Speculative finance dominates by co-opting the generative worker imagination.

Evidence

But Marx does not link this powerful framing of the imagination with the conditions of alienating uncertainty (from which imagination emerges), nor does he juxtapose it with the speculative specters haunting the modern polity. As Haiven (2011) has noted, capital’s role can be seen precisely as encroaching on the generative work of this potentially emancipatory imagination by “offering its material manifestations (money, commodities, institutional hierarchies) as the means through which social relations are imagined and negotiated” (103). A close reading of Capital would support this view. Speculative finance exacerbates capital’s dominance over the imagination by increasing its power precisely through curtailing workers’ capacity to produce social value. — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities, 142

Categorization

• XREF: Feeds directly into the reader’s question of whether speculation can be reclaimed—Marx/Haiven here argue capital has colonized imagination, posing the question of whether a counter-speculation is possible. — connects to: Finance’s dominance rests on speculative imagination, not just market rationality. — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities: Living with…, 550; Financialized power conflicts are won by deploying imaginative resources rather than capital; Imagined Communities analysis can be deployed to study financialized capitalism through speculation. — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities: Living with…, 127 (+4 more)