The social fabric of reproduction is, for lack of a better term, sublime: its scope, complexity, interconnectivity and – in Jameson’s (1981) terms – totality cannot be comprehended by the imagination. As such, in order to reflect, understand and intervene in reproduction, we rely on imaginative or ideological constructs, or social fictions. These are the narratives and metaphors we use to make sense of our place (as individuals, as collectives, as societies), within which we are made to reproduce our lives. These imaginative fictions are central to our ability to cooperate and to act.

Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, loc. 121