Financial assets are largely imaginary, yet imaginary does not mean unreal

Evidence

Today, financial exchanges represent a massive proportion of the globe’s economic activity, especially in highly “developed” nations, where financial services has emerged as among the most “productive” sectors of the economy. Yet the primary product and medium of this “industry” is immaterial, speculative and promissory: the manipulation of risk, probability, market differentials, insurance and, essentially, belief. While defenders of the sector might claim that all these digital financial ephemera are merely the good-faith representations of real-world wealth, the truth is that financial assets are, in large part, imaginary. But imaginary, in my reading, does not mean unreal. — Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, 29

Categorization

• XREF: Directly parallels the claim that financial markets trade on belief, as in the Black-Scholes performativity literature and deWaard’s cultural argument. — connects to: Finance’s dominance rests on speculative imagination, not just market rationality. — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities: Living with…, 550; Financial asset prices reflect speculative circulation, not underlying real value — Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, 80; Two dominant frames treat financial wealth as either real value or pure illusion — Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, 41 (+7 more)
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, 29

Broader Connections

• Financial wealth is fictitious yet real because shared fictions govern social reproduction #corroborates (0.90) — Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, 42
• Financial asset prices reflect speculative circulation, not underlying real value #corroborates (0.85) — Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, 80
• Two dominant frames treat financial wealth as either real value or pure illusion #expands (0.80) — Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, 41
• Asset prices can embed subjective probabilities of events that never actually occur #exemplifies (0.80) — Donald MacKenzie, An Engine, Not a Camera, 1587
• Financialization makes belief in value more central than ever #expands (0.75) — Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, 400