But, while authors like Chris Hedges (2009) may associate these facts with the emergence of an “empire of illusion,” I believe there is more to be gained by taking ideas like “imaginary wealth” and “fictitious capital” seriously. So, too, do I believe that, in contrast to insightful authors like Matt Taibbi (2010), Gerald Epstein (2006) and Joseph Stiglitz (2010), financialization is something more than the excesses of a deregulated cleptocracy; like Costas Lapavistas (1999; 2013), Ben Fine (2010; 2012), John Bellamy Foster and Fred Magdoff (2009) and Greg Albo, Sam Ginden and Leo Panitch (2010), I see financialization and its current crises as symptomatic of and integral to the capitalist system of which it is a part.

Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, loc. 34