Derivatives resist public scrutiny precisely because they lack legible concrete form.

Evidence

The derivative is not like the previous features, which are at least graspable in terms of typical relationships like ownership and investment. In contrast, “the derivative is the perfect capitalist invention,” argue Edward LiPuma and Benjamin Lee, “because it seems to have no concrete form sufficiently legible and visible to allow it to become a sustained subject of conversation in the public sphere.” Though derivatives were at the heart of the financial collapse in 2007-8, even still they remained a little-understood phenomenon, what then treasury secretary Tim Geithner called “the complicated spaghetti of the derivatives market.” As the financial crisis fades from cultural memory for many, so too has the momentum to come to terms with the dramatic impact of derivatives markets, “the heart of calculation and competition within a capitalist economy.” — Andrew deWaard, Derivative Media, 156

Categorization

• DEFINE: Frames the derivative’s defining abstraction and how that abstraction erases public accountability — context for tracing it into cultural form.
• XREF: Connects to the Frankfurt School’s point about how dominant financial forms escape critique by being illegible — echoes Adorno on reification.