Mavericks at the Casino: Legal and Ethical Indeterminacy in the Financial Markets
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/eb025643 |
| Date | 01 March 1994 |
| Published date | 01 March 1994 |
| Pages | 137-149 |
| Author | Christopher Stanley |
| Subject Matter | Accounting & finance |
Mavericks
at the
Casino: Legal
and
Ethical
Indeterminacy
in the
Financial Markets
Christopher Stanley*
Christopher Stanley
is
a
Lecturer
in
Law
at
the University
of
Kent, Canterbury, UK. He
is
also
a
barrister. He
is a
regular contributor of
articles
to
International Banking and
Financial Law and International Journal
of the Sociology
of
Law.
He
is
an editor
of Law and Critique. His principal area
of
research
is
the regulation
of
urban
culture with specific reference
to the
relationship between crime and
economy. He
is
the author
of
'Out-With
the Law; Urban (De)Regulation
and
(Dis)Order'(1994).
ABSTRACT
This paper
is a
continuation
and
develop-
ment
of the
author's thesis regarding
devi-
ant activity
in the
financial markets
of the
City
of
London.
The
basis
of the
thesis
is
that deviant activity
in
financial institutions
has become legitimated
in
that external
regulatory controls have failed
to
enforce
order against
the
internally generated
sub-
cultural codes
of
practice which have devel-
oped consequent upon
the
forces
of
eco-
nomic imperative
(the
ideology
of
excellence
in the
enterprise culture)
and
globalisation
(the
technological revolution).
The thesis originally dealt with
the
period
between 1984 and 1989 which was charac-
terised
as
'Casino Capitalism'. This paper
examines whether this
is
still relevant
and
proposes
a
number
of
additional elements
and examples
in its
articulation.
INTRODUCTION: THE LEGITIMATION
OF DEVIANCE
The paper engages with the issue of legal
and ethical indeterminacy in relation to
the regulation of deviant behaviour in
the financial markets of the City of
London. It forms part of a project in
which the concept of regulation, as
applied legitimation, is analysed in the
setting of contemporary urban culture.
In a recent work1 (emerging from the
discipline of legal theory not criminol-
ogy) the writer has been concerned with
the formulation of a theoretical and
ethical orientation regarding the prob-
lems of regulation in urban culture. In
using words such as 'repression' and
'resistance', (de)regulation and (dis)order,
in addition to specifying the urban con-
text of the issues, the problems of eco-
nomic determinism and cultural
formation and the nature of the multi-
plicity of forces and power relations
which are in operation in that space are
simultaneously raised. In addition it is
suggested that through an analysis of
'excess', it may be possible to articulate a
137
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