Since 2000 northeastern Madagascar's subsistence‐based communities have registered record profits thanks to a boom in vanilla and rosewood exports. Yet, rather than saving or investing these returns, much of the local earnings were spent in “hot money” sprees on cold beer, gambling, and other forms of immediate consumption. Far from being illogical or unproductive, hot‐money spending and other practices associated with export economies help local communities navigate the volatility of global markets and domesticate foreign demands. Although these tactics come from the margins of global capitalism, they represent an acute cultural expression of some of the most sophisticated dynamics found at its core. [export economies, money, tactics, globalization, consumption, vanilla, rosewood, Madagascar]

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Rosewood has become the world's most trafficked group of endangered species, with global seizure values surpassing that of ivory, rhino horn, and big cats combined. This is almost entirely attributable to growth in demand from China over the past two decades. Since 2000, classical rosewood furniture that dates back to the Ming Dynasty has been revived as a hot cultural commodity. This article explores China's recent rosewood renaissance, which has brought annual market sales up to nearly $26 billion. In contrast to accounts that attribute Chinese demand for endangered species to the conspicuous consumption of a rising elite, I focus on the speculative aspect of the demand. I argue that China's rosewood boom is largely the result of speculative investment that functions as a "cultural fix" to the country's growing problem of capital overaccumulation. As with Harvey's spatial fix, a cultural fix pioneers new productive outlets for the accumulation of surplus value. Unlike Harvey's spatial fix, however, a cultural fix seeks these new productive outlets in cultural realms-specifically, through the mutual convertibility of cultural and economic capital, as defined by Bourdieu. Given the oversaturation of more conventional investment avenues, Chinese investors have increasingly turned to rosewood and other culturally important endangered resources, such as ivory, rhino horn, and tiger parts, as a new outlet for the accumulation of surplus value. More than conspicuous consumption, China's rosewood boom is the result of rampant financial speculation resulting from a cultural fix.

Environmentalists have long been concerned about the rate at which China is consuming and trading in threatened and endangered wildlife. The recent COVID-19 global pandemic has made wildlife consumption an issue that concerns everyone around the world. Formerly obscure practices like wet markets and commodities like pangolin scales or bear bile have gained international notoriety. Along with that attention has come increasing politicization and ideological polarization. Beyond the global fight against the pandemic, there has been another global struggle over the meaning and origin of the disease, as evidenced by the spread of terms like “Wuhan Flu” and “bat soup.” What has become obscured by the news cycle struggling to keep up with the rapid spread of the virus and the political sound and fury surrounding it is any meaningful understanding of China’s wildlife consumption and trade. Deeply ingrained in Chinese culture and history, the wildlife trade is not going away anytime soon. Despite a national ban, already wet markets are returning across China. Addressing the wildlife trade in China, we argue, requires first understanding it.

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