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The current crisis is one outcome of the financialisation of contemporary capitalism. It arose in the USA because of the enormous expansion of mortgage-lending, including to the poorest layers of the working class. It became general because of the trading of debt by financial institutions. Th ese phenomena are integral to financialisation. During the last three decades, large enterprises have turned to open markets to obtain finance, forcing banks to seek alternative sources of profit. One avenue has been provision of financial services to individual workers. Th is trend has been facilitated by the retreat of public provision from housing, pensions, education, and so on. A further avenue has been to adopt investment-banking practices in open financial markets. Th e extraction of financial profi ts directly out of personal income constitutes financial expropriation. Combined with investment-banking, it has catalysed the current gigantic crisis. More broadly, financialisation has sustained the emergence of new layers of rentiers, defined primarily through their relation to the financial system rather than ownership of loanable capital. Finally, financialisation has posed important questions regarding finance-capital and imperialism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Financialization is a systemic transformation of capitalism that has occurred during the last four decades. This paper shows that the concept of financialization originates in Marxist theory, though its meaning remains unclear. It then proposes a theory of financialization as rooted in the altered behaviour of the fundamental agents of capitalist accumulation, including non-financial corporations, banks and workers. Finance has reshaped the activities of all three, also resulting in new forms of profit. It follows that opposing financialization is a complex process that involves creating public financial institutions but also re-establishing public provision for workers across a broad range of activities. Financialization cannot be reversed without re-establishing the command of the social and collective over the private and individual for the modern era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current crisis is one outcome of the financialisation of contemporary capitalism. It arose in the USA because of the enormous expansion of mortgage-lending, including to the poorest layers of the working class. It became general because of the trading of debt by financial institutions. These phenomena are integral to financialisation. During the last three decades, large enterprises have turned to open markets to obtain finance, forcing banks to seek alternative sources of profit. One avenue has been provision of financial services to individual workers. This trend has been facilitated by the retreat of public provision from housing, pensions, education, and so on. A further avenue has been to adopt investment-banking practices in open financial markets. The extraction of financial profits directly out of personal income constitutes financial expropriation. Combined with investment-banking, it has catalysed the current gigantic crisis. More broadly, financialisation has sustained the emergence of new layers of rentiers, defined primarily through their relation to the financial system rather than ownership of loanable capital. Finally, financialisation has posed important questions regarding finance-capital and imperialism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]