Financialization and national populism form a false binary, not opposing forces

Evidence

However, the unmistakably financialized type of today’s nationalist populism appears to be a contradiction in terms. Global capital’s speculative character is most often associated with its tendency to erase national and territorial borders and to upend the nativist mythologies fostered within such borders. What is more, some of the constituencies that come to endorse such seemingly heterogeneous programs are among the most adversely affected by years of continuing market deregulation—­and, as a consequence, vulnerable to the risk and debt plights suffered in the aftermath of the 2008 crisis. For these reasons, the historical convergence between financialization and neopopulism is frequently addressed as a paradox. … Just as the failures of finance-­driven neoliberalism sparked numerous angry revolts against economic and political elites, the forces of financialization reawakened the dormant homo speculans. In doing so, they produced new social and political collectivities, even as they destroyed older ones. Thus, although we have been led to believe that a war has broken out between global finance and the new waves of ethno-­nationalist populism, this is in fact a false binary. — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities, 390

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: The core claim of the chapter — that speculative communities, not class grievances or Polanyi-style double movements, drive the finance-populism convergence — reframes the entire debate about why the 2008 victims support their own exploiters.
• SEED: Potential essay: ‘Why the voter who lost his house cheers the crash’ — using the homo speculans framework to explain how financialized subjectivities produce contradictory political alliances.
• XREF: connects to: Unequal austerity generates populism, nationalism, and violent movement instead of revenue — Mark Blyth, Austerity: The History of a Dangerous…, 63; Political populists and financiers both profit from political uncertainty. — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities: Living with…, 379; The perceived war between finance and nationalist populism is a false binary (+8 more)

Broader Connections

• The perceived war between finance and nationalist populism is a false binary #corroborates (0.98)
• Populist passions animate rather than oppose financial rationality #expands (0.90) — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities, 268
• The rhetorical conflict between ethno-nationalism and financial markets dissolved once populists took power #exemplifies (0.88) — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities, 250
• Nationalism operates as a rationality entwined within financial fields #expands (0.85) — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities, 280
• Polanyi’s double movement misses the speculative imagination of financialized populism #expands (0.80) — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities, 269
• Right-wing populism operates on genuinely material contradictions #expands (0.78)
• Neoliberals rejected the pure state-versus-market binary as a false dichotomy #qualifies (0.72) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 9