In search of relevant financial regulation : some lessons from the gift-economics

This chapter seeks to offer an original interpretation of gift-economy rules in search for an alternative financial regulation. It aims at determining whether gift-economics can provide a relevant analytic direction for an institutional framework in order to design a consistent financial regulation to strengthen systemic stability in market-based capitalist economies. Gift-economics is usually considered in opposition to the economics of market-based capitalist societies since it would rest on holistic dynamics with social and inalienable characteristics while the capitalist economy would develop through individualistic rationality of the homo-oeconomicus seeking personal and alienable (exclusive) wealth accumulation. However, one could consider gift-exchange as a source of the formation of social capital that might not only improve social cohesion but also strengthen individuals' commitments in market exchange relations following the tradition of Mauss and Sahlins. Gift-economy rules are mostly related to reciprocal engagements and can be regarded as some social and cognitive factors able to have corrective effects on the recurrent financial instabilities of capitalist economies. This essay aims at contributing to such a new perspective developing on the destabilising features of a financially liberalised and self-regulation-based economy. It argues that reciprocity-including regulation can be regarded as a holistic mechanism enlarging the scope of collective action in markets, going beyond the usual opposition between constraint-imposing public regulator and social-restriction-avoiding opportunistic private interests. It then suggests a reciprocity rule-based premise that could contribute to an institutional framework apt to provide a consistent financial regulation for a sustainable financial system.