Conspiracy functions as speculative insurance and wager, not mere irrationality

Evidence

My contention, however, is that even the most “maximalist” and “pathological” practices of speculation embody a political dynamic that should not be dismissed altogether. If, as we have seen, speculation is predicated on the sociality of trading interdependencies and reciprocal obligations, conspiracy has a similar capacity to satisfy societies’ yearnings for connection. And as with all types of speculation, it encompasses both an insurance (in the form of orienting myths that offer a sense of narrative to otherwise baffling and destabilizing events) and a wager (that seeks to yield returns from such destabilizing events). For these reasons, Bridle (2018) provocatively suggests that conspiracy can be “the extreme resort of the powerless” (205), or in the terms of this book, a longing to “be seen” and rise above the haze of uncertainty enveloping financialized life. — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities, 331

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s trading-floor-to-politics migration thesis; conspiracy is the pathological endpoint of speculation-trained public. — connects to: Conspiracy theories are necessary lymph, not sickly disease, of politics — Joseph E. Uscinski and Joseph M. Parent, American Conspiracy Theories, 841; Conspiracy thinking parallels speculation by providing narrative insurance and wagers on destabilizing events. — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities: Living with…, 510; the MOC “The Viral Refinery: How Preexisting Fringe Fears Get Smelted Into Mainstream Reality”
• SEED: Could be an article angle: conspiracy as the powerless man’s speculative position, mirroring commodity futures as the powerful man’s.