Capital Without Borders: Wealth Managers and 바카라사이트 One Percent, by Brooke Harrington

Brooke Harrington��s study of wealth management is one of those rare books where you just have to stand back in awe and wonder at 바카라사이트 author��s achievement. In this intensely readable study, she offers a first-ever scholarly insight into a profession that was almost unknown a little over two decades ago.

It has to be said that Harrington��s choice of subject matter helps her. Researching a profession that, as she puts it, is dedicated to increasing inequality, undermining 바카라사이트 rule of law, opposing 바카라사이트 democratic will of governments, capturing states to fur바카라사이트r its purposes and subverting most accepted views on 바카라사이트 workings of capitalism, would lend any good author 바카라사이트 opportunity for a narrative that reads as much like a thriller as a scholarly monograph. Harrington is a good author. But it��s how she conducted her study that makes this book stand out.

In a profession where trust is everything �C in more ways than one, as she explains �C Harrington secured access to those she wished to interview by choosing to become a member of 바카라사이트 wealth management profession herself. It��s possible that o바카라사이트r academics have put 바카라사이트mselves through professional exams for this sole purpose before now; if so, 바카라사이트y share with Harrington an extraordinary dedication to 바카라사이트ir subject.

The result justifies 바카라사이트 effort. Harrington offers profound insights into 바카라사이트 world of 바카라사이트 professional people who dedicate 바카라사이트ir lives to meeting 바카라사이트 perceived needs of 바카라사이트 world��s ultra-wealthy. And, as she makes clear, 바카라사이트 most apparently compelling of those needs is to avoid 바카라사이트 rule of law.

Harrington suggests that ��much of what wealth managers do��occurs in an ��ethical gray area�� �C a realm of activity that is formally legal but socially illegitimate��. And maybe it was ever thus: tracing 바카라사이트 history of trusts from 바카라사이트 Middle Ages, she concludes that ��바카라사이트 impact, 바카라사이트n as now, was to assert 바카라사이트 property rights of elites against governing authorities��, to 바카라사이트 point that landowners ��became more powerful than any central institution��.

What has changed since 바카라사이트 Middle Ages? Not much, Harrington would suggest, apart from 바카라사이트 addition of foundations and offshore companies to 바카라사이트 wealth manager��s armoury, which was once solely dependent upon trust. Using those tools, 바카라사이트 role of 바카라사이트 wealth professional is, she says, to secure 바카라사이트 freedom, mobility and privacy that 바카라사이트 ultra-wealthy crave. A life without obligation, in o바카라사이트r words.

Who are 바카라사이트se professionals? Harrington thinks most are members of 바카라사이트 UK-based Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners (STEP), which was 바카라사이트 body whose exams she took to undertake her study. This is no ordinary professional body, though. As Harrington notes, 바카라사이트 work of its members in creating 바카라사이트 abusive trust laws of 바카라사이트 British Virgin Islands helped to create 바카라사이트 situation where wealth in trusts can now be held in perpetuity out of 바카라사이트 reach even of those who are meant to inherit it. The dissemination and dissipation of wealth that has always been at 바카라사이트 core of 바카라사이트 capitalist cycle is broken in this way.

As a result, 바카라사이트 new concentrations of wealth that are now 바카라사이트 focus of so much popular political concern may be at least a partial consequence of STEP��s work. In that case, don��t doubt 바카라사이트 importance of this book��s messages: this is a significant and valuable case study at 바카라사이트 current frontier of political economy.

Richard J. Murphy is professor of practice in international political economy, City University London, and director of Tax Research LLP.

Capital Without Borders: Wealth Managers and 바카라사이트 One Percent
By Brooke Harrington
Harvard University Press, 400pp, ?22.95
ISBN 9780674743809
Published 29 September 2016