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2021 | OriginalPaper | Chapter

15. Marx and Financialisation

Author : Desmond McNeill

Published in: Fetishism and the Theory of Value

Publisher: Springer International Publishing

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Abstract

After demonstrating the massively increased scope of finance in recent decades, I summarise and critique Marx’s analysis of interest-bearing capital. I then discuss recent literature on the financialisation of everyday life, which now constitutes quite a substantial body of work, ranging across different disciplines, some inspired by the post-structuralism of Foucauld. Against this background, I explore two key questions that have generated controversy: ‘is finance productive?’ and ‘what kind of appropriation is involved?’—drawing largely on work by Fine, Christophers and Lapavitsas. Regarding the latter question, I distinguish between ‘Appropriation 1’: the relation between lender and industrial capitalist, and ‘Appropriation 2’: the relation between lender and individual (not necessarily a worker). The former relates to Marx’s analysis of interest-bearing capital, the latter to the financialisation of everyday life.

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In 2018, the US financial services sector accounted for 7.4% of total economic output. This compared with 6.9% in the United Kingdom, ranking it the seventh largest in the OECD in relative terms. In Luxembourg the figure was 26%. https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn06193/, https://www.selectusa.gov/financial-services-industry-united-states.

One should not ignore what was already happening in Marx’s day, as described in the quotation at the head of this chapter: “with the stroke of an enchanter’s wand” (Marx 1954: 706).

Since this is a debate, I have chosen—hereafter—to identify the speaker rather than give page references to Christophers and Fine (2020).

A separate, but in some ways similar, question is whether specific labour conducted in the information economy is productive or unproductive (Smythe 1977).

The same point was made regarding the comments of eco-Marxists on value, as noted in the previous chapter.

According to Langley (2020), however, “Foucault and Deleuze prompt recognition that these processes cannot simply be traced to powerful class interests and the constraining actions of elites”.

His article draws heavily on the concept of fetishism: “to draw attention to the ways in which the general ‘financialization’ of society since the 1970s has by now rendered (late) capitalism more adequate to what Marx called its “most superficial fetish” (Adorjan 2014: 289).

This is a rare occasion where Marx uses the word ‘exploitation’ to refer to something other than the capital-labour relationship.

For consistency in referencing, I have here used the 1959 Moscow Progress version of this quotation.

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Title: Marx and Financialisation
Author: Desmond McNeill
Publisher: Springer International Publishing
Book: Fetishism and the Theory of Value
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-56122-2

Electronic ISBN: 978-3-030-56123-9

Copyright Year: 2021
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56123-9_15