Curbing the Absolute Power of Disembedded Financial Markets: The Grammar of Counter-Hegemonic Resistance and the Polanyian Narrative

Abstract

Engaging Nancy Fraser’s elaboration of Polanyi’s narrative, Ferrara argues that in our century the preponderance of finance over the “real economy,” the resurgence of rent and the virtualization of the economy lead to a new kind of “absolute power,” exerted by disembedded financial markets, against which the remedies that once curbed absolute power prove ineffective. The prospect for resistance against neoliberal hegemony is discussed with reference to Fraser’s views on social movements difficult to place within the Polanyian “double movement” and to her articulation of a “triple movement,” that combines elements of non-domination, negative liberty, and solidarity in new constellations. Attention is focused on the subjects of counter-hegemonic resistance and the novel entwinement of the legal and the political as terrains of resistance.