Speculative capital inflicts violence on the Global South that no state can regulate

Evidence

“There seems to be no way to characterize the real effects of speculative capital on Latin America, Africa, and other points on the economic periphery,” LiPuma and Lee claim, “other than as violence.” This “abstract violence … is intrinsic to the financial circulatory system … it damages and endangers the financial circulatory system… . [I]t damages and endangers the welfare and political freedoms of those in its path, and does so without ever revealing itself.” Furthermore, this violence “is external to politics, law, or any claims shaped by the state or its citizen-subjects.” Derivatives markets may appear outside of our purview, whether as average citizens or media scholars, but their impact is very real and very dangerous. — Andrew deWaard, Derivative Media, 161

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: The formulation of ‘abstract violence’ that operates invisibly, outside politics and law, yet damages welfare and political freedoms is a dense paradigm concept worth sitting with.
• SEED: An essay angle: the media scholar’s dilemma of invisible financial violence - how do you depict or analyze a harm that never reveals itself, a violence outside representation?