Speculation performs a social function beyond individual risk-taking

Evidence

Uncertainty and complexity do not wholly uproot homo speculans from the social. Speculation has always performed a social function, animating financial markets’ vast networks of codependency and reciprocal obligation. In its most elemental market form, it has determined price formation as a symbolic representation of value and as a reflection of a relationship between economic actors. — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities, 169

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines speculation’s social (relational, symbolic) function as distinct from its purely financial meaning — groundwork for the book’s core concept.
• XREF: connects to: Modern speculation still depends on trader sociality and interdependence, not just risk models. — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities: Living with…, 424; Collective imagination, not individual gamblers, shapes our shared wagers on the future — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities: Living with…, 552; Weber saw the speculator as a charismatic socially embedded figure beyond rational calculation — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities: Living with…, 226