The challenges of assets: Anatomy of an economic form

Abstract

In recent years, the terms ‘asset’, ‘assetization’, ‘asset form’ and ‘asset condition’ have gained prominence. Closely related to established notions of financialization and capitalization, they promise novel analytical insights into these processes. Why has assetization assumed such an important role in the social studies of finance, geography, sociology, political economy and beyond, both conceptually and empirically? Introducing our special section on ‘The challenges of assets’, this paper reconstructs current conceptual debates about assetization and argues that the concept addresses the complex temporalities of financialization that are simultaneously contractual, de-risked, guaranteed, speculative and uncertain. The central role of property in the definition of the asset holds an unfulfilled promise to elucidate in empirical terms how legal and political relations buttress financialized capitalism.