The brick and the balloon: Architecture, idealism and land speculation

New Left Review

Volumn , Issue 228, 1998, Pages 25-46

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EID: 0038902293     PISSN: 00286060     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
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References (54)

1. This talk was delivered at the seventh annual ANY conference in Rotterdam, June 1997, and is reprinted with the permission of the organizers from ANYHOW, Cambridge, Mass. 1998. It is also part of a series ofessays to appear in Fredric Jameson, The Cultural Turn: Selected Writings on the Postmodern. 1983-1998, Verso, London 1998, forthcoming.
2. Simmel, Philosophy of Money, trans. D. Frisby and T. Bottomore, London 1978.
3. See, for a more comprehensive discussion, my forthcoming essay, 'The Theoretical Hesitation: Benjamin's Sociological Predecessor'. I also want to signal the related projects of Richard Dienst on debt as a postmodern phenomenon (see, for example, 'The Futures Market', in H. Schwarz and R. Dienst, eds, Reading the Shape of the World, Boulder 1996) and Christopher Newfield on corporate culture today (see, for example, his essays in Social Text, no. 44, Fall 1995, and no. 51, Summer 1997).
4. See, for a more comprehensive discussion, my forthcoming essay, 'The Theoretical Hesitation: Benjamin's Sociological Predecessor'. I also want to signal the related projects of Richard Dienst on debt as a postmodern phenomenon (see, for example, 'The Futures Market', in H. Schwarz and R. Dienst, eds, Reading the Shape of the World, Boulder 1996) and Christopher Newfield on corporate culture today (see, for example, his essays in Social Text, no. 44, Fall 1995, and no. 51, Summer 1997).
5. See, for a more comprehensive discussion, my forthcoming essay, 'The Theoretical Hesitation: Benjamin's Sociological Predecessor'. I also want to signal the related projects of Richard Dienst on debt as a postmodern phenomenon (see, for example, 'The Futures Market', in H. Schwarz and R. Dienst, eds, Reading the Shape of the World, Boulder 1996) and Christopher Newfield on corporate culture today (see, for example, his essays in Social Text, no. 44, Fall 1995, and no. 51, Summer 1997).
6. Translated in George Simmel, On Individuality and Social Forms, ed. D.N. Levine, Chicago 1971, pp. 324-39.
7. See my essay, 'Culture and Finance Capital', in The Cultural Turn.
8. Simmel, On Individuality and Social Forms, p. 334. To which I would like to append the following: 'The flexibility of money, as with so many of its qualities, is most clearly and emphatically expressed in the stock exchange, in which the money economy is crystallized as an independent structure just as political organization is crystallized in the state. The fluctuations in exchange prices frequently indicate subjective-psychological motivations, which, in their crudeness and independent movements, are totally out of proportion in relation to objective factors. It would certainly be superficial, however, to explain this by pointing out that price fluctuations correspond only rarely to real changes in the quality that the stock represents. For the significance of this quality for the market lies not only in the inner qualities of the State or the brewery, the mine or the bank, but in the relationship of these to all other stocks on the market and their conditions. Therefore, it does not affect their actual basis if, for instance, large insolvencies in Argentina depress the price of Chinese bonds, although the security of such bonds is no more affected by that event than by something that happens on the moon. For the value of these stocks, for all their external stability, none the less depends on the overall situation of the market, the fluctuations of which, at any one point, may for example make the further utilization of those returns less profitable. Over and above these stock market fluctuations, which even though they presuppose the synthesis of the single object with others are still objectively produced, there exists one factor that originates in speculation itself. These wagers on the future quoted price of one stock themselves have the must considerable influence on such a price. For instance, as soon as a powerful financial group for reasons that have nothing to do with the quality of the stock, becomes interested in it, its quoted price will increase; conversely, a bearish group is able to bring about a fall in the quoted price by mere manipulation. Here the real value of the object appears to be the irrelevant substratus above which the movement of market values rises only because it has to be attached to some substance, or rather to some name. The relation between the real and final value of the object and its representation by a bond has lost all stability. This clearly shows the absolute flexibility of this form of value, a form that the objects have gained through money and which has completely detached them from their real basis. Now value follows, almost without resistance, the psychological impulses of the temper, of greed, of unfounded opinion, and it does this in such a striking manner since objective circumstances exist that could provide exact standards of valuation. But value in terms of the money form has made itself independent of its own roots and foundation in order to surrender itself completely to subjective energies. Here, where speculation itself may determine the fate of the object of speculation, the permeability and flexibility of the money form of values has found its most triumphant expression through subjectivity in its strictest sense.' Simmel, Philosophy of Money, pp. 325-6.
