Author(s): Ortner, Sherry B | Abstract: Investment broker Bernie Madoff ran what is still considered the largest Ponzi scheme in history, defrauding thousands of investors over a 20-year period of more than $20 billion. He worked his game almost entirely through kinship connections—relatives, friends of relatives, and relatives of friends. The relationship between kinship and capitalism has drawn renewed attention by anthropologists, part of a broader effort to rethink capitalism not as a free-standing ‘economy’ but as deeply embedded in a wide range of social relations. In this article I use the Madoff case to illustrate, and develop further, several aspects of the kinship/capitalism connection. I also consider briefly the boundary between fraud and ‘legitimate’ capitalism, which many economic historians consider a fuzzy boundary at best.

中文翻译：

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资本主义、亲属关系和欺诈

作者：Ortner, Sherry B | 摘要：投资经纪人伯尼·麦道夫 (Bernie Madoff) 经营着至今仍被认为是历史上最大的庞氏骗局，在 20 年的时间里欺骗了数千名投资者超过 200 亿美元。他几乎完全通过亲属关系来完成他的游戏——亲戚、亲戚的朋友和朋友的亲戚。亲属关系与资本主义之间的关系重新引起了人类学家的关注，这是重新思考资本主义不是一种独立的“经济”而是深深植根于广泛的社会关系中的更广泛努力的一部分。在本文中，我使用麦道夫案例来说明并进一步发展亲属/资本主义联系的几个方面。我还简要地考虑了欺诈和“合法”资本主义之间的界限，许多经济历史学家认为这是一个模糊的界限。