This piece takes a close look at top CEOs in the United Kingdom. CEOs are not only among the ranks of today’s super-rich, they have played a vital part in the evolution of an economic system that supports the super-rich generally. As the article argues, they have done this in two key ways: first, by promoting to news media and policy makers a set of financialized free-market ideas about managing the economy, and second, by managing large companies as financial assets for the benefit of financiers and the super-rich. In both ways, they have encouraged financialization and the funneling of capital away from the real economy and ordinary employees, and upward toward the super-rich. The article is based on thirty interviews with top UK business leaders, including twenty Financial Times Stock Exchange 100 CEOs, as well as other demographic and qualitative data.
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March 01 2019
TOP CEOs, FINANCIALIZATION, and the CREATION of the SUPER-RICH ECONOMY
Aeron Davis
Aeron Davis
Aeron Davis is professor of political communication and codirector of the Political Economy Research Centre at Goldsmiths, University of London. His research ranges across political communication, economic sociology, media and communication, and elite studies. He is the author of five books and two edited collections, including, most recently, Reckless Opportunists: Elites at the End of the Establishment (2018).
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Cultural Politics (2019) 15 (1): 88–104.
Citation
Aeron Davis; TOP CEOs, FINANCIALIZATION, and the CREATION of the SUPER-RICH ECONOMY. Cultural Politics 1 March 2019; 15 (1): 88–104. doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/17432197-7289542
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