The legitimate investor is distinguished from the gambler only by a socially constructed discourse

Evidence

Susan Strange (1997), the late but legendary figure in the development of international political economy, coined the term “casino capitalism” in 1987 to describe the then-new changes in government and supra-national policy that would, in time, come to be known as neoliberal deregulation. For Strange, the coordinated and sustained ideological and political attack on Keynesian financial regulation threatened to unleash a Pandora’s box of speculative gambling, fraud and malfeasance, hot money and, as a result, political and economic instability. … Strange’s neologism sought to dramatize the impact of these changes by collapsing what Marieke de Goede (2005) has shown to be a central tension in the development of finance since the Early Modern period: the distinction between investment and gambling. … De Goede has demonstrated that central to the legitimacy of stock markets, investment banks, and other financial firms and practices has been a discourse that makes a (largely artificial but highly functional) separation between games of chance, which see the virtueless gambler subordinate himself to fortune’s whims, and the quasi-science of finance, wherein the prudent and discerning investor applies reason and skill to taming and dominating fortune (see also Aitken 2014). — Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, 327

Categorization

• XREF: This investment-vs-gambling distinction parallels the financialization-of-daily-life argument deWaard develops — the cultural legitimacy of finance rests on this discursive seam. — connects to: Speculation’s moral triumph over gambling rested on discursive framing rather than underlying imagination — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities: Living with…, 616; Neoliberalism inverted the moral status of gambling from vice to virtue — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 345; Economists’ endorsement legitimated derivatives markets that regulators viewed as gambling — Donald MacKenzie, An Engine, Not a Camera: How Financial…, 1135 (+7 more)
• DEFINE: Defines ‘casino capitalism’ as Strange’s term for the speculative gambling unleashed by neoliberal deregulation.

Broader Connections

• Critical finance studies treat markets as discursively constituted rather than merely material #corroborates (0.90) — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities, 578
• Economists’ endorsement legitimated derivatives markets that regulators viewed as gambling #corroborates (0.88) — Donald MacKenzie, An Engine, Not a Camera, 1135
• Black-Scholes rhetoric replaced ‘gambling’ with ‘efficient pricing’ in options discourse #exemplifies (0.85) — Donald MacKenzie, An Engine, Not a Camera, 705
• The Black-Scholes model legitimized options trading by rebutting gambling stigma #exemplifies (0.85) — Donald MacKenzie, An Engine, Not a Camera, 703
• Neoliberalism inverted the moral status of gambling from vice to virtue #expands (0.82) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 345
• The saver-investor ideal is structurally unavailable to most people #complicates (0.78) — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 34
• Financialized practice depends on genuine play and autonomy, not just hegemony #complicates (0.75) — Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, 389
• Financialization establishes ideological dominance of individual profit over collective interests #expands (0.72) — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities, 109
• Finance is socially and politically generative, not merely economically exploitative #expands (0.72) — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities, 22