Speculative communities emerge from collective imagination, not individual gambling

Evidence

The book has traced a key historical shift—from neoliberal capitalism’s totemic homo economicus to a more socially embedded homo speculans—to demonstrate this pivotal, if elusive, role of the speculative imagination. Speculative communities, I contend, are not the sum of individual gamblers and opportunists. Beneath individual struggles for survival in the face of growing insecurity, collective imaginations shape our shared wagers on the future. — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities, 357

Categorization

Category: Definitional Content

• DEFINE: This is the precise definition of homo speculans — the core concept the reader needs to be able to explain.
• SEED: Could anchor an essay contrasting homo economicus vs homo speculans as rival anthropologies of modern capitalism.

Related

• Collective imagination, not individual gamblers, shapes our shared wagers on the future (similarity 0.91)
• Homo speculans replaces homo economicus as contemporary capitalism’s characteristic subject (similarity 0.90)
• A collective speculative imagination shapes how capitalist societies cope with future uncertainty. (similarity 0.87)
• Speculative communities arise from the tension between financial imagination and neoliberal reason (similarity 0.87)
• Economic theory has neglected homo speculans while fixating on homo economicus. (similarity 0.87)
• Homo speculans is the rising hegemonic subject of early finance capitalism (similarity 0.86)
• Homo speculans pursues connectivity and secular mythologies, not gratification (similarity 0.86)
• Speculative imagination is a generative social force integrated into everyday capitalist life (similarity 0.86)
• Speculative imagination is willingness to stake on future uncertainty despite scarce resources. (similarity 0.85)
• The spirit of capitalism shifts from risk-taking to uncertainty-endorsing speculation. (similarity 0.84)
• Homo speculans is the subject that replaced rational homo economicus after 2008 (similarity 0.84)
• Speculation re-enchants social groups by projecting failed promises onto shared visions of the future (similarity 0.84)
• Speculative imagination, not just disciplined capital, drives capitalism forward (similarity 0.84)
• Finance is socially and politically generative, not merely economically exploitative (similarity 0.84)
• Forced speculation is collective yet its costs fall unevenly across populations (similarity 0.84)