9. Simmel, On Individuality and Social Forms, p. 334. To which I would like to append the following: 'The flexibility of money, as with so many of its qualities, is most clearly and emphatically expressed in the stock exchange, in which the money economy is crystallized as an independent structure just as political organization is crystallized in the state. The fluctuations in exchange prices frequently indicate subjective-psychological motivations, which, in their crudeness and independent movements, are totally out of proportion in relation to objective factors. It would certainly be superficial, however, to explain this by pointing out that price fluctuations correspond only rarely to real changes in the quality that the stock represents. For the significance of this quality for the market lies not only in the inner qualities of the State or the brewery, the mine or the bank, but in the relationship of these to all other stocks on the market and their conditions. Therefore, it does not affect their actual basis if, for instance, large insolvencies in Argentina depress the price of Chinese bonds, although the security of such bonds is no more affected by that event than by something that happens on the moon. For the value of these stocks, for all their external stability, none the less depends on the overall situation of the market, the fluctuations of which, at any one point, may for example make the further utilization of those returns less profitable. Over and above these stock market fluctuations, which even though they presuppose the synthesis of the single object with others are still objectively produced, there exists one factor that originates in speculation itself. These wagers on the future quoted price of one stock themselves have the must considerable influence on such a price. For instance, as soon as a powerful financial group for reasons that have nothing to do with the quality of the stock, becomes interested in it, its quoted price will increase; conversely, a bearish group is able to bring about a fall in the quoted price by mere manipulation. Here the real value of the object appears to be the irrelevant substratus above which the movement of market values rises only because it has to be attached to some substance, or rather to some name. The relation between the real and final value of the object and its representation by a bond has lost all stability. This clearly shows the absolute flexibility of this form of value, a form that the objects have gained through money and which has completely detached them from their real basis. Now value follows, almost without resistance, the psychological impulses of the temper, of greed, of unfounded opinion, and it does this in such a striking manner since objective circumstances exist that could provide exact standards of valuation. But value in terms of the money form has made itself independent of its own roots and foundation in order to surrender itself completely to subjective energies. Here, where speculation itself may determine the fate of the object of speculation, the permeability and flexibility of the money form of values has found its most triumphant expression through subjectivity in its strictest sense.' Simmel, Philosophy of Money, pp. 325-6.
10. Robert Fitch, The Assassination of New York, Verso, London 1993, p. 40. See also Fitch, 'Explaining New York City's Aberrant Economy', NLR 227, September-October 1994, pp. 17-48.
11. Robert Fitch, The Assassination of New York, Verso, London 1993, p. 40. See also Fitch, 'Explaining New York City's Aberrant Economy', NLR 227, September-October 1994, pp. 17-48.
12. Ibid., p. 40.
13. Ibid., p. 60.
14. Ibid., p. xii.
15. Giovanni Arrighi, The Long Twentieth Century, Verso, London 1994; for more on this work see my 'Culture and Finance Capital'.
16. Giovanni Arrighi, The Long Twentieth Century, Verso, London 1994; for more on this work see my 'Culture and Finance Capital'.
17. Harry Braverman, Labor and Monopoly Capital: The Degradation of Work in the Twentieth Century, New York 1976.
18. Both descriptions specify rhe causal relationship between the informational and financial developments they analyse and increasingly structural unemployment and the ghettoization of the contemporary city. See Manuel Castells, The Informational City, Oxford 1989, p.228, and Saskia Sassen, The Global City, Princeton 1991, p. 186.
19. Both descriptions specify rhe causal relationship between the informational and financial developments they analyse and increasingly structural unemployment and the ghettoization of the contemporary city. See Manuel Castells, The Informational City, Oxford 1989, p.228, and Saskia Sassen, The Global City, Princeton 1991, p. 186.
