Finance for the Common Good

The Capital Market doesn’t get much love these days. It is viewed with suspicion in many quarters, and graduates who take jobs related to finance are described as “selling out.” Rather than defending them on their own terms, many seem to think that they are valuable as a means to achieve other—largely unrelated—social goals. This Article, adapted from a pair of lectures in the first quarter of 2024, pushes back against these perceptions. It explains the vital role that the capital market plays in our society and cautions against grafting on secondary objectives.

Rather, efforts to regulate the capital market should focus on furthering its primary function so as to promote the common good it already serves.