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Two things are clear in the ongoing banking crisis. First, the Federal Reserve is navigating a tightrope in trying to wind down the easy money regime that has been behind the rise of finance. Second, the alliance that binds the US state and finance together is expanding to include Silicon Valley., Coming, as it did, right between the liquidation of Silvergate Capital and the closure of Signature Bank, the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) is a signal of more pervasive [...]

Public debt embodies both private property and a public good, reciprocity and coercion, economic power and political authority. The history of public debt illuminates its contradictory role in the rise and development of capitalism and brings its hidden politics out into the open., In Defense of Public Debt by Barry Eichengreen, Asmaa El-Ganainy, Rui Esteves, and Kris James Mitchener (Oxford University Press, 2021) Public debt, the debt incurred by sovereign states, has surged [...]

The contested alliance of state and finance embodied in public debt forms a nexus that has shaped the emergence of capitalism, and has also strengthened and transformed as capitalism developed. The state’s recourse to debt is the foundation for the emergence of a powerful financier class, but this powerful class of financiers has also come to depend on the state to provide the fodder for its continual growth. This paper investigates the key role of this nexus in constituting the international monetary hierarchy and by ordering relations between advanced capitalist countries and enforcing the financial subordination of the periphery through a comparative-historical analysis of British hegemony in the 19th century and US hegemony in the 20th century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two things are clear in the ongoing banking crisis. First, the Federal Reserve is navigating a tightrope in trying to wind down the easy money regime that has been behind the rise of finance. Second, the alliance that binds the US state and finance together is expanding to include Silicon Valley. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A distinct feature of the India's path of financial liberalization is that it led to the emergence of the corporate, non-financial sector, rather than the financial sector as the key wedge for the penetration of global finance. Neoliberal reforms eroded the traditional role of development banks and state-directed credit and empowered a section of large corporations and non-financial companies in India. The partial, calibrated path to capital account liberalization has meant that this section of the Indian non-financial corporate sector, rather than the commercial banking system came to be the conduit integrating the Indian economy with international financial markets. Where the Indian state had earlier harnessed finance towards developmental priorities, it shifted to channeling finance in service of the internationally embedded segment of the corporate sector that enjoys disproportionate access to both the domestic financial system and international financial markets. JEL Codes E44 G32, F65 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Imperialism in the context of capitalism has been explained either in terms of the suspension of the laws of capitalist competition, or by focusing on the relationship of capitalism with pre-capitalist regions. This paper puts forward a theory of imperialism that is specific and internal to capitalism. The argument put forward in this paper is that the critical element of the empire of capital is the manner in which imperial power is exercised to bring the workers across the globe under the dominion of the network of capitalist relations. The distinctive logic of imperialism is understood to arise from the use of imperial power to expand the pool of available surplus value available for capital as a whole to exploit. It can be interpreted as the network externality of expanding the web of control of capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the US state's response to the humanitarian crisis unleashed by the pandemic is fumbling and incoherent, its financial arms have moved with much greater urgency and purpose to ensure that international dollar hegemony is restored and reinforced through the crisis. This contrast highlights how the Federal Reserve System's nexus with finance and its commitment to preserve dollar hegemony is quite independent of the particular regime in power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The launch of Libra, a corporate-controlled supranational currency is a bold attempt by a bigtech behemoth to leverage its monopoly over digital data and platform networks in order to draw low-income and unbanked households into its web of interconnected financial services. But in the process, argues the author, it will likely exacerbate financial fragility, global imbalances, and the already substantial financial subordination of developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the mistaken conception about the global working class. It analyzes the impact of the alliance between workers and their employers. The benefits of capitalist expansion to the working class in core countries in the era of globalization are discussed, as well as the concern of U.S. workers on declining wages and working conditions.

This paper explores some implications of financialization and rising consumer debt on the interplay of inequality and growth in a circuit of capital model, which includes a managerial class. Two possible 'closures' are presented in the paper. With the Classical-Marxian closure, credit (specifically consumer credit) endogenously adjusts to the pace of accumulation. With the alternative Keynesian closure, exogenous consumer credit determines the rate of steady-state growth. Two regimes of accumulation are identified on the basis of these two closures. Accumulation is constrained by profitability in the first regime and increasing inequality in the second regime. The paper also investigates the impact of rising managerial income on demand and accumulation. The managerial class plays a dual role in the capitalist economy increasing productivity on one hand and diverting a share of surplus from investment to consumption on the other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]