I mean the obvious answer to this nerd is that the world of Dune is distinctly not capitalist. The empire is a feudal institution, planets are personal fiefdoms, and all those in positions of power are not concerned with capital or money so much as they are prestige and power. The spice trade on Arrakis is more similar to something like the Chinese imperial salt monopoly (a state backed monopoly where most of the rents were used to fund the imperial coffers) than resource extraction under capitalism, albeit a Chinese salt monopoly that involved the Chinese colonising a distant land and using it for the sole purpose of salt extraction. The state in Dune is not concerned with capital formation or expansion, the nobles are not concerned, and while there are certainly merchants and traders (as there are in most polities) they are tangential to how the system operates and are not the ones who determine state policy. A "real universe" does not imply that capitalism exists in all places at all times, this guy is just too enmeshed in capitalist realism to understand that the kind of stuff he's saying only makes sense in a capitalist context.

Do I look like I give a goddamn about capitalism?

Business people don't have the creativity to imagine a world that runs on something other than derivatives of derivatives of markets

Combine Honnete Ober Advancer Mercantiles (CHOAM) was one of the major galactic organisations in the time of the Corrino Empire and later the Atreides Empire, a gigantic monopoly encompassing all forms of commerce across the Imperium which essentially controlled all economic affairs across the cosmos, although it relied upon the Spacing Guild for transport across space due to the Guild's monopoly on faster-than-light travel. CHOAM touched almost all products the Guild will transport, from art forms to technology and of course melange. Many Houses depended on CHOAM profits, and an enormous proportion of those depended on melange. Most economic ventures were conducted through CHOAM, in which the Imperial House, the Landsraad, and Bene Gesserit and the Spacing Guild all had a stake.
CHOAM directorships were the real evidence of political power in the Imperium, passing with the shifts of voting strength within the Landsraad as it balanced itself against the Emperor and his supporters. Directorship in the CHOAM was the key to wealth, each noble House dipping from the company's coffers whatever it could under this power.

Something something monopolistic tendencies of capital, I am on my hands and knees begging these bozos to just read a fucking book

I don't see how adding a futures market on top would make the spice less scarce. All you are doing is creating inequality. The total spice remains the same.

I think market nerds forget that markets themselves are a form of rationing.

If there are 1000 people and 1000 pieces of bread, a perfectly fair system would give one piece of bread to every person. In market system, the amount of bread remains the same except it's rationed based on purchasing power. So if bread costs $1 and 50% of the population has no money while rest have $2, then the "Rich" could buy double the bread.

it's literally space feudalism stfu theres no banks only guilds and nobles

"Why doesnt Corrino the largest of the Great houses, not simply eat the other great houses?"

Also spice was always a scarse resource since you can only get it from arrakis no markets would have fixed that.

The only person with limited Imagination is the guy that sees space feudalism and doesnt understand why it isnt like capitalism

By the way, using profits from Arrakis to build bigger army was exactly what Atreides were doing, and why they accepted the fief change in the first place. But they had mere weeks at best before Harkonnens struck them.

If anything, Herbert at times expressed overinterest with finances, like in that scene where Paul and Jessica agree to distribute some water to needing Fremen in the Stilgar troop, in the middle of the desert after fight, and in response hear the ridiculously out of place bank talk.

Because there's literally a powerful order that controls everything and prevents that exact sort of thing from happening to maintain control.

Because it's a metaphor for oil.

Why doesn’t Paul invest in WormCoin? Is he stupid?

Let me just explain to the barely-human navigator why he should let me gamble with the substance me needs to survive ... Aaaaand I've been marooned on a baren moon.

Lol they have all this time to post bullshit on twitter but no time to read the book. They live in a post capital monopoly owned system called CHOAM and it is corrupt, surprise!

Get a load of Numbers Fuckstein over here trying to bridge the gap into ruining fictional economies by financialisation.

Short answer: if Dune was written by Robert Hoenlein, spice-investing would be the entire plot. Don Draper-Ass white guys talking about financing in offices.

There are not enough lockers in the universe to shove this nerd into.

“You mean to tell me that the success of the Golden Path hinges on a bunch of fucking bond traders?”

I read the first two sentences and was so bored i had to close it immediately

D-did they read the book at all?!

Great way to artificially inflate the price of spice. Enjoy a visit from the Sardaukar.

but... like... you can't gamble with somebody sitting in a bathtub filled with spice for so long they turn into a fish so they can literally see the future...

I got the general manager of my company to nope out of a finace talk by pointing out there's plenty of profits in the company to pay for projects outright - wouldn't even hurt the company any or increase rates to our customers. Yet the way the company is structured we would rather take out a bond, have to pay interest on it, and significantly increase rates to customers. Seems inefficent.