Category Archives: Broadcast

‘How to Build a Stock Exchange’, a public lecture at The Australian National University (and on ABC National radio!)

In March and April 2025 I was fortunate enough to spend a month in Canberra as a visiting fellow at The Australian National University’s prestigious Research School for Social Sciences. Fine colleagues in the School of Sociology made me welcome and Canberra delighted me, with its lake, trees and hot air balloons. But a highlight was a public lecture I gave on 26 March 2025, recorded by ABC National, and I’m sharing the script here. The radio recording precluded slides, so I’ll add in some images that I might have used. Enjoy!

Update! The lecture was brodcast on ABC National in October. You’ll find it here!

Canberra is famous for its autumn hot air balloon rally!

Good evening, thank you all for coming tonight, and for that generous introduction.  I’d like to thank the Research School for Social Sciences for offering me a fellowship, and the chance to spend a month in Canberra; to the Journal of Cultural Economy for the not inconsiderable contribution of getting me here; and to colleagues in the department of sociology and the department of management for the warm welcome that I have received over the last weeks. Thank you also to ABC Radio National for recording this lecture.   

A generous introduction from Professor Melinda Cooper

I too would like to acknowledge that we are meeting on land belonging to the Ngunnawal (Nunnawal) and Ngambri (nambri) people, to recognise that sovereignty was never ceded, and to pay respect to their Elders past and present.

The acknowledgement of country seems to me, a visitor from the other side of the world, a welcome recognition and acceptance of the difficult history of colonialism. In that same spirit of recognition, I would like to take you from a massacre to a legal trial and a personal connection to the murky history of finance, which can – should you wish – be told as a history of colonial exploitation. Indeed, even if you don’t wish, it still must be.

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Some tools for the brave new world of right now

As we muster our scholarly resources to try and figure out what is what in the brave new world that we have tumbled into – have been tumbling into for a while, perhaps – here are three things from the archives that might have something to say. Two of them are book chapters, so they haven’t had the airtime that they perhaps deserve. They were published a few years ago and so I’m reproducing them here. The third is a BBC radio essay from 2011, The Entrepreneur.

Who Was René Girard? wonders the Wall Street Journal
https://www.wsj.com/articles/evolution-of-desire-review-who-was-rene-girard-1527886927

First up is a chapter I wrote on sacrifice and management, for a collected volume on the works of Rene Girard.

Continue reading “Some tools for the brave new world of right now”

On the ‘Making Money’ podcast with Damo and T

I recently joined celebrity YouTubers Damo and T on their podcast Making Money to discuss the history and ethics of finance, as well as his book How to Build a Stock Exchange. Recorded at a Kilburn kitchen table in June, our thoughtful but light-hearted discussion ranged from the troubles of Thames Water, via the chequered history of London’s stock exchanges, to the politics and possibilities of financial markets, all in search of an answer to the question – is finance evil? That, and should Damo poo in the Thames?

Making Money is a personal finance podcast hosted by Damien Jordan, one of the UK’s biggest personal finance YouTubers, and Timeyin Akerele. It is one of the top business podcasts as well as one of the top investing podcasts in the UK; former guests include Deborah Meaden, Paul Johnson, director of the IFS, Merryn Somerset Webb, and Claer Barret and Martin Wolf from the Financial Times.

The episode was published in August, on the same day that Thames Water hit the headlines yet again, this time with news of record fines for illegal sewage discharges. How very appropriate.

The episode is available on Spotify and other streaming services with the less-provocative title ‘How finance shapes the world’. You’ll find the links here.

Across the Atlantic: on the IPO-VID podcast

Sometimes great things turn up unexpectedly. And so an invitation from the cheerful and startlingly well informed Patrick L Young, ‘former stock exchange CEO, long time derivatives trader, serial entrepreneur and fintech pioneer’ and general man about town. Patrick and I chatted for an hour and had a fun time. It was good to chat to an audience of professionals as well, although I don’t think they expected some of my answers to go the direction they did!

I’m pleased to say that when it comes to the nitty-gritty of setting up an exchange – although I spend the whole book avoiding that topic – Patrick and I had a great deal to agree on.

Patrick’s team also featured How to Build a Stock Exchange in the EI Weekend newsletter available on Medium and Substack. Well worth a look for those interested in actually setting up a financial institution.

Thank you again to Patrick and all his team.

Podcast: Dismantling the construct of finance

Happy Easter everyone! Here’s a little easy listening if you’re relaxing in the sunshine. I’m delighted to be able to share this podcast, put together by Jess Miles and Bristol University Press. Jess and I chatted about the darkly comic world of finance, why it matters to us as citizens, and why we need to understand how it works. I think Jess, as a finance-studies newbie, was convinced. Thanks Jess and BUP for inviting me onto the podcast. I hope you enjoy listening.

BBC Radio 3 Freethinking on Debt

Twas the night before Budget day and all through the house, nothing was stirring but BBC Radio 3 Freethinking and a very excellent discussion on ‘Debt, from the South Sea Bubble to Sunak’. As the nation waited for Chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s next moves on the UK’s crisis ravaged economy, Anne McElvoy hosted a high powered panel: Professor Kenneth Rogoff, Maurits C. Boas Chair of International Economics at Harvard University; Vicky Pryce, former Joint Head of the United Kingdom’s Government Economic Service, Dr Dafydd Mills Daniel, lecturer in Divinity from the University of St Andrews, and of course, your humble correspondent. It was a fun discussion – I hope you enjoy listening!

New Books in Critical Theory: podcast

Some weeks ago my friend and colleague Dr Dave O’Brien interviewed me for a podcast on his New Books in Critical Theory series. I’m delighted to be in such eminent company (not to mention being called a critical theorist) – recent podcasts from William Davies on the happiness industry and Liz McFall on the insurance and credit markets, not to mention the splendid Swedes Isabelle, C-F, and Francis, talking about their recent edited volume on value practices in life sciences (which I’m in!). Listen to them all. So without further ado, here’s the link to the podcast. Thanks Dave!

Does economics leave room for love?

Back in August I recorded an interview for Talking Books on newstalkfm. Susan Cahill, whose show it is, had really got her teeth into my book and asked me all sorts of difficult questions. Why had I used Borges’s fable as a metaphor for economics – no one has ever asked me that before, although fortunately I did have good reasons! So I had to think on my feet a few times, but I think it’s a great interview, all the better for hearing an author really challenged once or twice. And from my point of view, there’s nothing more flattering than having someone take real interest in what you’ve written; that’s true any time, but even better when others can listen to it on the radio. Thanks Susan! The interview was broadcast on 4 October 2015 and you can listen to it here.

Educating economists on BBC Radio 3

How should we teach economics? That’s the question raised by economics students all over the world, who have signed up to a petition for pluralist economics, an economics  in touch with history, philosophy, and (God forbid) the rest of the social sciences. It seems pretty reasonable to me, although students would have to wake up to some tricky problems about the nature of economics science if they got what they wanted. On the other hand, you might say that scientists don’t need to know philosophy of science to be, say, biologists, and that’s true too. Perhaps if you want to study society, you should study sociology, and that’s more or less what Manchester University’s economics faculty said to its students. To me it seems that problem is just as much our expectations of economics, and the place in society that economics expects. Anyway, that’s enough for now; if you want to hear me and Professor Geoffrey Wood arguing the case on BBC Radio 3’s Freethinking, you can do so here.