Financial innovation rhetoric frames new financial instruments as technological progress to legitimize deregulation

Evidence

The prospect of the government serving as market-maker of last resort presumably cannot be extended indefinitely, which brings us to the final long-game component of the full-spectrum brace of policies: the crisis analogue of geoengineering for neoliberals is the equally science-fiction prospect of financial innovation as the mode of ultimate deliverance from economic stagnation. Just as with geoengineering, the policy consists more of insubstantial promise than in demonstrated capabilities; but it plays an important pivotal political role nonetheless. The prophets of financial innovation are at pains to portray the invention of new pecuniary instruments, practices, and products as on a par with the science-based innovation of new physical technologies; in other words, it is the very apotheosis of the market coming to terms with an evolving nature. Indeed, one of the first people to promote the notion of financial innovation as a phenomenon commensurate with technological change was the Chicago neoliberal economist Merton Miller, again demonstrating direct affiliations with the thought collective. Miller himself admitted that much of the motive for this innovation was to avoid or circumvent prior regulations; but later discussions tended instead to stress purported improvements in general welfare, on the same footing as welfare gains from enhanced solar cells or combustion engines. — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 953

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the geoengineering-as-full-spectrum-policy analogy the reader has been tracking across the chapter’s long-game components. — connects to: Shadow banking is framed by its apologists as natural banking evolution — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 570; Financialization accelerated through 1970s-80s deregulation and state support — Andrew deWaard, Derivative Media: How Wall Street…, 488; Modern financial markets are deliberately designed entities — Donald MacKenzie, An Engine, Not a Camera: How Financial…, 1235 (+3 more)
• SEED: Angle: how the financial-innovation-equals-technology conflation pre-empts political critique by recasting speculation as science.

Broader Connections

• Modern financial markets are deliberately designed entities #expands (0.78) — Donald MacKenzie, An Engine, Not a Camera, 1235
• Financialization accelerated through 1970s-80s deregulation and state support #expands (0.75) — Andrew deWaard, Derivative Media, 488