Social investment: subjectivism, sublation and the moral elevation of success
Social investment: subjectivism, sublation and the moral elevation of success
Investment products that deploy ethical values and social considerations in portfolio construction have persisted since the 1980s. Pitting Habermasian discourse ethics against Foucauldian power relations and radical institutionalism, the paper argues that socially directed mutual funds ascribe capital markets with validities of high moral magnitude, work up extant tendencies toward financial hegemony and stymie criticism of the political–economic order. Institutional pressures do not permit the exercise of an ethic stronger than an aesthetic care of the self. The balance struck between economic and social priorities is investigated by interviewing investment managers, reviewing archival material and surveying the attitudes of unit holders in retail social mutual funds
foucault, habermas, capital markets, ethics, mutual funds, non-governmental organizations, shareholder activism
989-1005
Haigh, Matthew
b23a476f-0ca5-4a58-8098-f05dcbe47835
December 2006
Haigh, Matthew
b23a476f-0ca5-4a58-8098-f05dcbe47835
Haigh, Matthew
(2006)
Social investment: subjectivism, sublation and the moral elevation of success.
Critical Perspectives on Accounting, 17 (8), .
(doi:10.1016/j.cpa.2005.08.012).
Abstract
Investment products that deploy ethical values and social considerations in portfolio construction have persisted since the 1980s. Pitting Habermasian discourse ethics against Foucauldian power relations and radical institutionalism, the paper argues that socially directed mutual funds ascribe capital markets with validities of high moral magnitude, work up extant tendencies toward financial hegemony and stymie criticism of the political–economic order. Institutional pressures do not permit the exercise of an ethic stronger than an aesthetic care of the self. The balance struck between economic and social priorities is investigated by interviewing investment managers, reviewing archival material and surveying the attitudes of unit holders in retail social mutual funds
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Published date: December 2006
Keywords:
foucault, habermas, capital markets, ethics, mutual funds, non-governmental organizations, shareholder activism
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Local EPrints ID: 45598
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/45598
ISSN: 1045-2354
PURE UUID: ebdd1762-f9ce-4ad5-b60d-074239eb3b54
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Date deposited: 13 Apr 2007
Last modified: 15 Mar 2024 09:11
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Author:
Matthew Haigh
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