Speculation was nationalized as patriotic while excluding most of the population.

Evidence

Correspondingly, futures trading was recast not only as ethical but also as a patriotic duty (Preda 2009). By 1917, a range of intellectual, political, corporate, and financial leaders had completed their project of reorienting the US political and economic system around universal (and legitimate) investment in financial securities (Ott 2011, 4)—even as deep conflicts over race and class became mystified and more than half of the US population (people of color, women, indigenous people) remained systematically excluded from these systems. — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities, 133

Categorization

• XREF: Parallels the reader’s own notes on financialized self-presentation and why speculation as universal ‘human nature’ masks structural exclusion.