Speculation’s moral triumph over gambling rested on discursive framing rather than underlying imagination

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. — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities, 616

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: The ‘gambling versus speculation’ moral boundary dispute parallels the immodesty moral panics in ‘Complaints About Immodesty Go Way Back’ — both are class-loaded legitimacy fights over who gets to define what is respectable.
• XREF: connects to: Neoliberalism inverted the moral status of gambling from vice to virtue — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 345; Risk discourse retroactively moralizes outcomes whose causality it denies beforehand — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 342; The legitimate investor is distinguished from the gambler only by a socially constructed discourse — Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, 327 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• The legitimate investor is distinguished from the gambler only by a socially constructed discourse #corroborates (0.93) — Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, 327
• Black-Scholes rhetoric replaced ‘gambling’ with ‘efficient pricing’ in options discourse #exemplifies (0.87) — Donald MacKenzie, An Engine, Not a Camera, 705
• Legitimacy of speculation was fought over competing forms of imagination #complicates (0.85) — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities, 188
• Risk discourse retroactively moralizes outcomes whose causality it denies beforehand #expands (0.82) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 342
• Neoliberalism inverted the moral status of gambling from vice to virtue #expands (0.80) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 345