ABSTRACT
Financialisation refers to a single class of activities, a ‘continuum’, which admits a full range of degrees with their corresponding impacts, both positive and negative, on the economy as a whole and on agents in particular. We distinguish between finance, the provision of resources for economic activities, and financialisation, when the financial sector increases its signifi cance or weight in proportion to other sectors of the economy, mainly production. As a class of activities or continuum per se, financialisation is ethically neutral. However, there is a certain point past which financialisation turns into a vice. We try to identify that point in relation to the Global Financial Crisis, making use of neo-Aristotelian and MacIntyrean virtue ethics frameworks.
