[기사원문] [기사원문] The Price of Clarity

홈 > 뉴스 > 기사원문

[기사원문] The Price of Clarity

[2호] 2010년 06월 01일 (화)

Robert Skidelsky

economyinsight@hani.co.kr

LONDON -- “Through the contrivance and cunning of stock jobbers there hath been brought in such a complication of knavery and cozenage, such a mystery of iniquity, and such an unintelligible jargon of terms to involve it in, as were never known in any other age or country.” Jonathan Swift’s eighteenth-century barb resonates in today’s world of financial “intermediation”: now, as then, finance shrouds its “complication of knavery and cozenage” in “unintelligible jargon.” As US President Barack Obama explained in a speech in April: “Many practices were so opaque and complex that few within these companies – let alone those charged with oversight – were fully aware of the massive wagers being made.” But was Swift right to see knavery as the main motive for unintelligibility? Obviously, it is a very powerful motive, in politics no less than in finance. The less people understand about something, the easier it is to fool them. There has never been a shortage of snake-oil merchants: Donizetti wrote an opera, L’Elisir D’Amore, about one of them advertising a love potion in a nonsensical patter. But the intention to deceive, or even to make money, is not necessarily what has driven the recent explosion of financial ...

회원 전용 기사입니다. 로그인 하시면 기사 전문을 보실 수 있습니다.
정기구독자는 과거 기사 전체와 2016년 6월 이후 온라인 기사 전체를,
온라인 회원은 과거 기사 일부와 2016년 6월 이후 온라인 기사 전체를 보실 수 있습니다.