The political economy of the left has emptied the space of critique. It has articulated an unusual combination: bureaucratic centralism aligned with the expansion of financialization. If, as Marx claimed, historical events appear first as tragedy, the contemporary institutional left—especially in Latin America—has staged a neoliberal play. This has fueled delusion, much captured by the far right. This situation has demanded engagement with the public intellectual role in the Latin American—particularly Brazilian—tradition, in which critical theories have been tied to social forms of resistance against political and economic power. When such powers are reorganized within left-wing programs and governments, engaged intellectuals must confront their field. In this article, we draw on Ruy Fausto’s reflection on the misdirections of the left in its processes of bureaucratization and institutionalization to assess the limits of reformism, the question of left unity, and the conciliatory project with the accumulation regime. From this dialog, we propose taking the critique of financialized capitalism seriously through the decentralization of socialist alternatives, capable of resisting both the homogenizing force of financialization and its top-down imposition by the institutionalist left.

In this special issue, we unpack law and finance entities and consider their co-construction, entanglement and interchanging relationship. Adopting a processual sociology lens, we aim to connect micro-technical devices and controversies to the macroscopic big picture of financialized capitalism. We combine analytical tools from pragmatic sociology, emphasizing how social reality and institutions are (re-)enacted through trials, with a dynamic and historicized sociology of the state and the juridical field. Four avenues illustrate our research program on the sociology of financial law. First, we focus on how this juridical space is co-produced by public and private forces, organizations and initiatives. Second, we look at how financial law displaces and endogenizes core regalian purposes traditionally associated with the state. Third, we show the forms of asymmetries that pervade law enforcement in financial cases. Fourth, we address how power intervenes in normal and exceptional times, such as financial crises. The legal and financial co-production of political regimes shapes economies and legitimate forms of social distribution.