(Aglietta, 1979; Jessop, 1995; Tickell and Peck,
1992). In its most sophisticated variants, then,
regulation theory was always sensitive to society
and culture.
As regulation theory was adopted and devel-
oped by social scientists beyond the original
group, it tended to focus on the state, the spatiali-
zation of the economic and – in cruder variants
which did much to discredit the approach – the
supposed ‘post-Fordist’ mode of growth. A
re-engagement of culturally sensitive analysis with
regulation theory would build upon a dialogue
that Michel Aglietta has been engaged in with
anthropologists since the early 1980s (Aglietta
and Orléan, 1982; 1998; see Grahl, 2000, for an
English language review). Aglietta’s account is
distinctive because not only is it economically
literate and resistant to liberal fallacies, but he
embeds his theories within the political, social
and cultural and vice versa: ‘Far from being an
appendix of the real economy, finance is the
nervous system of the economy as a whole’ (1988:
113; quoted in Grahl, 2000). In recognition of
this, some of the original architects of regulation
theory have begun to explore the capacity for a
new economic-social model to coalesce and
cohere: that of a financialized mode of capitalism
(for example, Aglietta, 1998; Boyer, 2000a;
2000b; see also Froud et al., 2000). This entails
subjecting to critical enquiry the micro-, meso-
and macro-economic and cultural changes where
finance has appeared to impose its logic. Can we,
for example, talk of a financialized mode of
growth? Is such a mode economically and/or
politically sustainable? How do imperious
cultural norms stabilize and transform finance?
Such a venture is not unproblematic. While
regulation theory has frequently been misread as
both crudely economically determinist and
simply a theory of Fordism, it is true that most
regulationists implicitly adhered to a belief that
economic processes should ultimately subordi-
nate others (Gibson-Graham, 1996). Further-
more, analyses based upon identifying coherence
over years and decades run the risk of crudely
imposing form where there is none and empha-
sizing difference rather than continuity (Thrift,
1989). And yet, just because a venture is risky
and potentially problematic does not mean that it
should not be attempted. While ultimately extant
regulationist accounts of financialization are par-
tial, as with their earlier accounts of Fordism
they do provide a useful reminder that the econo-
mic, the social and the cultural are intertwined.
For example, a regulationist approach may note
the widespread and growing tendency in western
capitalist countries for the logics of finance
to penetrate social life and subject it to criticalinterrogation as to the economic sustainability of
the process. Yet, for this to develop force, it
would also need to explore the cultural specifi-
city of the process (the form of financialization is
different in different geographical contexts, and
there are varying degrees of resistance to the
supremacy of finance); the ways in which the
framing of the rules at the micro level cascades
through the economy; and the ways that narra-
tives construct and naturalize the place of
finance. Therefore, this should not simply be a
regulation theory which visits the twenty-first
century through the lens of Fordism, but one
which attempts a coherent integration of cultural
and economic analysis, drawing upon Boltanski
and Chiapello (1999) whose explanation of
cultural and economic change argues that inherent
in the creative, Schumpeterian, nature of capital-
ism is a capacity to feed off its critics: ‘The main
agent in the creation and transformation of the
spirit of capitalism is its critique’ (1999: 555; see
also Guilhot, 2000; and Tilly, 1999).NOTESI would like to thank my section editor, Trevor Barnes, for
his forbearance at the extreme delay in finishing this
chapter and the adept way that he dealt with the first draft.
Thanks too to ESRC for their support for some of my work
on finance through the research grants ‘Regulating finance:
the political geography of financial services’ and ‘Hard
borders and soft geographies: reregulating global finance’
(with Gordon Clark). The contents, of course, remain my
responsibility.
1 This is written with a degree of envy by someone who
tried – and failed – to do the same.
2 In some cruder political economic accounts, global
financial institutions directly correspond to Marx’s
dictum that the modern state is ‘but the executive com-
mittee of the bourgeoisie’. Van der Pijl (1998), for
example, sees the IMF and the OECD simply and
largely unproblematically as tools of international
financiers.
3 Derivatives have existed for agricultural products for
over 400 years, although they became formalized in
Chicago in 1848.
4 Indeed, in spring 2001 I interviewed one of the authors
of Dow 36,000who remained convinced of the utility
of the analysis and insisted that the 'correction' during
2000 and 2001 was an aberration along the way to
higher share values.
5 Like all good economists, Thaler and his colleagues
have set up a fund management company which incor-
porates their theories of investor behaviour (see
http://www.fullerthaler.com ).
6 This has strong resonances with the insights of Fligstein
(1990; 2001), who argues that social relations within
and between firms and their relationships with the126 THE CULTURE OF ECONOMY3029-ch05.qxd 03-10-02 10:31 AM Page 126