Homo speculans originated in Chicago’s futures exchanges and populist movements

Evidence

However, I trace the origins of this subject to the birth of the world’s first formal futures exchanges in late nineteenth-century Chicago—a time and place characterized by fierce political conflicts around speculation, which involved unprecedentedly large swaths of society beyond the market pits in both urban and rural communities (as well as greatly influential populist and labor movements auguring new radical forms of political speculation). — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities, 25

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: Chicago futures speculation as origin story could support the ‘Grafting & Growth’ economic-subject narrative in reverse — speculation as infrastructure.