The Known Economy: Romantics, Rationalists, and the Making of a World Scale

Description

Why do critics and celebrants of globalization concur that international trade and finance represent an inexorable globe-bestriding force with a single logic? The Known Economy shows that both camps rest on the same ideas about how the world is scaled. Two centuries ago romantic and rationalist theorists concurred that the world was divided into discrete nations, moving at different rates toward a 'modernity', split between love and money. Though differing over whether this history is tragedy or triumph, they united in projecting an empty 'international' space in which a Moloch-like global capitalism could lurk. The Known Economy tracks the colonial development of national accounting and re-examines the ways gender and heteronormativity are built in to economic representation. It re-interprets the post-WWII spread of standardized economic statistics as the project of international organizations looking over the shoulders of national governments, rather than the expanding power of national governments over populations. Cover......Page 1 Title......Page 8 Copyright......Page 9 Dedication......Page 10 Contents......Page 12 List of illustrations......Page 14 Preface......Page 15 Acknowledgments......Page 17 Introduction: Sarkozy versus GDP......Page 18 PART I The voice of economy......Page 30 Introduction to Part I......Page 32 1 Love or money......Page 34 2 A Jewish economy in Palestine......Page 51 3 Body of the nation......Page 65 4 Shape of the world......Page 84 5 Discovering economies in British Africa......Page 99 6 The IMF makes the world......Page 120 PART II Romantic responses......Page 132 Introduction to Part II......Page 134 7 Romantic political economy......Page 137 8 Shock of the modern......Page 149 9 Jameson’s postmodern......Page 156 10 Spirit of finance......Page 168 PART III Opening up......Page 176 11 Time and finance......Page 178 12 Numbered things......Page 186 Bibliography......Page 189 Index......Page 212