SPECIAL ISSUE ON KNOWLEDGE IN PRACTICE From Rats to Riches: Game Playing and the Production of the Capitalist Self

This article examines Cashflow, a board game that readers of best-seller financial success books play in order to learn the basics of investing and to enhance their financial skills. Cashflow is a fictitious market, in which players buy and sell assets with the ultimate goal of becoming “financially free.” Based on participant observation of clubs in the United States and Argentina, and drawing on the ideas of performativity and governmentality, the article focuses on four topics. First, the role of the game in establishing definitions of what it means to be rich. Second, the development of calculative tools. Third, players’ work on the self, through which they explore what may be fostering or limiting their chances of financial success. Finally, the work done by players to fit the game with reality, which allows the game to be used in different national economic contexts.