How finance is governed: reconnecting cultural and political economy

ABSTRACT

Although cultural economy scholarship has highlighted the inherently speculative character of economic action and argued that regulation is often imbricated with (rather than independent from) the speculative logics of economic life, it has stopped short of pursuing the implications for the problematics that have traditionally occupied political economists. To pursue such an analysis, this paper suggests a reframing of the theme of performativity in terms of Luhmann’s understanding of self-reference, arguing that this provides a useful window on the connection between speculation and governance. It then develops these insights by reconsidering Minsky’s work, arguing that in terms of his postfoundationalist sensibilities he may be closer to being a ‘cultural economist’ than a ‘political economist’ and that this deeply shaped his understanding of financial authority and central banking. The paper also argues that, by connecting these insights to Hayek’s critique of rational constructivism, we may get a clearer perspective on the specifically ‘neoliberal’ character of contemporary finance and its governance. In this way, it develops a perspective on political economy questions of public authority and statehood that is informed by the concerns of cultural economy.

KEYWORDS:

• Cultural economy
• political economy
• performativity
• speculation
• governance
• neoliberalism
• radical constructivisim
• finance

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Martijn Konings is Associate Professor in the Department of Political Economy at the University of Sydney. He is the author of The development of American finance (Cambridge University Press, 2011), The emotional logic of capitalism: What progressives have missed (Stanford University Press, 2015), Neoliberalism (with Damien Cahill, Polity, 2017), and Capital and time: For a new critique of neoliberal reason (Stanford University Press, 2018). With Melinda Cooper, he edits the Stanford University Press series Currencies: New thinking for financial times.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Australian Research Council [grant number DE120100213].