Mostly Economics

A long post by Servaas Storm. But we know this narrative of how finance controls pretty much everything we do today.

The shift in financial intermediation from banks to financial markets, and the introduction of financial market logic into areas and domains where it was previously absent, have not just led to negative developmental impacts, but also changed the ‘rules of the game’, conduct and outcomes—to the detriment of ‘inclusive’ economic development and in ways that have helped to legitimize—what Palma (2009) has appositely called—a ‘rentiers’ delight’, a financialized mode of social regulation which facilitated rent-seeking practices of a self-serving global financial elite and at the same time enabled a sickening rise in inequality. Establishment (financial) economics has helped to de-politicize and legitimize this financialized mode of social regulation by invoking Hayek’s epistemological claim that (financial) markets are the only legitimate, reliably welfare-enhancing foundation for a stable social order and economic progress.

….

Rather than letting financial markets discipline the rest of the economy and the whole of society, finance itself has to be disciplined by a countervailing social authority which governs it to act in socially desirable directions. One famous account in the Talmud tells about Rabbi Hillel, a great sage, who when he was asked to explain the Torah in the time that he could stand on one foot, replied: “Do not do unto others that which is repugnant to you. Everything else is commentary.” If there is a one-foot summary of the literature reviewed in this introduction, it is this: “Finance is a terrible ‘ephor’, but, if and when domesticated, can be turned into a useful servant. Everything else is commentary.”

I don’t think this was the vision of markets which Hayek gave us. The markets are heavily regulated with numerous conflicts of interest present across the entire chain.