A world without finance is currently unimaginable, because finance is now synonymous with financialization. In this context, finance no longer refers to longstanding mechanisms that grease commerce such as short-term commercial debt (purchase orders, etc.) or long-term debt to finance the construction of new assets (mortgages, etc.)

A world without finance is unimaginable because the economy's "growth" and soaring inequality are now totally dependent on financialization. Finance is no longer about greasing commerce and the construction of assets, roles it played for thousands of years; finance is now a vast skimming machine for the few to enrich themselves at the expense of the many, a set of swindles that skims from what remains of the productive economy to benefit financiers, corporations and speculators.

In other words, finance is nothing more than a parasitic system that has wormed its way into every nook and cranny of the economy. Where finance represented a few percent of the entire economy in previous decades, it now accounts for roughly 20% of the economy: nothing but churn.

Finance sells its "services" as hedges, but this is merely PR cover for predation. Finance creates no real-world goods or services; it is a structure of exploitation that is more like a criminal syndicate than a sector of the economy.