Trading Truth

ENDORSEMENTS

“Trading Truth forces us to consider how prices become distorted when the hunt for liquidity begins to create its own narratives, supplanting value and truth. Aris confronts readers with the uncomfortable reality that these distortions are now embedded in capital allocation, institutions, politics, and ultimately the fabric of our shared society. In a moment when financialization has outpaced reflection, Aris challenges practitioners to reckon with the responsibility and power behind the prices they help shape and the social consequences that follow.”
–Fahmi Quadir, Founder, Safket Capital

“Allegedly pro-market asset managers have not only made their peace with radical uncertainty: they literally trade on volatility, leaving it to their critics to associate the brave new world created by their speculative bets with an epistemological crisis. Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou does not only provide a clear and compelling account of this remarkable about-face and its sweeping economic and political implications; he also calls upon progressives to develop our own brand of “financial populism”. For the imaginative powers of speculation are far too precious to be left to professional traders.” –Michel Feher, editor, Zone Books; author of Rated Agency

“This is the rare book that changes what you think the problem is. Read it and you will never again treat the conspiracy culture of our moment as separate from the machinery of asset management, crypto, and quantitative trading.”
–Kimberly Kay Hoang, Professor of Sociology, University of Chicago author of Spiderweb Capitalism and Dealing in Desire

“An important book showing that ‘post-truth politics’ cannot be understood without studying the broader socioeconomic transformation of our times, especially the rise of finance. A must-read.”
–Thomas Piketty, Professor, Paris School of Economics; author of Capital in the Twenty-First Century

“Chaos pays. This has political consequences. Komporozos-Athanasiou builds his short and thought-provoking book on this powerful premise. Upending liberal pieties about our present phase as a deviation, he shows how finance systemically creates the distorted market realities that have in turn scrambled our politics. A bracing read.”
–Quinn Slobodian, Professor of International History, Boston University; author of Hayek’s Bastards and Crack-Up Capitalism

“Why has truth become so unstable in our time? Trading Truth offers a bold and startling answer: financial markets do not simply reflect reality; they actively produce it. Moving brilliantly from MAGA and crypto to climate risk, Komporozos-Athanasiou reveals how finance turns uncertainty and distortion into political power. This book is an indispensable guide to financial populism and the epistemic machinery of twenty-first-century capitalism.”
—Kohei Saito, Professor, University of Tokyo; author of Slow Down

“This book proposes a radical shift in perspective: it teaches us that denouncing the manipulation of truth by the far right in alliance with finance is less effective than intervening in the struggle over uncertainty and volatility through which capitalism re-enchants itself. Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou powerfully reframes ‘distortion’, with its alchemical and speculative resonances, as a battlefield over reality. The book offers a compelling reading of finance in its generative capacity, revealing it as a political space where the assignment of value—and therefore of reality—can be contested and reappropriated.” —Verónica Gago, Professor, University of Buenos Aires; author of A Feminist Reading of Debt

“Komporozos-Athanasiou’s Trading Truth is an incredibly clear eyed diagnostic of our current political moment and a trenchant warning about how financial markets have reshaped our politics and our lived experience. But it is not without hope.”
—Konrad Kay, co-creator of Industry

Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou

Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou is Professor of Economy and Society at University College London, where he is Founder and Director of the UCL Centre for Capitalism Studies. His first book, Speculative Communities, was published in 2022 to international acclaim.

His work has been featured in:

• The New Yorker
• El Pais
• London Review of Books Podcast
• Locarno Film Festival
• Deichtorhallen Gallery

He has written for:

• The Guardian
• Die Zeit
• Aeon
• Los Angeles Review of Books

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