Financial Literacy; Political and Economic origins and its Function in Market Economy

There is a connection between emergence of every concept or theoretical construct and socio-economic conditions. Theoretical concepts never emerge from isolation they are products of material social life. There is no exception for financial literacy as a theoretical concept. So, In this paper, for explaining and dissecting financial literacy from different perspectives it is tried to illuminate the political and economical context of its emergence and also to determine its relation with other theoretical categories such as Neoliberalism, commodification, marketisation, market economy and efficient market. It is intended to describe financial literacy by specifying its place and role in the architecture of our current socio-economic system. In doing so, the link between financial literacy and financialization is examined and for outlining financialization inevitably we resort to reasons behind the origin of Neoliberalism. Then, the proposed definitions of, the methods and strategies used for measurement of financial literacy and also most important findings of researches on it are reviewed.