Prada links the financialization of the economy with the inflation and vaporization of the concept of freedom. The latter, he says, was done to assist the former. This might sound confusing but this is what it means in simple terms.
We all know that the Great Recession took place in 2007-9. We all felt or at least observed its effects. But we can’t explain why it happened. Or rather, we can explain it emotionally but we don’t understand the mechanics. The economy had severed its attachments to the physical reality and moved into “the space of flows”. It’s no longer about who makes the best tangible physical products. It’s about who is best at the obscure machinations with “financial instruments”. Normal people can’t remotely understand how these “instruments” work but those instruments have an enormous impact on our lives.
A parallel process took place with the idea of freedom. People used to seek (and defend and die for) specific freedoms aimed at clear, well-defined goals. A freedom of religion to worship God. A freedom of speech to speak truth. A freedom of national self-definition to preserve a culture and a language. But now freedom is not sought for a purpose. It’s sought for its own sake that nobody attempts to explain or understand. Like the freedom for a man to “breastfeed” a baby. Nobody asks or explains why it’s needed. Why is it necessary to be free to do it? For what purpose?
Or the freedom to invite drag queens to read to kids. People are really attached to that one. But why? Why is it necessary? What is the purpose? So much effort is expended for something extremely unnecessary and, frankly, deeply boring.
The opening up of the idea of freedom, Prado argues, ties people to a pursuit of a growing array of these very earthly “freedoms” just as capital flies away into the ether, taking much of our property (which is necessary for any actual freedom) with it.
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