The world has been bombarded in recent years with images of the luxurious lives and wealth of corrupt oligarchs and kleptocrats, amassed at the expense of ordinary people. Such images exploit our feelings of injustice, are taken as indicative of moral decay, and inspire a desire to purge our economies of dirty money, objects, and people.
But why do anti-corruption efforts routinely fail? What kind of world are they creating? Looking at luxury art, antiquities, superyachts, and populist politics, this book explores the connection between luxury and corruption, and offers an alternative to the received wisdom of how we tackle corruption.
Innehållsförteckning
Preface: Luxury, Corruption, and the Assumption of Harmlessness
Chapter 1: Luxury, Anti-Corruption, and the Fantasy of Wholeness
Chapter 2: Russian Kleptocrat Luxury, Naval’nyi’s Exposés, and the Global Anti-Policy Syndrome
Chapter 3: Compliance, Defiance, and the Fight against Crime through the Markets in Art, Antiquities and Luxury
Chapter 4: Luxury, Encasement, and the Emptiness of Anti-Corruption’s Ethics
Epilogue: Luxury, Corruption, and the Death Drive
Om författaren
Thomas Raymen is an Associate Professor of Criminology at Northumbria University. He is a co-founder of the Deviant Leisure Research Network, and the founder and editor-in-chief of the Journal of Contemporary Crime, Harm, and Ethics. He has written or edited numerous books chapters and journal articles. Raymen is a core researcher of the LUXCORE project.