>Of course that is true to some extent, no? Markets that let insider
>trading get out of hand
...the perception of insider trading...
>scare away investors, no? Doesn't purging the
>occasional transgressor pour encourager les autres serve an important
>function in shoring up investor confidence? That's symbolic only in the
>sense money is symbolic.
Money is symbolic, but it represents real relations of social power.
Anything that encourages people to think the financial markets are decent and democratic is a bad thing.
On a related topic, I was struck by the cover of the latest Nation - a picture of W with the caption "A Tainted Presidency." Only someone who thought there was something fundamentally untainted about the presidency - that its occupant wasn't the chief executive of the world bourgeoisie, presiding over a system of expropriation and violence - could put together a cover like that.
Doug