Trading Futures: A Theological Critique of Financialized Capitalism by Filipe Maia

Trading Futures: A Theological Critique of Financialized Capitalism by Filipe Maia

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futures devoured 

A futures contract 
is an agreement that 
requires a party to the 
agreement either to 
buy or sell something 
at a designated 
future date at a prede-

termined price.
—frank fabozzi & 
franco modigliani,
Capital Markets

Financial markets propel the global economy toward the 
future while promising that this maneuver can turn un-

certainty itself into a profit. In the epigraph above, we are 
introduced to the financial mechanism that makes this 
possible. A futures contract suggests that the future holds 
something valuable. It is a contract that designates a future 
date and predetermines the price of a transaction, hedg-

ing that something profitable may come. Under the cur-

rent landscape of global capitalism, these hedges drive our 
economy’s quest for money in an endless projection of 
future scenarios. These are not simply bets. As we shall see 
in this chapter, future-talk makes its appearance in finan-

cial discourse as more than just speculation. The hedges 
made in financial markets situate contemporary financial-

ized capitalism along the edges of future-talk. In the times 
of financialized capitalism, we rush after these futures. But 
in the voracious pursuit of predicting the future, some-

thing more fundamental happens: financial instruments in 
fact constitute our collective futures.
In this chapter I wrestle with the metaphor of a “future 
devoured.” The expression comes from Thomas Piketty’s 

Capital in the Twenty-First Century, the commanding contemporary study 
on economic inequality.
 For Piketty, the twenty-first century has begun with 
a reprise of the socioeconomic scenario of early nineteenth-century west-

ern Europe. His work substantiates this claim with extensive economic data 
from advanced capitalist economies over the past three centuries. As the 
numbers show, capitalism has an endemic disposition to move past wealth 
into the hands of a minority of individuals and then foreclose the possibility 
of fairer distribution levels.
 Occasionally in the book Piketty’s prose lets go 
of the codes of economic calculation to refer to this economic scenario with 
the intriguing image of a future-devouring past. Wealth accumulated in the 
past grows faster than wealth produced in the present. And the future? In 
the quasi-aristocratic context of contemporary capitalism, wealth and power 
harnessed from the past launches itself toward the future in a growing spree 
devouring all within sight.
 What is to come, l’avenir, is devoured.
I should like to supplement Piketty’s forceful claim by asking, Whose
future is being devoured?
A 2014 piece in the New York Times tells the story of Jannette Navarro, a 
barista working at Starbucks in New York City. The work schedule of Ms. Na-

varro, a poor, Latina worker, was managed by technology that can anticipate 
work influx and send out requests for employees so that they come to work at 
any given moment. The Times reports, with some poetic license, “Along with 
virtually every major retail and restaurant chain, Starbucks relies on software 
that choreographs workers in precise, intricate ballets, using sales patterns 
and other data to determine which of its 130,000 baristas are needed in its 
thousands of locations and exactly when.”
 As she reflected on her situation, 
Ms. Navarro confessed that the scheduling of her work hours dictated the pace 
of her entire life—from the hours of her son’s sleep to the type of groceries she 
could afford at the end of the month. For Ms. Navarro, life had turned into a 
“chronic crisis over the clock.” Quite appropriately, the company that provides 
the work-scheduling software is named Kronos. As the god of time, Kronos met 
Ms. Navarro with a future-devouring force. When she started her job at Star-

bucks, she dreamed of completing an associate’s degree in business, moving on 
to a master’s degree, passing a driving test, and buying a car. A month into her 
job, “she had downgraded her ambitions,” the Times reports. “[The] best she 
now hoped for was to be promoted to become shift supervisor.” Working in 
the shadow of Kronos had devoured her aspirations and future possibilities.
What future can indeed survive this devouring appetite that turns every 
single minute into a profitable moment? In what follows, I trace the historical 
development of what scholars refer to as the financialization of capitalism in 

Trading Futures: A Theological Critique of Financialized Capitalism by Filipe Maia