Such an examination draws us into some of the central debates and tensions within the field of cultural studies, a field that has always wagered its explanatory power and political promise on the interpretation of the tensions between structure and agency and, in particular, the dynamic relationship of the broad economic structures of capitalism and the possibilities of thinking, dreaming and acting outside, within or against those systems. It is no exaggeration that, whatever we might say about the nature of its influence over our lives, the global economy is by far the most universal, powerful and interwoven system of power on the planet. People everywhere live and die by their pocketbooks. Local modes of oppression and exploitation, from racism to sexism to ablism to homo- phobia, tend to express themselves most universally in the form of economic privilege or privation and the division of labour. And this is all overseen or superintended by a global financial system that coordinates the global flows of financial wealth and disciplines the global economy. And, while a great deal of attention has been paid to the scourge of neoliberalism, one worries that this term tends to appear (like globalization, and perhaps financialization) as a short-hand for whatever seems worst at the moment. Little importance tends to be placed on a more elaborate consideration of the machinations of the global capitalist economy, of which neoliberalism is an important phase, but by no means the first or the worst.