All I can find is older Marxist theory or current books written from a lib side of things. I’d love a book that covers the current state of financialization from a Marxist point of view.
All I can find is older Marxist theory or current books written from a lib side of things. I’d love a book that covers the current state of financialization from a Marxist point of view.
Thanks for the long write up! I'll admit I'm coming to the topic with a fairly limited understanding of this stuff, but I'm starting to fill in the gaps. Appreciate the effort here.
I checked out Michael Robert's blog a few months ago and found most of his posts had some expectation that you understand something fundamental about economics (modern or otherwise) that made it hard to penetrate.
Yes I agree, for example his research is mostly about trying to find more evidence in favor of the falling rate of profit as the underlying reason for the cyclical economic crisis in capitalism it is assumed the reader knows at least the fundamental of Marx labor theory of value.
Michael Hudson is much more approachable, you can find him a lot more publicaly on YT and he talks a lot more casualy about this stuff. You can get a different perspective from him. For example this is one of him on YT Michael Hudson on Financial Capitalism and Modern Monetary Theory
It is a good video but when he begins to describe the history of industrial capitalism(@12:30) it becomes completely ahistorical. Yes material conditions improved but those weren't in the self interest of capitalists but concessions in light of the socialist movements and the USSR.
Then it gets worse because exactly when these concessions, regardless of the underlying motivations if you want to concede this point, these concessions became unsustainable, it eroded profit margins therefore neoliberalism is the ultimate act in the self interest of industrial capitalists. You'd think de-funding health, education and infrastructure would be against industrialization? On the contrary if that was the case no industry would have moved to the global south in search of lower wages and higher exploitation rates. You don't need particularly highly educated or healthy workers to work on factories at all!
Perhaps he thinks self-interest implies rational but it doesn't. In the long run it may well be that the more self-interested you become the worse your decisions become and in turn it goes down in a cyclical spiral of self-destructive selfish behavior.
As for his other points like profits are all ficticious because they're all sent to some fiscal paradise etc this is correct, but not entirely. What the falling rate of profit is about is investment versus profit, while you can fake profits you can't fake investments in real production methods. It doesn't matter how much you fake Apple's bottom line, if tomorrow there was a new factory producing TSMC's chips in fucking Manhattan everyone would know, it would be measurable. Maybe not perfectly measurable but enough to support the theory.
The reason why I mentioned first of all financialisation is contested because I'd have no problem recommending MH's content, but as you can see even in a good video I'd recommend to everyone, if you are truly seeking a deeper understanding you have to be more critical of the narrative.
He is very good at explaining the more day to day events and news, he is much more willing to put things bluntly which can be appreciated and overall I still recommend and have a high regard for Michael Hudson's content.
His descriptions of all the current issues with finance capitalism, the burden and the further effects of exploitation are all correct.