Of course, I could well be accused of making too fine a point. The examples of resistance outlined here can, of course, be contrasted with more effective and hopeful forms of resistance, notably the (quasi-)socialist developments of state and civil society power in Latin America under the banner of the Bolivarian Revolution over the last decade, or the growth of populist far-left parties in Europe, or the rise of the Occupy Movement and the Movement of the Squares. I am not among those who delight in the perpetual discovery of how all that we believe is resistance is actually merely a function of the system. My hope here, however, is to caution against a simplistic understanding of financialization as something that can be resisted easily or in isolation. Today’s financial sector is an elemental and inseparable part of a highly complex and contradictory capitalist system. If we are to conceive of and practise a form of resistance adequate to the challenges we now face, it cannot be based on the celebration of resistance for its own sake, a tendency common to both cultural criticism and protest culture.

Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, loc. 551