Dance in the Global Village

This treatise introduces the figures of shareholder, stakeholder, index tracker, bondholder and options trader as cosmopolitan financial actors in order to describe and explain the development of global capitalism with regard to a series of more or less different capitalisms. The terms shareholder and bondholder are generally known. Stakeholders appear less frequently although the economic players have taken over the role of stakeholder mostly without realising it. Options traders are chiefly professional stock exchange players but, in view of the enlargement and democratisation of global financial capitalism, more and more knowledgeable laymen also develop into options traders. The figure of index tracker is relatively new. However, he does not act as a capitalist maximiser of profits, but contents himself with reaching an index. His behaviour can be characterised as being "watchful waiting". These figures emerging everywhere form a cleverly designed pattern in order to outline the mechanisms and institutions of global capitalism.