Product Description
by M. Haiven (Author)
Financialization not only refers to the incredible power of the financial sector over economics and politics; it also refers to the creep of financial ideas, metaphors, narratives and measurements throughout society and culture more broadly. Examining a wide range of examples and case studies, Max Haiven argues that, at the same time that popular culture and everyday life are increasingly saturated by a financial idiom, the financial sector as a whole is more deeply invested than ever in everyday life and culture writ large. From the security culture of Walmart to children's play with Pok?mon trading cards, from the hype around the 'creative economy' to the economics of austerity and precariousness, this book seeks to reveal financialization at work where we might least expect to find it. In an age when seemingly imaginary financial assets determine the fates of whole economies, Haiven suggests that we take the idea of 'fictitious capital' seriously as a way to understand the power of finance, and what might be done to stop it.
Author Biography
Max Haiven is a post-doctoral fellow in the Department of Art and Public Policy at New York University and teaches at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in Halifax. His research focuses on the fate of the imagination under contemporary forms of capitalism. His work on the imaginative dimensions of finance and the broader social trend towards 'financialization' has appeared in leading journals including Social Text, Cultural Studies, and Mediations. He is guest editor of a special issue of the journal TOPIA on 'The Financialized Imagination and Beyond'. His work on the radical imagination and social movements has appeared in journals including Cultural Critique, Cultural Studies, Critical Methodologies, and The Review of Education, Pedagogy and Cultural Studies.
