Biographies Of Hegemony Karen Ho Analysis

The Marketing of an Ideology The financial institutions on Wall Street and pharmaceutical corporations epitomize the multi-faceted nature of the capitalist world. At the core, the financial and pharmaceutical industries adhere to the underlying principles of capitalism. Wall Street and Big Pharma are bent on achieving surpluses of profit and maximizing their influence over their target population through mass-media advertising of a certain product or brand. This capitalist ideology is deeply- rooted in the social stratification of society, our educational/financial institutions, and mass media. In “Biographies of Hegemony”, Karen Ho depicts the heavy recruitment of Ivy League students by investment banks and other major Wall Street firms behind

The investment firms on Wall Street hold an elitist mindset that strictly caters to the smartest of students. Karen Ho describes the statements made by Ivy League alumnae at recruitment presentations, “We only hire superstars,’ ‘We are only hiring from five different schools,’ ‘You are the cream of the crop.’ In these sessions, I was stuck by how proclamations of elitism…seemed foundational to the very core of how investment bankers see themselves, the world, and their place in it” (Ho 175). This type of mentality being endorsed by the speakers leads to the manifestation of qualities that promote competition in the recruitment process and a vicious battle for a top position. The problem with the idea promoted is the false sense of entitlement to the new recruits. They are implanting ideas of grandeur and power in their minds. They are raising them to a higher pedestal than the rest of society and prop them up through constant intellectual praise. This is priming the recruits to behave in a certain way and make them believe that they can play this role of “master of the universe” (Ho 168). Although, the whole idea sounds very outlandish to the average person, it sounds promising to the recruits themselves. The speakers also give off the impression that only Ivy League recruits are mentally capable of producing the so called “expert knowledge of financial

Taufiq Rahim, a Daily Princetonian columnist talks about recruiters, “They’re here. I can see them. I can smell them. They’re in my inbox. They’re in my mailbox. They’re on my voicemail. They’re outside my door. They’re on campus, and they smell blood…They’re the investment banks, the consulting firms…” (Taufiq Rahim, qtd. in Ho 171). This quote paints a vivid picture of the exposure a student in an Ivy League university receives from investment bankers. Campuses become littered with bank advertisements, updates, and news articles which further reinforce the belief that a career in Wall Street is their true “calling”. Recruiters also shower the students with gifts and small items to the point of them becoming mediums to further spread their messages to other students. This dissemination using mass media can either play a constructive or destructive role in shaping the future of a student depending on their interests. Not every student coming into an Ivy League university is looking to pursue a career in a finance-related field. Students that attend these universities come from all backgrounds and have their own passions and goals for the future. However, a major problem with recruitment is that it limits the potential of students who simply follow the crowd and ignore their own intuition: “…the equating of investment banking with “career” in general,