IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v15y2023i4p3707-d1071665.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Finance Must Be Defended: Cybernetics, Neoliberalism and Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG)

Author

Listed:
  • William R. Morgan

    (Department of Rhetoric, University of California, Berkeley 7408 Dwinelle Hall #2670, Berkeley, CA 94720-2670, USA)

Abstract

In the last decade, interest in environmental, social, and governance (ESG) surged dramatically. This article contends that corporate perspectives on ESG—as managing risk and/or returning expected value—are insufficient to account for developments presently unfolding in the ESG finance space. There, novel derivative tools are being developed and deployed, promising to flip the sustainability market on its head. Unlike other sustainability metrics or strategies, ESG derivatives do not attempt to price a given firm’s risk profile in light of the environment, but rather seek to price the risk profile of environmental catastrophe itself. What this translocation of risk prophesies is the direct application of financial engineering to the climate. In this article, re-visiting the late work of Friedrich Hayek and tracing his legacy in Michel Foucault’s lectures on neoliberalism frames my argument that the modern financial system from which these derivatives spring is best understood as a cybernetic one. Cybernetic systems are ones that endeavor to negate entropy and maintain organization by means of information feedback loop-based learning; in finance, this takes the form of Hayekian price discovery. With ESG derivatives, the system of cybernetic finance is presently setting to work converting climate uncertainty into pricing efficiency. Because derivatives such as these represent the polity’s most advanced media for the meaningful sensation of threats, what emerges about the environment from the trade of these products will soon be fed backwards as a powerful set of inputs to governance, shaping how the climate is brought into representation and what responses to its associated crises are possible.

Suggested Citation

  • William R. Morgan, 2023. "Finance Must Be Defended: Cybernetics, Neoliberalism and Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG)," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(4), pages 1-21, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:15:y:2023:i:4:p:3707-:d:1071665
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/4/3707/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/4/3707/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Donald MacKenzie, 2008. "An Engine, Not a Camera: How Financial Models Shape Markets," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262633671, December.
    2. Hayek, F. A., 2012. "Hayek on Hayek," University of Chicago Press Economics Books, University of Chicago Press, edition 1, number 9780226321202 edited by Kresge, Stephen & Wenar, Leif, September.
    3. Yu, Ellen Pei-yi & Luu, Bac Van & Chen, Catherine Huirong, 2020. "Greenwashing in environmental, social and governance disclosures," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 52(C).
    4. Lannoo, Karel & Thomadakis, Apostolos, 2020. "Derivatives in Sustainable Finance," ECMI Papers 29791, Centre for European Policy Studies.
    5. Nathanaël Colin-Jaeger & Thomas Delcey, 2020. "When efficient market hypothesis meets Hayek on information: beyond a methodological reading," Journal of Economic Methodology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 27(2), pages 97-116, April.
    6. Hayek, F. A., 2014. "The Market and Other Orders," University of Chicago Press Economics Books, University of Chicago Press, number 9780226089553 edited by Caldwell, Bruce, September.
    7. Kais Bouslah & Lawrence Kryzanowski & Bouchra M’Zali, 2018. "Social Performance and Firm Risk: Impact of the Financial Crisis," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 149(3), pages 643-669, May.
    8. McFall, Liz, 2014. "Devising Consumption: cultural economies of insurance, credit and spending," OSF Preprints at2nv, Center for Open Science.
    9. Black, Fischer & Scholes, Myron S, 1973. "The Pricing of Options and Corporate Liabilities," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 81(3), pages 637-654, May-June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Timothy Johnson, 2015. "Reciprocity as a Foundation of Financial Economics," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 131(1), pages 43-67, September.
    2. Fiordelisi, Franco & Ricci, Ornella & Santilli, Gianluca, 2023. "Environmental engagement and stock price crash risk: Evidence from the European banking industry," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    3. Timothy C. Johnson, 2013. "Reciprocity as the foundation of Financial Economics," Papers 1310.2798, arXiv.org.
    4. Timothy C. Johnson, 2012. "Ethics and Finance: the role of mathematics," Papers 1210.5390, arXiv.org.
    5. Dold, Malte & Lewis, Paul, 2022. "F.A. Hayek on the political economy of endogenous preferences: An historical overview and contemporary assessment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 196(C), pages 104-119.
    6. Anderegg, Benjamin & Ulmann, Florian & Sornette, Didier, 2022. "The impact of option hedging on the spot market volatility," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 124(C).
    7. Helen Chiappini & Gianfranco Vento & Leonardo De Palma, 2021. "The Impact of COVID-19 Lockdowns on Sustainable Indexes," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(4), pages 1-18, February.
    8. M. Khasi & J. Rashidinia, 2024. "A Bilinear Pseudo-spectral Method for Solving Two-asset European and American Pricing Options," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 63(2), pages 893-918, February.
    9. Gert Meyers & Ine Van Hoyweghen, 2018. "‘This could be our reality in the next five to ten years’: a blogpost platform as an expectation generation device on the future of insurance markets," Journal of Cultural Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 11(2), pages 125-140, March.
    10. Bruce Caldwell & Leonidas Montes, 2015. "Friedrich Hayek and his visits to Chile," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 28(3), pages 261-309, September.
    11. Paul Lewis & Richard E. Wagner, 2017. "New Austrian macro theory: A call for inquiry," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 30(1), pages 1-18, March.
    12. Diogo Lourenço & Mário Graça Moura, 2016. "The Economic Problem of a Community: ontological reflections inspired by the Socialist Calculation Debate," FEP Working Papers 572, Universidade do Porto, Faculdade de Economia do Porto.
    13. Paul Lewis, 2017. "The Ostroms and Hayek as Theorists of Complex Adaptive Systems: Commonality and Complementarity," Advances in Austrian Economics, in: The Austrian and Bloomington Schools of Political Economy, volume 22, pages 35-66, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    14. Ben Abdallah, Skander & Lasserre, Pierre, 2016. "Asset retirement with infinitely repeated alternative replacements: Harvest age and species choice in forestry," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 144-164.
    15. Kau, James B. & Keenan, Donald C., 1999. "Patterns of rational default," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(6), pages 765-785, November.
    16. Carol Alexandra & Leonardo M. Nogueira, 2005. "Optimal Hedging and Scale Inavriance: A Taxonomy of Option Pricing Models," ICMA Centre Discussion Papers in Finance icma-dp2005-10, Henley Business School, University of Reading, revised Nov 2005.
    17. Jael, Paul, 2015. "Socialist Calculation and Market Socialism," MPRA Paper 64255, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Filipe Fontanela & Antoine Jacquier & Mugad Oumgari, 2019. "A Quantum algorithm for linear PDEs arising in Finance," Papers 1912.02753, arXiv.org, revised Feb 2021.
    19. Jun, Doobae & Ku, Hyejin, 2015. "Static hedging of chained-type barrier options," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 317-327.
    20. Gordian Rättich & Kim Clark & Evi Hartmann, 2011. "Performance measurement and antecedents of early internationalizing firms: A systematic assessment," Working Papers 0031, College of Business, University of Texas at San Antonio.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:15:y:2023:i:4:p:3707-:d:1071665. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.