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At the same time, observing financial knowledge in action means tracing its forms and boundaries within society at large, identifying its intermingling with other forms of knowledge, and its broader implications. To a considerable extent, the sociological tradition distils this knowledge into figures or types, whose positions within society embody the boundaries of social activities.

I will not undertake the Sisyphean enterprise of exploring the whole range of figures enumerated above. Instead, I will focus on a core set of economic figures, on the premise that they belong not only to sociology’s conceptual toolbox, but are also relevant with respect to how the boundaries of (or barriers against) finance are set. Among the attempts to define economic life under capitalism by the figures it generates, at least the following are prominent: (1) the manufacturer, (2) the accumulating capitalist, (3) the religious capitalist, and (4) the entrepreneur. Adam Smith’s manufacturers, as well as Joseph Schumpeter’s and Werner Sombart’s entrepreneurs, belong to (1) and (4), respectively.2 Karl Marx’s and Max Weber’s respective figures of capitalists are examples of (2) and (3). Their authors saw them not as byproducts, but as key with respect to the capitalist order: they are the individual counterpart and the source of the entity called capital. Moreover, these figures do not appear only as contingent on particular (economic or social) developments, but as occupying a central place in their respective conceptual schemes for explaining capitalism.

They take specific positions with respect to finance, and these positions are intrinsic to the boundaries of the latter. Be it absolute opposition, continuity,exemplarity, or contiguity, such a position is intrinsic for how finance is understood in relationship to the broader society.

Finance Adam Smith, Boundaries, Broader Society, Byproducts, Capitalism, Capitalist, Capitalists, Conceptual Schemes, Continuity, Counterpart, Economic Figures, Economic Life, Financial Knowledge, Joseph Schumpeter, Karl Marx, Marx Weber, Max Weber, Social Developments, Sociological Tradition, Werner Sombart

An investigation of the boundaries of finance emerging at about the same time as sociology cannot avoid questioning how the latter saw the former: how do emerging sociological views on the capitalist order deal with financial markets? This question goes beyond the mere exercise in the history of sociological ideas: it concerns both conceptualization (what notions have explanatory force) and observational mode (how shall we see finance in the context of capitalism).1 It also concerns the nature and character of financial knowledge and its relationship to other forms of social knowledge, as well as to specific social groups.

For many theorists, observation of (economic) knowledge in action meant, among other things, identifying its manifestations on the individual level, its expressions in human types and the related categories of action. It meant finding paradigmatic figures embodying the main principles of finance, figures which constitute the link between this domain and the larger sphere of life and connect individual modes of action to broader social processes. And indeed we encounter in the sociological tradition a continuous preoccupation with the figures generated by the modern order: the expert, the public man, the consumer, the intellectual, the scientist, the writer, the artist—these are only some major examples.

Yet the feeling persists that no account of life under capitalism would be complete without taking into account the main figures of economic life,simply because, since the eighteenth century, these figures have been in creasingly perceived as the focal point of both society and individual lives. In the words of Charles Taylor, “the affirmation of ordinary lives is part of the background to the central place given to the economic in our lives” .

Business Affirmation, Charles Taylor, Conceptualization, Economic Knowledge, Economic Life, Eighteenth Century, Financial Knowledge, Financial Markets, Focal Point, Ordinary Lives, Preoccupation, Principles Of Finance, Public Man, Social Groups, Social Knowledge, Social Processes, Sociological Ideas, Sociological Tradition, Sociological Views, Theorists