Throughout the history of western civilisation, hostility towards finance and financiers has been a recurrent theme.

This hostility has its origins in the idea that those who make a living out of lending money are somehow parasitical to what is now known as the "main street" economy. Since the development of modern capitalism during the second half of the 18th century, financial scandals and crisis have been frequent enough to make finance seem a cause of poverty and instability rather than an agent of progress.