted from commodity language to financial-instrument language
#expands(0.75) — Andrew deWaard, Derivative Media, 96 - Lyrical word choices function as convertible financial assets in a speculative marketplace
#exemplifies(0.72) — Andrew deWaard, Derivative Media, 320