Citation

Pixley J. Br. J. Sociol. 2014; 65(2): 200-224.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2014, London School of Economics and Political Science, Publisher John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/1468-4446.12070

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Economic theories of uncertainty are unpopular with financial experts. As sociologists, we rightly refuse predictions, but the uncertainties of money are constantly sifted and turned into semi-denial by a financial economics set on somehow beating the future. Picking out ?bits? of the future as ?risk? and ?parts? as ?information? is attractive but socially dangerous, I argue, because money's promises are always uncertain. New studies of uncertainty are reversing sociology's neglect of the unavoidable inability to know the forces that will shape the financial future.

Keywords

finance/money; Hayek; information; Keynes; risk; Schumpeter; Uncertainty