Over time, individuals have used tools of finance to increase their own personal and familial holdings, to seek education, and to begin gaining equity stakes in their own homes, among other pursuits. Corporations have used finance to capitalize new business ventures, to provide funds for investment in research and development, and to expand into new markets. Finance, through its various instruments and practices, has thus enabled people to make manifest their ambitions and has allowed creative ideas to flourish in competitive markets. Finance, in essence, serves as the organizing principle that provides for vigorous economic activity and wealth generation in societies where it functions properly and, as such, “it can be used to help broaden prosperity across an increasingly wide range of social classes.” Given this capacity to broaden prosperity for all, finance should be used as a tool of wealth democratization if it is to stay true to its terms of original instantiation
