| Abstract: | This article investigates the sources of sociability in modern financial systems as a prelude to assessing the prospects for financial regulation. Three sources are identified: sociality dependent upon contract, upon relational interdependency, and upon the operation of will and passion. Each of these would provide its own rationale for regulation but it is the third that is stressed here as a radical conception, one that needs to be more fully addressed than has so far proved possible in an analytical context. And it is this conception that connects most closely to a second overall theme of the article which is to explore further the nature of ‘irrationality’ as manifest in financial crises. When the contours of both these aspects of financial calculation have been elaborated, the article moves on to consider how they might shape regulatory responses to the seeming inevitability of financial crises in modern capitalist economies. |
