Prior scholarship missed the political speculation of agrarian Populists in bucket-shop conflicts

Evidence

De Goede (2005) and Fabian (1999) offer the most detailed accounts of this historical conflict about the moral legitimacy of speculation and gambling that I am aware of. De Goede’s approach provides important insights into the discursive means by which the former dominated over the latter. However, it does not consider the underlying imaginations driving the opposing moral arguments, nor the role of political speculation among the emerging constituencies of farmers and agrarian Populists during that time. Fabian also sketches a rich history of slave labor, racial violence, and class politics as key aspects of the legitimacy conflicts leading to the ascendancy of speculative capitalism. For both scholars, these dramatic conflicts herald the dominance, legitimation, and dissemination of the twentieth century’s “economic rationality.” — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities, 417

Categorization

• QUESTION: The gap Komporozos-Athanasiou names — the political speculation of farmers and agrarian Populists driving legitimacy debates — is exactly the historical root of financialized populism worth tracing.
• XREF: connects to: Early solar advocates’ humanitarian arguments failed to attract corporate or state backing — Adam Rome, The Bulldozer in the Countryside:…, 226; Agrarian populists were modernists blocked from speculation rather than moral critics of it — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities: Living With…, 131; The rhetorical conflict between ethno-nationalism and financial markets dissolved once populists took power — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities: Living With…, 250 (+6 more)
• yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: Early solar advocates’ humanitarian arguments failed to attract corporate or state backing — Adam Rome, The Bulldozer in the Countryside:…, 226; Agrarian populists were modernists blocked from speculation rather than moral critics of it — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities: Living With…, 131; The rhetorical conflict between ethno-nationalism and financial markets dissolved once populists took power — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities: Living With…, 250 (+6 more)

Broader Connections

• Agrarian populists sought access to hedging, not the abolition of speculation. #expands (0.92) — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities, 131
• The rhetorical conflict between ethno-nationalism and financial markets dissolved once populists took power #complicates (0.72) — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities, 250