Progressive politics can weaponize speculative methods against finance capitalism

Evidence

Chapter 6 further develops these insights into the political implications of the speculative imagination. I consider the radical and transformative possibilities embodied in speculative communities by posing a seemingly paradoxical question: can “alternative facts” spur on progressive alternatives to capitalism? Returning to some of the key theoretical arguments developed in previous chapters, I identify possible routes for such re-imaginings that include practices of more inclusive myth-making and collective action that seeks new ways to exploit the politics of ambivalence and unsettledness. I offer evidence that speculative communities of the post-Trump, post-Brexit era develop methods of counter-speculation: a speculative politics that does not simply resist the all-encompassing specter of finance but wields it against oppressing structures in all realms of social, political, and even intimate life. — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities, 41

Categorization

• QUESTION: Core question for the reader’s assessment: does his ‘counter-speculations’ chapter genuinely reclaim speculative imagination for the left, or does reusing finance’s own tools concede too much?