Defining speculative value in the age of financialized capitalism

This article engages with Marx’s and Baudrillard’s accounts of value. In so doing it puts forward a new concept of value: speculative value. If labour, use and exchange forms of value were central to Marx’s account of industrial capitalism, and symbolic and sign value were integral to Baudrillard’s observations of consumer-led capitalism, speculative value is an increasingly important component of financialized capitalism. With reference to financialization’s structural and cultural components, the article explains how speculative exchangers, rather than producers or consumers, now propel finance-led economies and, accordingly, generate speculative value to do so. Through such discussions, the article moves towards defining speculative value more broadly, distinguishing it in relation to earlier value forms.