City Research Online

Abstract

Political economists continue to imagine the twentieth century in terms of three interlocking transformations: the neoclassical revolution in economics, the political triumph of neoliberalism, and the financialisation of the world economy. In his new book, The Sexual Economy of Capitalism, Noam Yuran tells a completely different story, identifying an obscene financial kernel already present at the dawn of modern capitalism and tracing the effects of its later blooming across a wide range of contemporary settings. In this essay, I develop an exaggerated version of Yuran’s narrative, drawing particular attention to the theoretical and philosophical implications of an obscene perspective on financial life today.

Publication Type:	Article
Additional Information:	© The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Finance and Society Network. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided that no alterations are made and the original article is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained prior to any commercial use and/or adaptation of the article.
Publisher Keywords:	history of economic thought, libidinal economy, financial eroticism, financial nihilism, philosophy of history
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HB Economic Theory H Social Sciences > HG Finance
Departments:	School of Policy & Global Affairs School of Policy & Global Affairs > Department of International Politics
SWORD Depositor:	Symplectic Administrator

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