This revised and expanded book focuses on Hilferding's major work, Finance Capital. In revisiting this influential book from a methodological point of view, both historical and intellectual, the authors affirm Hilferding's place in the Marxist tradition. Hilferding's ideas are used to criticise incumbent approaches in economics and enrich existing discussions and debates about the nature of modern capitalism. In doing so, this book highlights the importance of Hilferding's work in analysing and understanding modern capitalism and corporate developments. New material looking at Hilferding’s economic journalism, debates around his work in Poland, and Eugene Varga’s perspective on his work is also included.The book aims to explore Hilferding’s central ideas on the political economy, as well as its historical context and relation to Marx. It will be relevant to students and researchers interested in the political economy, the history of economic thought, and European politics.
Author(s): Judith Dellhei, Frieder Otto Wolf
Series: Luxemburg International Studies in Political Economy
Edition: 2
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Year: 2022
Language: English
Pages: 471
City: Cham
Preface to the First Edition
References
Preface to the Second Edition
Literature
Contents
Notes on Contributors
Chapter 1: Introduction: Critically Returning to Rudolf Hilferding
References
Chapter 2: Rethinking Hilferding’s Finance Capital
Finance Capital: A Continuation of Marx’s Capital?
Hilferding and Political Economy
What Finance Capital Was All About
What Hilferding’s Opus Magnum Had to Offer
Hilferding and the Changing World of Money
Hilferding and the Changing Worlds of Credit and Banking
Hilferding and the Changing World of Corporations
Hilferding and the Changing World of Stock Markets and High Finance
Hilferding’s Concept of Finance Capital
Hilferding and the Marxist Theory or Theories of Crisis
How to Continue: How to Rewrite Finance Capital for Our Time
The Concept of Finance Capital Revisited
References
Chapter 3: From Luxemburg to Sweezy: Notes on the Intellectual Influence of Hilferding’s Finance Capital
Introduction and Summary
Finance Capital and the Dynamics of Capitalism
Luxemburg Versus Bauer on Crisis Theory
The Dominance of Finance Capital 1910–1930
Moszkowska and Underconsumption Crisis Theories
Sweezy-Baran and Monopoly Capital
Conclusion: Crisis and Finance
Appendix 1: Commodity Prices in Hilferding
Appendix 2: Stock Market Prices
References
Chapter 4: Contradictions in Hilferding’s Finance Capital: Money, Banking, and Crisis Tendencies
Introduction
Money
Credit
Institutions of Finance Capital
The Stock Market
Cartels and Trusts
Capitalist Crisis
Assessment
Financial Power and Vulnerability
References
Chapter 5: Finance Capital, Financialisation and the Periodisation of Capitalist Development
Introduction
Hilferding and Lapavitsas: General Considerations
Commonalities Between Lapavitsas and Hilferding
Differences Between Lapavitsas and Hilferding
Financialisation According to Lapavitsas
Criticisms of Lapavitsas’ Approach
Back (or Forward?) to Hilferding
Conclusion
References
Chapter 6: A New Finance Capital? Theorizing Corporate Governance and Financial Power
Toward a Marxist Theory of Corporate Governance
The Financialization of the Non-financial Corporation
New Finance Capital: A New Phase of Capitalist Development?
