Odysseus’s cunning mirrors the irrationality of early capitalist exchange

Evidence

Both Marx and Weber, then, begin to offer tentative outlines of homo speculans, the rising hegemonic subject of early finance capitalism, by bringing its inherent contradictions into sharp focus: for Marx the core tension embodied in the abstracting forces of speculation was between fictitious (unreal) and material (real) values, while for Weber the defining conflict was that between the rationality and irrationality of speculative endeavors. For all their merits, however, their analyses do not engage directly with the unique type of imagination cutting through this ilk of contradiction, the profound force thrusting late industrial societies to the dizzying adventure of speculation—what I have so far called speculative imagination. — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities, 146 (#expands, via linked claim)

Through exchange, economic process and economic values emerge simultaneously, because exchange is what sustains or produces the distance between subject and object which transmutes the subjective state of feeling into objective valuation. — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 250 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Odysseus is the prototypical bourgeois hobbyist whose leisure confirms his power over labor; Homo speculans is the rising hegemonic subject of early finance capitalism — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities: Living With…, 146; Adorno located unequal exchange and profit-seeking in ancient Greek trade with barbarians — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 1147 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Psychological destiny mirrors and instantiates the exchange principle of capital #corroborates (0.85)
• Homo speculans is the rising hegemonic subject of early finance capitalism #expands (0.80) — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities, 146
• Economic value emerges through the distance exchange creates between self and object #expands (0.80) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 250
• Adorno located unequal exchange and profit-seeking in ancient Greek trade with barbarians #complicates (0.75) — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 1147
• Early industrial capitalism created homo economicus, a new market-defined subject. #corroborates (0.70) — The Friends of Attention, Attensity!, 460