2008’s crisis installed speculation as the defining modern economic subjectivity

Evidence

Homo speculans: the modern hegemonic subject of finance capitalism and successor of the rational homo economicus. Its origins lie in the genesis of the nineteenth century’s formal futures and derivatives markets, but it resurfaces as a much more salient agent after the 2008 global financial crisis, emboldened by a powerful, resurgent speculative imagination. Homo speculans is an economic actor but also a social and political subject, whose struggles, desires, and imagination give shape to our modern speculative communities. — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities, 25

Categorization

• XREF: Contrasts with homo economicus of classical economics; connects to the reader’s finance-capitalism reading thread. — connects to: The 2008 crisis invalidated the preceding thirty years of financial orthodoxy — Mark Blyth, Austerity: The History of a Dangerous…, 133; Speculation now pervades economic, social, and political life as an imagined collective enactment — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities: Living With…, 85; Markets gained legitimacy as experts lost it after 2008 — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities: Living with…, 113 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Speculation now pervades economic, social, and political life as an imagined collective enactment #expands (0.85) — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities, 85