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Speculation: a political economy of technologies of imagination

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  • Bear, Laura

Abstract

This introduction explores how to build a critical analysis of post-crisis capitalism by moving beyond Marx, Foucault and Callon's approaches. This is crucially important because powerful technocratic institutions and the discipline of economics are attempting to regain legitimacy by adopting theories that mirror performativity, discursive, narrative and network concepts within the social sciences. To combat this we need to forge a new approach that returns our attention to questions of accumulation and inequality. It is with this in view that the articles in the special issue use the concept of speculation and explore it in real estate markets, infrastructure financing, oil and gold trading, ethical finance and gambling. Overall speculation is understood to be future-oriented affective, physical and intellectual labour that aims to accumulate capital for various ends. Control of the means of speculation is governed by the distribution of contracts and credit in society. And crucially the amount of surplus value extracted depends on calculations of risk based on the imagination of social differences. Social evaluations are at the core of the technologies of imagination used in speculation. Speculation is akin to practices of divination or magic because it aims to reveal a hidden order of human and non-human ethical powers that explain the past, present and future and make it possible to act. Importantly this means that racial, gendered, national and other imaginings of the social permeate acts of speculation. From our perspective, we can write a critical and post-colonial account of capitalism that addresses inequalities of race and nation scandalously omitted from Marx, Foucault and Callon's accounts of ‘the economic’.

Suggested Citation

  • Bear, Laura, 2020. "Speculation: a political economy of technologies of imagination," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 103433, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:103433
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    File URL: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/103433/
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Andrea Rissing & Bradley M. Jones, 2022. "Landscapes of value," Economic Anthropology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 9(2), pages 193-206, June.
    2. Breckenridge, Keith & James, Deborah, 2021. "Recentring the margins: theorizing African capitalism after 50 years," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 107530, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    3. Campbell-Verduyn, Malcolm, 2021. "Conjuring a cooler world? Blockchains, imaginaries and the legitimacy of climate governance," Global Cooperation Research Papers 28, University of Duisburg-Essen, Käte Hamburger Kolleg / Centre for Global Cooperation Research (KHK/GCR21).
    4. Carolina Alves, 2023. "Fictitious capital, the credit system, and the particular case of government bonds in Marx," New Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 28(3), pages 398-415, May.
    5. Michael Goldman & Devika Narayan, 2021. "Through the Optics of Finance: Speculative Urbanism and the Transformation of Markets," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(2), pages 209-231, March.
    6. Desiree Fields, 2023. "Speculative urbanism," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 55(2), pages 511-516, March.
    7. Kerry Holden, 2022. "The spectral scientists of corridor B: Neoliberalization and its ghosts in higher education," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 54(2), pages 330-346, March.
    8. Vinay Gidwani & Carol Upadhya, 2023. "Articulation work: Value chains of land assembly and real estate development on a peri-urban frontier," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 55(2), pages 407-427, March.
    9. Helga Leitner & Samuel Nowak & Eric Sheppard, 2023. "Everyday speculation in the remaking of peri-urban livelihoods and landscapes," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 55(2), pages 388-406, March.
    10. Michael Goldman, 2023. "Speculative urbanism and the urban-financial conjuncture: Interrogating the afterlives of the financial crisis," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 55(2), pages 367-387, March.
    11. Helga Leitner & Eric Sheppard, 2022. "Speculating on land, property and peri/urban futures: A conjunctural approach to intra-metropolitan comparison," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 59(8), pages 1655-1675, June.
    12. Daniel Scott Souleles & Matthew Archer & Morten Sørensen Thaning, 2023. "Introduction to special issue: Value, values, and anthropology," Economic Anthropology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 10(2), pages 162-168, June.
    13. Malcolm Campbell-Verduyn, 2024. "Conjuring a cooler world? Imaginaries of Improvement in Blockchain Climate Finance Experiments," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 42(5), pages 782-799, August.
    14. Samuel Nowak, 2023. "The social lives of network effects: Speculation and risk in Jakarta's platform economy," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 55(2), pages 471-489, March.
    15. Helga Leitner & Eric Sheppard, 2023. "Unleashing speculative urbanism: Speculation and urban transformations," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 55(2), pages 359-366, March.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    speculation; capitalism; accumulation; post-coloniality; timescapes;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J1 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics

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