A peaceable kingdom: Once upon a time, and not so long ago, there existed the Empire that is (or was) Globalization, one made up of many kingdoms woven together into a single transnational order. While there was order, there was little peace and the Empire was constantly on the defense against monsters spawned from out of itself, and, thus spawned, such monsters might be set free to terrorize the inhabitants of those many kingdoms that together constituted this transnational order. With the rise of each monster, all would seem lost or, at least, diminished. But for every beast whose ravings threaten the good order of the global system, the great defenders of the transnational order could wield regulatory reform, like music in William Congreve’s play, The Mourning Bride, with “Charms to sooth a savage B[r]east, To soften Rocks, or bend a knotted Oak.” But could all beasts be so domesticated by the sonorous melodies of reform that preserved the good order of the system itself?
Enter the beast: When the state is itself the beast that seeks both the protection of Globalization and its undoing, the protection of the good order of the transnational system becomes more complicated, against which the tonics may have little effect. Enter sovereign wealth funds (“SWFs”); though operating in some form or another for over half a century, SWFs did not become an object of general attention until the early part of the twenty-first century, when a combination of the need for developed states to invest and the growing acceptability of state investment in private markets abroad made them both threatening and desirable. This was the beast set loose on the kingdoms, especially those realms grown fat on the profits of global production but that now found themselves at the mercy of a monster whose potential appetite could reduce these cash-starved realms to the sort of penury they could not contemplate—at least not if they meant to keep their kingdoms stable and their heads on their shoulders. SWF money could prop up failing markets in the West, but it could also be used to control Western apex corporations and thus indirectly threaten the authority of Western states—that was the essence of the fear at the time of the great recession of 2008.
And how to soothe this beast?: The approach embraced was centered on the crafting of a narrative that would both provide food to the beast and put the monster to work for the preservation of the realms which it might otherwise have threatened. That master narrative both framed a rational understanding of the SWF and embedded model or idealized SWFs within emerging global financial systems. A SWF was conceived in a form that served the needs of the host states into which investment was injected as well as the home state that sought to make money from these investments. With a focus on money, the political threat of the SWF could be diffused. No longer a threat, the beast became an ox, and its masters were now welcomed into the club of those who ate well— and they have, eaten well that is. And its story—of its apparent threat and the manner of the breaking of the beast, shearing its monstrosity for the stoic utility of the ox—became one fit for retelling as an important marker of the scope and triumph of the global financial master narrative and the domesticated SWF’s role within it.
