I am not simply arguing that financial wealth is a mere fiction, and for this reason we must distinguish fictitious capital as something significant and unique. All wealth, all value is a fiction, whether it exists under capitalism or any other economic system (see Graeber 2001). Certainly, material culture is valuable, and much of it appears to be intrinsically valuable (things like food and shelter). But the value we ascribe to things is a matter of cultural intercourse. A thing is just a thing until it is backed by a story … Unlike the other social fictions woven by the rich and powerful, these advance through subtle and nuanced harnessing of agency, creativity and the imagination.

Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, loc. 111