Scandals and Abstraction Quotes

“The two fathers present structurally the choice between two corporations, two modes of accumulation, two styles of financial masculinity. The Old Conservatism and the New Conservatism, the old patriarchy and the new patriarchy, the industrial monopoly capital of airlines and the monopoly financial capital of a corporate raider. Perhaps the film's most radical critique and uncertainty is that both paternal men are respectively ill. Gekko has the high blood pressure thats befits financial accumulation: It is able to be continually monitored, the sphygmomanomater is an instrument for the continuous conveying of exact information, diastolic and systolic ratios rise and fall in different social contexts. Bud's father is made sick by an old-fashioned, industrial heart attack - his illness is a consequence of the steady accumulation of arterial plaque.”
― Leigh Claire La Berge, Scandals and Abstraction: Financial Fiction of the Long 1980s

“The detective searches out clues as a way to unobjectify the past much like the historical materialist does. But a financial logic is different: it is future oriented, and one does not discover what was hidden, rather one waits to see what will be transacted, what financial future will become of the present.”
― Leigh Claire La Berge, Scandals and Abstraction: Financial Fiction of the Long 1980s