Tag Archives: stock exchange

‘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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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.

Harvard Law School, Critical Theory and a spot of Understanding: some podcasts

It’s been a busy stretch and I’ve been bad at posting. So a brief catch up on some podcasts from the summer of 2023.

In August I talked to Professor David O’Brien, University of Manchester, in a podcast for the New Books in Critical Theory network. I’ve known Dave for years and our conversation that ranged from the history of London’s stock exchanges to broader questions about the role of finance in society. He was delightfully complimentary: New Books describes Philip’s book as ‘essential reading across the social sciences and humanities’. The podcast is available here.

June brought an invitation to an ‘online book salon’, New Debates in the Sociology and Political Economy of Finance, hosted by Harvard Law School. I was in esteemed company: I spoke alongside the legendary Professor Donald MacKenzie of the University of Edinburgh and Dr Leon Wansleben of the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies on the topic of ‘visibility and invisibility of finance’. You can catch the whole panel, and the others from the afternoon, here.

And finally, for a spot of ‘understanding’, try this, a contribution to Timon Wunderlich’s new ‘Understanding the World’ podcast. A tall order, perhaps, but we did quite well on stock exchanges. Less well, perhaps, on ‘a controversial opinion’. I couldn’t think of one. ‘But you like chilli pickle for breakfast,’ said Mrs R later on. Well, perhaps.

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.

At the Library of Mistakes, Edinburgh

What a fine place Edinburgh’s Library of Mistakes is – and what a great venue to do my first proper book talk for How to Build a Stock Exchange. Thank you to the Library’s Keeper, Russell Napier, for the invitation and for chairing the session.

Also, I got a brilliant mug!

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.

How To Build a Stock Exchange: Making Finance Fit for the Future

Here’s my new project: a podcast! It’s titled How To Build a Stock Exchange: Making Finance Fit for the Future. It’s a story of stock markets and how they came to be so important in our world. It will feature my own work and showcase the research of the sociological studies of finance as it builds an account of the evolution of financial markets and their place in a responsible, sustainable future. I introduce it as follows:

Finance matters. We’re off to build a stock exchange, but first of all I’ll spend a little time explaining why financial markets matter. This episode explores how financial markets – a crucial mechanism for the distribution of wealth – are implicated in our present political malaise and looks at some of the ways that finance has squeezed us over the last three decades.

Episode One is called ‘Finance Matters and here’s how it starts…

A famous philosopher once said – ‘It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.’ It was Adam Smith, of course, born not far down the road from me in Kirkcaldy, Scotland, and the father of modern economics. He once walked to neighbouring Dunfermline in his dressing gown, apparently, so deep was he in thoughts, musings like this, and ‘Nobody but a beggar chuses to depend chiefly upon the benevolence of his fellow-citizens.’

From those words, published in 1776, a whole global order has sprung. We can call it capitalism, and at its centre lies a strange entity, so much part of our lives that we simply take it for granted.

I’m talking about the stock exchange…

You can find transcripts and audio here, or follow on iTunes, Spotify, or Stitcher.