Abstract
In a capitalist system, consumers, investors, and corporations orient their activities toward a future that contains opportunities and risks. How do actors assess the future if this future is open and uncertain? This chapter demonstrates how fictional expectations drive modern economies. Collectively held images of how the future will unfold are critical because they free economic actors from paralyzing doubt, enabling them to commit resources and to coordinate decisions even if those expectations prove inaccurate. Since they are not confined to empirical reality, fictional expectations are also a source of creativity in the real economy.
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Notes
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These include the division of labor, technological advances, institutional change, commodification processes, exploitation, the increase in production factors, and religious developments. The deep crises capitalism has witnessed again and again are attributed to over-accumulation, political wrongdoing, lack of investment and consumption, psychological factors, and miscalculations of risk.
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Beckert, J. (2020). Capitalism: Anticipating the Future Present. In: Coste, JH., Dussol, V. (eds) The Fictions of American Capitalism. Palgrave Studies in Literature, Culture and Economics. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-36564-6_3
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