Homo speculans replaces homo economicus as contemporary capitalism’s characteristic subject

Evidence

The book has traced a key historical shift—from neoliberal capitalism’s totemic homo economicus to a more socially embedded homo speculans—to demonstrate this pivotal, if elusive, role of the speculative imagination. Speculative communities, I contend, are not the sum of individual gamblers and opportunists. Beneath individual struggles for survival in the face of growing insecurity, collective imaginations shape our shared wagers on the future. — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities, 357

Homo speculans: the modern hegemonic subject of finance capitalism and successor of the rational homo economicus. Its origins lie in the genesis of the nineteenth century’s formal futures and derivatives markets, but it resurfaces as a much more salient agent after the 2008 global financial crisis, emboldened by a powerful, resurgent speculative imagination. Homo speculans is an economic actor but also a social and political subject, whose struggles, desires, and imagination give shape to our modern speculative communities. — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities, 10

Categorization

• DEFINE: Names and defines homo speculans as the historically new speculative subject and stresses its collective, socially embedded character.
• XREF: Contrasts with homo economicus familiar from classical political economy and rational-choice theory; connects to the reader’s Milgrom rational-actor material. — connects to: Debt functions as a capture of subjects’ future time under contemporary capitalism — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 1666; Mainstream financialization critique sees homo politicus vanquished by an all-consuming homo economicus — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities: Living With…, 73; New Deal progressivism and patriotic speculation jointly created homo speculans. — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities: Living With…, 135
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities: Living With…, 357; Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities: Living With…, 10