Algorithmic Capitalism in the Epoch of Digital Reason

Abstract

Algorithmic trading (automated trading, black-box trading, or simply algo-trading) is the process of using computers programmed to follow a defined set of instructions for placing a trade in order to generate profits at a speed and frequency that is impossible for a human trader.The defined sets of rules are based on timing, price, quantity or any mathematical model.Apart from profit opportunities for the trader, algo-trading makes markets more liquid and makes trading more systematic by ruling out emotional human impacts on trading activities.http://www.investopedia.com/articles/active-trading/101014/basics-algorithmic-trading-concepts-and-examples.asp#ixzz4KI3tX5vxA small group of high-frequency algorithmic trading firms have invested heavily in technology to leverage the nexus of high-speed communications, mathematical advances, trading, and high-speed computing.By doing so, they are able to complete trades at lightning speeds.High-frequency algorithmic trading strategies rely on computerized quantitative models that identify which type of financial instruments to buy or sell (e.g., stocks, options, or futures), as well as the quantity, price, timing, and location of the trades.These so-called black boxes are capable of reading market data, transmitting thousands of order messages per second to an exchange, cancelling and replacing orders based on changing market conditions, and capturing price discrepancies with little or no human intervention.-Carol C. Clarke, (2010) "Controlling Risk in a Lightning-Speed Trading Environment: Essays on Issues," The Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, No 27. "Cybernetic Capitalism"Ben Agger was a pioneer.His death on July 14, 2015 was untimely and his passing affected a good many colleagues.His life was a shot in the arm to sociology and political economy.His journal, set up with Tim Luke-Fast Capitalism-is a sociological leader.I was greatly honored to be invited to join the board and although I never met Ben I felt beholden to him as one does to another thinker.The conception of "fast capitalism" is unambiguously political -concerned with the "impact of rapid information and communication technologies on self, society and culture."Agger (1989Agger ( , 2004Agger ( , repr.2016) first theorised fast capitalism and then "faster capitalism" analyzing "domination at the speed of light."As he writes in the Preface:"A decade after I published Fast Capitalism, I started to theorize the Internet as an important moment of Post-Fordist, postmodern capitalism (p.v)."Over the past few years, driven by Agger's examples, I have tried to give different conceptualizations an airing.They have taken the form of a variety of epithets alongside "fast" that attempt to flesh out the original notion adding features of: (i) the application to "fast knowledge" in the universities and the rise of big data and bibliometrics on "performativity" (Besley & Peters, 2008); (ii) the cybersystem such as the algorithm, network, and mathematical modeling that accompanies high frequency trading ("algorithmic capitalism," financialisation and finance capitalism) (Peters, 2013;Peters, Paraskeva & besley, 2015); (iii) "cognitive capitalism" as it is part of a wider conception of cybernetic capitalism based on conceptualizations of digital labor (Peters & Bulut, 20; (iv) cloud capitalism arising Algorithmic Capitalism in the Epoch of Digital Reason

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