I have a review of 'Capital Without Borders: Wealth Managers and the One Percent' by Brooke Harrington of Copenhagen Business School in the Times Higher Ed this week. As I say there:
Brooke Harrington's study of wealth management is one of those rare books where you just have to stand back in awe and wonder at the author's achievement. In this intensely readable study, she offers a first-ever scholarly insight into a profession that was almost unknown a little over two decades ago.
It has to be said that Harrington's choice of subject matter helps her. Researching a profession that, as she puts it, is dedicated to increasing inequality, undermining the rule of law, opposing the democratic will of governments, capturing states to further its purposes and subverting most accepted views on the workings of capitalism, would lend any good author the opportunity for a narrative that reads as much like a thriller as a scholarly monograph. Harrington is a good author.
For anyone looking for a new perspective on tax havens this is an outstanding book.
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That’s a good review. I like the rhythm of the piece and the transition from the early stanza about their dedication to undermining the rule of law to the middle paragraph about their activities being formally legal.
Another sweet poetic transition is ‘meeting the perceived needs of the ultra-wealthy’ who we later learn in the context of the BVI cannot lay their hands on that wealth. What sort of customer would pay for a service like that? There must be some right idiots in the global 1%.
Was that a good review of a good review?
I like that!
Did she mention the politicians and governments who made this all inequality so possible, I can’t afford the book because I’m one of the 99%.
The book is profoundly political
Thanks for the head’s up.
Another one to add to the list!!
And when can we expect your own eagerly anticipated opus by the way…………….?
February now
Is a simultaneous UK and US oublucation and November was not good for the latter
It is being typeset right now…
Thanks.
Time to finish some other tomes then for me.
I read in the Mail today, that journal of record, that Adam Johnson, the soccer player in prison for failing to check the birth certificates of his female companions, is still being paid 5K a week according to contract. Unusually for soccer players, he has taken care of his earnings, via wealth management, but it is said that with his income from investments he need never play, or indeed work, again.
In the blurb on Amazon, it says the book deals with ‘up and coming’ tax havens like Africa.
I thought Africa was now the playground for Chinese capital and companies connected with the extractive industries. Is there more to it than this, Richard, in terms of money moving to Africa and being ‘wealth managed’ there?
Well it’s a few weeks since I read it and apart from South Africa I can’t recall references to many other African states, barring maybe a reference or two to Nigeria
A G7 country has asked me to cover Africa from the point of view of opportunities in renewables (mostly for companies with tech or expertise in this area). The “business opportunities” are considerable and a number of US west coast VCs are investing. Without doubt private equity and wealth managers will move in. Given the weakness of institutions in many African countries I am sure there will be developments that will “facilitate” the operation of private wealth in these places.