Mobilising the social sciences to rethink finance

Since the beginning of the 1970s, orthodox financial theory has established itself as a dogma, capturing the imagination of the financial world, imposing its principles, and in this way providing legitimacy to a single model for the organisation – and thus the regulation – of the finance industry. Yet, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, the industry has become more than ever a common good, and all those involved need to act for the good of society. For this reason, finance should be studied by all the social sciences. This cross-disciplinary approach is the only one that makes it possible to understand the powerful complexity of its social, political, and ideological dimensions. What needs to be promoted, ten years after the financial crisis, is how the social sciences can be used collectively to develop a new conception of finance. What follows is based on the book we have just published, The Making of Finance: Perspectives from the Social Sciences. We present the wealth of social studies of finance and reveal the fabric of the financial system, with the aim of contributing to the democratisation of knowledge in this field.