Assetization extends from social reproduction into nature and ecological reproduction.

Evidence

Once focused on assetization processes, political economy inquiry is also attuned to the movement of present-day financialized capitalism beyond social reproduction, and onto the terrain of nature and ecological reproduction (Ouma et al., 2018). The creation of ‘social-ecological “assets”’ - that is, ‘a proliferating set of social, natural, or socio-ecological constellations such as land, nature, collective intellectual products, and the like’ (Andreucci et al., 2017: 30) – is highlighted by recent research into the political economies of rent, for example. This is something that Ouma (2016) illustrates very effectively in relation to the production of farmland as ‘a new asset class’. Similarly, as Sullivan (2018) shows for the development of conservation finance, the complex calculative framing of nature as ‘natural-capital’ is driven by a logic of investment that results in nature being more or less literally assembled as ‘a bank of financial assets’ (p. 56). Indeed, assetization is actually a core problem in the wider-ranging development of ‘green’ or ‘carbon finance’, the financial sector that is seeking to mobilize investment for climate change mitigation and adaptation (for review, see Bridge et al., 2020). Carbon finance is beset by the difficulties of valuing carbon and turning it into an asset; that is, how to make a specific carbon sequestration initiative or low-carbon investment project valuable, able to bear debt and capable of generating returns to investors. — Paul Langley, Assets and Assetization in…, 34

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines ‘social-ecological assets’ and reframes assetization as the process of making nature a bankable asset.
• XREF: Connects to the reader’s financialization corpus and to carbon markets literature; assetization as the operative logic for green finance resonates with assetization as ‘current logic’ theorizing. — connects to: Assetization analysis reveals how nature and society get incorporated into financialized capitalism. — Paul Langley, Assets and Assetization in…, 43; Material and social reproduction occur simultaneously and inseparably; A society’s project of mastering nature becomes exclusive and totalizing once institutionalized. — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the…, 99 (+6 more)
• ADDENDUM: Bears directly on the ‘Grafting & Growth’ piece: nature assembled as a bank of financial assets is the flip side of trees as living infrastructure — the same ecological substratum being priced and securitized.
• SEED: Angle: ‘the carbon asset’ as the paradigmatic struggle — how do you make a gram of sequestered carbon bear debt? A finance-story about the machinery of valuing invisibility.

Related

• Assetization analysis reveals how nature and society get incorporated into financialized capitalism. (similarity 0.88)
• Assetization supersedes commodification and marketization as the key analysis of financialized capitalism. (similarity 0.81)
• Assetization better captures financialized capitalism than commodification or marketization concepts. (similarity 0.81)
• Understanding value as assetization requires analyzing political economy, not just applying STS to finance. (similarity 0.79)
• Financialization lets capital extract value from social life without destroying its creative source ecosystems (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Assetization analysis reveals how nature and society get incorporated into financialized capitalism. #expands (0.90) — Paul Langley, Assets and Assetization in…, 43
• Material and social reproduction occur simultaneously and inseparably #corroborates (0.80)
• Financialization lets capital extract value from social life without destroying its creative source ecosystems #expands (0.80) — Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, 572
• Capitalism shapes selfhood, ecology, and institutions well beyond economics #expands (0.80) — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 69
• Capitalism’s material system is interwoven with cultural reproduction #corroborates (0.75) — Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, 122
• The drive to dominate external nature extends inward to the human self #expands (0.75)
• A society’s project of mastering nature becomes exclusive and totalizing once institutionalized. #complicates (0.70) — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 99
• Reproduction serves an economic function at both societal and family scales #corroborates (0.70) — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 1098
• Resisting capitalism requires a subjective revolution toward love and unity with nature #expands (0.70) — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 499