The rationality-irrationality divide in speculation maps onto elite-versus-insurgent conflicts

Evidence

Hayek’s own radical endorsement of the irrational and his stress on the generative force of the unknowable in capitalist dynamics appear all but lost in these accounts. More than a decade after the latest crisis, the tension between rationality and irrationality (and between reality and fiction) that is embodied in speculation seems to define the fault lines of dominant conflicts such as those between experts and publics or between liberal elites and neopopulist insurgents. Speculation, then, is at the heart of today’s political economy and, as we will see, the ground on which capitalism’s new struggles for power are fought. — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities, 66

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s framing of financialized populism: the battle over speculation’s rationality defines today’s political fault lines. — connects to: Speculation’s tension between rationality and irrationality now defines Western political fault lines — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities: Living with…, 100; Maps matching partisan colors can ignite conspiracist suspicion — Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum, A Lot of People Are Saying: The New…, 322