Schemas of Uncertainty

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A fundamental characteristic of the free market is its uncertainty; this being the precondition for speculation and thus the source of a considerable amount of profit. Not surprisingly, this attribute of the market has been nurtured, and over the twentieth century the global economy has undergone a general process of ‘Financialization’. Financialization itself represents the increasing domination of “fictitious capital” within the global economy, an autonomous production of money primarily managed by banks and untethered to any physical production of goods or services. As Max Haiven describes it, “Incarnated in debts, shares, and a diverse array of financial products whose weight in our economies has considerably increased, this fictitious capital represents claims over wealth that is yet to be produced. Its expansion implies a growing pre-emption of future production.”1 This ‘wealth-that-is-yet-to-be’, although situated in the future, is drawn in into the present, via the price of sto

I A fundamental characteristic of the free market is its uncertainty; this being the precondition for speculation and thus the source of a considerable amount of profit. Not surprisingly, this attribute of the market has been nurtured, and over the twentieth century the global economy has undergone a general process of ‘Financialization’. Financialization itself represents the increasing domination of “fictitious capital” within the global economy, an autonomous production of money primarily managed by banks and untethered to any physical production of goods or services. As Max Haiven…

Schemas of Uncertainty

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