Finance is socially and politically generative, not merely economically exploitative

Evidence

This book’s distinct innovation is to tie these developments to a set of deeper transformations undergirded by modern-day finance, which I consider to be both socially and politically generative. The notion of speculative communities I develop is not just an economic metaphor but a concept that will help me stitch together different repertoires of responses to radical uncertainty and frame the distinct forms of dwelling in the present’s queasy volatility. Rather than simply a critique of finance, then, the contribution I endeavor to offer in what follows is a broader conceptual framing of modern capitalist society as a whole. — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities, 22

This book’s distinct innovation is to tie these developments to a set of deeper transformations undergirded by modern-day finance, which I consider to be both socially and politically generative. The notion of speculative communities I develop is not just an economic metaphor but a concept that will help me stitch together different repertoires of responses to radical uncertainty and frame the distinct forms of dwelling in the present’s queasy volatility. Rather than simply a critique of finance, then, the contribution I endeavor to offer in what follows is a broader conceptual framing of modern capitalist society as a whole. — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities, 22

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines ‘speculative communities’ as a full conceptual frame for capitalist society, opposing finance-as-fragmentation critiques.
• QUESTION: Reader should test whether this ‘generative’ framing is politically productive or concedes too much to finance when assessing the counter-speculations chapter.
• XREF: Directly serves the reader’s task of explaining ‘homo speculans’ as a whole-society framing rather than an economic metaphor. — connects to: Understanding value as assetization requires analyzing political economy, not just applying STS to finance. — Kean Birch, Rethinking Value in the Bio-economy:…, 115; Finance can unwittingly generate political connections among marginalized people.; Finance may revitalize democratic community rather than only undermine it — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities: Living with…, 396 (+12 more)
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities: Living With…, 22