20. The most notable of these arguments is Ernest Mandel, Late Capitalism, Verso, London 1975.
21. Robert Caro, The Power Broker, New York 1975.
22. Fitch, The Assassination of New York, p. 149.
23. Ibid., pp. xvi-xvii.
24. Ibid., p. 86.
25. Ibid., p. 94.
26. Ibid., p. 189.
27. Ibid., p. 191.
28. Ibid., pp. 189; 226; xvii.
29. See Dieter Henrich, 'Hegels Theorie über den Zufall', in Hegel im Kontext, Frankfurt 1971.
30. Proust's interest in military strategy is in this connection most revealing indeed: see for example the discussions on the visit to Saint-Loup, during the latter's military service. Doncières, in A la Recherche du temps perdu, Book III: Le Côté de Guermantes, Paris 1954.
31. Fitch, The Assassination of New York, pp. 186-7.
32. Tafuri in Francesco Dal Co, et al., The American City Cambridge, Mass. 1979, p. 389.
33. Ibid., p. 390.
34. Ibid., p. 461.
35. Ibid., p. 483.
36. Siegfried Giedion, Space, Time and Architecture [1941], Cambridge, Mass. 1982, p. 845. I am grateful to Charles Jencks for reminding me of this basic text.
37. Ibid., p. 825.
38. Ibid., pp. 849-51.
39. Rem Koolhaas, Delirious New York, Oxford 1978, p. 144.
40. Ibid., p. 142.
41. Ibid., p. 149.
42. Ibid., p. 153.
43. David Harvey, The Limits to Capital, Chicago 1982, p. 265.
44. Ibid., p. 347.
45. Charles Jencks, The New Moderns, New York 1990, p. 85.
46. Ibid., pp. 81, 86.
47. Ibid., p. 81.
48. Ibid., p. 86.
49. Ibid., p. 85.
50. 'Money thus provides a unique extension of the personality which does not seek to adorn itself with the possession of goods. Such a personality is indifferent to control over objects; it is satisfied with that momentary power over them, and while it appears as if this avoidance of any qualitative relationship to objects would not offer any extension and satisfaction to the person, the very act of buying is experienced as such a satisfaction, because the objects are absolutely obedient to money. Because of the completeness with which money and objects as money-values follow the impulses of the person, he is satisfied by a symbol of his domination over them which is otherwise obtained only through actual ownership. The enjoyment of this mere symbol of enjoyment may come close to the pathological, as in the following case related by a French novelist. An Englishman was a member of a bohemian group; his chief enjoyment in life consisted of his sponsorship of the wildest orgies, though he himself never joined in but always only paid for everybody - he appeared, said nothing, did nothing, paid for everything and disappeared. The one side of these dubious events - paying for them - must, in this man's experience, have stood for everything. One may readily assume that here is a case of one of those perverse satisfactions that has recently become the subject of sexual pathology. In comparison with ordinary extravagance, which stops at the first stage of possession and enjoyment and the mere squandering of money, the behaviour of this man is particularly eccentric because the enjoyments, represented here by their money equivalent, are so close and directly tempting to him. The absence of a positive owning and using of things on the one hand, and the fact on the other that the mere act of buying is experienced as a relationship between the person and the objects and as a personal satisfaction, can be explained by the expansion that the mere act of spending money affords to the person. Money builds a bridge between such people and objects. In crossing this bridge, the mind experiences the attraction at their possession even if it does in fact not attain it.' Simmel, Philosophy of Money, p. 327.
51. Derrida, Specters of Marx, New York 1994; see my discussion in 'Marx's Purloined Letter', NLR 209, January-February 1995, pp. 75-109.
52. Derrida, Specters of Marx, New York 1994; see my discussion in 'Marx's Purloined Letter', NLR 209, January-February 1995, pp. 75-109.
53. An unpublished paper by Kevin Heller explores the even more complex analogies in Gremlins 2 (Joe Dante, 1990), not coincidentally filmed in Donald Trump's Tower.
54. Hong Kong, Stanley Kwan, 1987. I am indebted to Rey Chow for suggesting this reference.