Vultures, debt and desire: the vulture metaphor and Argentina’s sovereign debt crisis

Sonya Marie Scott

Journal of Cultural Economy, 2019, vol. 12, issue 5, 382-400

Abstract: This paper explores the development of the vulture metaphor in relation to economic ideas, focusing on its reference to vulture funds in post-2001 Argentina. It traces the metaphorical connection between ‘vultures’ and the extraction of debt back to Elizabethan England, to Shakespeare’s poem Venus and Adonis (1593). In the same period, we also see English law’s earliest cases of the predatory purchasing of land titles in order to dispossess the poor. Contemporary cases involving sovereign nations defending against vulture funds have cited case law in the Elizabethan context in order to invoke a moral claim against speculation in distressed sovereign debt. The moral charge of the vulture metaphor – laden with connotations of greed, desire and manipulation – contrasts with legal arguments about repayment based on the rationality of contract law which demands repayment of debt and presumes equality of party. I explore this tension in both historical and contemporary litigation, ultimately focusing upon the performance of position taken by vulture funds, on one side, and the Argentine government on the other, in the ‘case of the century’ – NML Capital v. the Republic of Argentina.

Date: 2019
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/17530350.2019.1613254 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:jculte:v:12:y:2019:i:5:p:382-400

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/RJCE20

DOI: 10.1080/17530350.2019.1613254

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Cultural Economy is currently edited by Michael Pryke, Joe Deville, Tony Bennett, Liz McFall and Melinda Cooper

More articles in Journal of Cultural Economy from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().