ABSTRACT
In a context of growing wealth inequalities, this chapter focusses on wealth management to ask: are the activities of wealth managers oriented towards accumulation? The purpose of this contribution is not to suggest that wealth managers don’t pay attention to accumulation, but to highlight that, rather than individual accumulation, wealth managers work to maintain a collective entity that a fortune and a name are attached to. These two proposals share obvious similarities: the maintenance of capital within a group requires accumulation. However, while the first principle focusses on individual estate growth, the second depends on the definition of the group to which the fortune is attached, presupposing an agreement on what needs to be maintained and on a collective referent. I will show that wealth managers not only protect their clients’ assets, but also a more collective status. The chapter is based on two complementary sources: the exploration of more than 250 issues of the professional journal Gestion de Fortune (wealth management) and 37 interviews conducted with wealth managers.
