bnarchives | Most explanations of stock market booms and
busts are based on contrasting the underlying ‘fundamental’ logic of the
economy with the exogenous, non-economic factors that presumably distort it.
Our paper offers a radically different model, examining the stock market not
from the mechanical viewpoint of a distorted economy, but from the dialectical
perspective of capitalized power. The model demonstrates that (1) the valuation
of equities represents capitalized power; (2) capitalized power is
dialectically intertwined with systemic fear; and (3) systemic fear and
capitalized power are mediated through strategic sabotage. This triangular
model, we posit, can offer a basis for examining the asymptotes, or limits, of
capitalized power and the ways in which these asymptotes relate to the
historical and ongoing transformation of the capitalist mode of power.
