Secrecy and Kleptocracy

Over a century ago, Georg Simmel noted that the need for secrecy unites the nobility with criminal gangs in their quest for power and resources. This insight finds its most vivid contemporary expression in the offshore financial system, where trillions in private household wealth—totaling at least 12% of global GDP—circulates largely outside the rule of law. It makes possible not just tax evasion, but law evasion writ large, including debt dodging and the corruption of electoral systems. This system has created a multi-national elite which has grown nearly ungovernable, threatening democracy, capitalism, and even the natural environment. The talk will offer a sociological analysis of the agency and mechanisms underlying this phenomenon, drawing on both a long-term ethnography of the offshore system and Big Data network analysis of its characteristics—including its hidden vulnerabilities.