Democratic Control and Socialist Planning
References
Chapter 7: Finance Capital and Contemporary Financialization
Hilferding’s Understanding of Money
The Development of Credit: From Circulation to Production
The Development of Industrial Organization: From Private Individual to Private Collective Ownership
Ownership of Money Capital, Control of Industrial Capital and Promoter’s Profit
The Transformation of Competition: Concentration and Combination
Consortia and Cartels
Tendencies Towards National and Imperial Economies
The Historical Specificity of Finance Capital
The Geographical Specificity of Finance Capital
Finance Capital and Socialism
The Triumph of the English Model and Beyond
References
Chapter 8: Finance Capital and Militarism as Pillars of Contemporary Capitalism
Introduction
The Double Face of Capital as Social Relations
Finance Capital
Hilferding: A Seminal and Biased Work
An Alternative Proposal for Finance Capital
TNCs as Core Component of Contemporary Finance Capital
Conflation of Profits of Enterprise and Rents in Large TNCs
Ascendant Domination of Capital-Property and Its Drivers
Finance Capital and Militarism
Hilferding: A Peaceful Imperialism Is Possible
Luxemburg: The International Loans—Primitive Accumulation—Militarism Tripod
Some Historical Evidence on Connections Between Militarism and Finance Capital
Finance Capital as Sponsor of Wars
Taking Stock of Luxemburg’s Analysis of Militarism with a View to Contemporary Capitalism
Conclusion
References
Chapter 9: Hilferding and the Large-Scale Enterprise
The Dominance of Large-Scale Business
Managerial Capitalism
Neo-liberals and the Large-Scale Enterprise
Social Control and the Large-Scale Business
References
Chapter 10: Hilferding and Kalecki
Kalecki on Hilferding
Hilferding and the Business Cycle
‘Managed Capitalism’ and the Business Cycle
Conclusion
References
Chapter 11: Ludwik Krzywicki’s Anticipation of Hilferding
Finance Capital Introduced
Krzywicki and Monopoly Capital After Chicago
Krzywicki’s Finance Capital Forgotten
Conclusion
References
Chapter 12: A Socialist Third Way? Rudolf Hilferding’s Evolutionary Socialism as Syncopated Note to Early Neoliberalism
Introduction
Syncopation as Historical and Conceptual Metaphor
Hilferding’s Evolutionary Socialism as Syncopated Note to Neoliberalism
The Third Way: The Walter Lippmann Colloquium to German Neoliberalism
Trouble Brewing in Vienna: Hilferding’s Intellectual Environment
The Gauntlet Is Thrown: The 1905 Böhm-Bawerk Seminar, Hilferding’s Anticritique, and the ‘Austrianisation’ of Marxist Capital Theory
Finance Capital
Marx Without Hegel: Austro-Marxism as New Politics and New Praxis
Hilferding’s Evolutionary Socialism as Pragmatic Political Praxis
Conclusion
References
Chapter 13: Hilferding as an Eclectic: A History of Economic Thought Perspective on Finance Capital
Society and Community: The Transformation of Capitalism
The Development of Capitalism in Finance Capital
Promoter’s Profit in Light of Hilferding’s Contemporary Sources
Hilferding’s Private Library
The Concept of Promoter’s Profit
Discussions on Promoter’s Profit
Hilferding’s Sources Behind the Promoter’s Profit
Conclusion
References
Chapter 14: Rudolf Hilferding on the Economic Categories of ‘Joint Stock Company/Share Capital’: A Refinement of the Critique of Political Economy?
A Brief Reflection of ‘Joint-Stock Company’ and ‘Share Capital’ as Economic Categories of a Critical Political Economy
Share Capital/Joint-Stock Company in Hilferding: A Refinement of the Critique of Political Economy?
On the Path to ‘Finance Capital’
On ‘Finance Capital’
After ‘Finance Capital’
Some Conclusions
References
Chapter 15: Hilferding’s Impressive Failure. A Reading of His Last Major Text
The ‘Materialist Conception of History’
A New Phase of History Under the Impact of War
The Issue of ‘Implementation’
The Underlying Problem of Theory
Obliquely Addressing the Problematics of Singularity and of Subjectivity
References
Chapter 16: The Forgotten “Notes”. Rudolf Hilferding’s Still Unpublished Complements to His Manuscript “The Historical Problem”
The Manuscripts of 1940/1941
Some Notable Remarks in Hilferding’s Complementary Texts
Critique of Marx’s Wording of the “Materialist Conception of History” in the Preface of 1859
Politics, Class and State Power
Class Consciousness—The Most Difficult Question
Hilferding’s Achievement
References
Chapter 17: Rudolf Hilferding: A Born Journalist
The Unknown Hilferding
Crises and Cycles During the Years of the Long Prosperity
1918/1920—The Years of the Revolution That Failed
Hilferding on the Great Depression 1929–1933
After the Great Defeat—Hilferding in Exile, 1933–1940
The Bigger Picture—Analysing the Great Depression and Its Aftermath
Hilferding’s Critique of the Nazi Economy
A Critique of International Politics
The War Is Coming
After World War II: The Future Shape of Europe and the World
References
Chapter 18: Postface: From Rudolf Hilferding to Eugen Varga—Towards a Further Book Project
Varga on Hilferding until 1941
A Concluding Remark
References
Index
