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Abstract

Capitalism is an economic and social order oriented toward the future. This chapter describes the unfolding of the temporal order of capitalism and relates it to the restless dynamism of capitalism observed since the Industrial Revolution. As the future is open, actors are confronted with the uncertainty of the outcomes of their decisions. What can expectations be under conditions of uncertainty? To answer this question, the notion of fictional expectations is introduced, which can be used to describe decisions made under conditions of an open and uncertain future. The concept of fictional expectations is applied to analysis of four crucial processes of capitalism: money and credit, investments, innovation, and consumption. The main thrust of the chapter is that we will only understand economic action in capitalism if actors’ perceptions of the future take center stage. Not only “history matters,” but also “the future matters.”