Financialization is how society gets liquidated into marketable commodities
Evidence
Financialization, then, can name the overarching process by which the massive neoliberal wave of value enclosure is facilitated, comprehended and measured. I have borrowed the notion of “liquidity” to speak to the way the financial sector both advances and measures the liquidation of society into marketable commodities (tangible and intangible), or, in other terms, the depth and extent to which all social institutions, forms, spaces and processes – spheres of social value – are re-encoded, disciplined and measured by economic value. The contemporary financial realm is both a reflection and a motor of the seepage of neoliberal capitalism into almost all spheres of social life. — Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, 566
Categorization
- DEFINE: The working definition of ‘financialization’ and the key ‘liquidity/liquidation’ pun-nexus — precision essential to the reader’s stated goal.
- XREF: Core definitional bridge to deWaard’s cultural argument; also resonates with the liquidity tropes common in finance discourse. — connects to: Financialisation also colonizes non-economic spheres via valuation techniques. — Ève Chiapello, Financialisation of Valuation, 15; Finance creates intangible commodities that exist only through valuation techniques — Ève Chiapello, Financialisation of Valuation, 104; Financialization ultimately represents markets displacing social institutions as society’s organizing principle. — Gerald F. Davis & Suntae Kim, Financialization of the Economy, 98 (+9 more)
- DEEPTHINKING: The double meaning of liquidity — finance’s liquidity as measure of the liquidation of social value into commodities — is a dense, paradigm-organizing move worth sitting with.
Broader Connections
- Assetization analysis reveals how nature and society get incorporated into financialized capitalism.
#expands(0.82) — Paul Langley, Assets and Assetization in…, 43 - Financialization colonizes culture through diffuse metaphors, narratives, and techniques
#expands(0.78) — Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, 35 - Financialization redraws who supplies life’s basic needs, shifting welfare from state to markets
#qualifies(0.78) — Natascha van der Zwan, Making Sense of Financialization, 64