All economic value, not just financial value, is a social fiction

Evidence

I am not simply arguing that financial wealth is a mere fiction, and for this reason we must distinguish fictitious capital as something significant and unique. All wealth, all value is a fiction, whether it exists under capitalism or any other economic system (see Graeber 2001). Certainly, material culture is valuable, and much of it appears to be intrinsically valuable (things like food and shelter). But the value we ascribe to things is a matter of cultural intercourse. A thing is just a thing until it is backed by a story, and this is as true of the value of a loaf of bread as it is of the value of an Andy Warhol print, an hour of a massage therapist’s time, or a futures contract. While there is political and rhetorical utility in contrasting the hyperbolic wealth of the financial sector with the emaciated “real economy,” the reality is that all value is a fiction, a story about what is valuable used to shape social cooperation. The reason why the idea of fictitious capital is useful is because it draws our attention to the way that finance foments and depends on the production of social fictions. It is fictitious not simply because it is a fiction, but because it helps transform the social fictions that order social cooperation. It is productive of fictions and reproduced by fictions. — Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, 111

Categorization

• DEFINE: Distinguishes fictions capital from mere financial fiction: it is fiction that actively transforms and reproduces the social fictions ordering cooperation.
• XREF: Directly relevant to the reader’s goal of bridging to deWaard’s cultural argument — this is Haiven’s core claim that finance is cultural production. — connects to: Financial wealth is fictitious yet real because shared fictions govern social reproduction — Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, 42; Money as arbitrary fiction can only represent real social labour — David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity: An…, 612; Social fictions are how societies make sense of sublime reproduction — Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, 121 (+1 more)
• ADDENDUM: Complements the sacrifice article’s theme that value and order are socially constructed through shared stories.

Broader Connections

• Financial wealth is fictitious yet real because shared fictions govern social reproduction #exemplifies (0.95) — Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, 42
• Money as arbitrary fiction can only represent real social labour #exemplifies (0.85) — David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity, 612
• Social fictions are how societies make sense of sublime reproduction #exemplifies (0.75) — Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, 121
• Economic transactions are embedded in complex moral relations, not just rational numbers #qualifies (0.75) — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 1043