The starting point for the collection of articles presented here is that we can find the answers we need in the classical canon of Marxist political economy.Thus, this anthology seeks to do link together two things: the contradictions of the global economic system and the
developing tensions and frictions in international relations with the rise of new global powers.
Marcus Lehner offers an outline of Karl Marx’s theories of money, banking and finance and shows how it can provide a compelling account of what caused the great financial crisis. Updating an earlier analysis written for the German Marxist journal Revolutionärer Marxismus he applies the theory to the American banking system.
Luke Cooper surveys the work of two recent high profile Marxist theories of imperialism developed by David Harvey and Alex Callinicos.
And Keith Spencer makes a case study analysis of a ‘Great Power’ that was at the centre of the global financial whirlwind: Britain.
Author(s): Luke Cooper, Markus Lehner, Keith Spencer
Series: Fifth International Journal 3-4
Publisher: Fifth International
Year: 2010
Language: English
Pages: 168
City: London
Contents
1. Theories of late capitalist development:
Harvey and Callinicos on contemporary imperialism
Luke Cooper
1.1 Imperialism and the post-Cold War world 1
1.2 The long shadow of the classical legacies: contesting the nature of the system 3
1.3 The classical tradition in imperialism theory today 5
1.4 Mechanisms of surplus extract on: parasitism, ‘high finance’ and the system 7
1.5 Accumulation by dispossession – Harvey on the nature of imperial predation 13
1.6 Class structure in the imperial heartlands: the ‘labour aristocracy’ 19
1.7 Finance capital – the evolution of the capital form and imperialism 23
1.8 History, concepts and analysis: the method of non-deductive concretisation 28
1.9 Markets, states and ‘the international’: between Nicolai Bukharin and Hannah Arendt 30
2. Marx, money and modern finance capital 53
Markus Lehner
2.1 Money and the contradictions of capital accumulation 55
2.2 Money and crisis 57
2.3 Money as capital 64
2.4 The long-term tendencies of capital accumulation 68
2.5 The long-term tendencies and imperialism 70
2.6 The modification of the average rate of profit in the circulation of capital 71
3. The formation of finance capital 72
3.1 Interest-bearing capital 72
3.2 The many forms of interest 76
3.3 “Capital value” and employer’s profit 79
3.4 The accumulation of interest-bearing capital and the formation of fictitious capital 82
3.5 Derivatives 85
3.6 Commercial credit 88
3.7 Bank capital and capital credit 90
3.8 State debt, issuing banks and credit money 95
3.9 Speculative bubbles 101
4. Finance and monopoly capitalism 105
4.1 International capital flows 108
4.2 Periods of imperialism 112
4.3 The business cycle and interest-bearing capital 114
4.4 Finance capital and the long-term tendencies of capital accumulation 117
4.5 Current developments and the structure of real and money capital accumulation 120
4.6 Finance market cycles since 1973/74 121
4.7 Finance capital and socialism 124
5. Finance capital unleashed: British imperialism today 129
Keith Spencer
5.1 1979-97: Tory onslaught on the working class 129
5.2 Labour embraces the market: 1987 to 97 132
5.3 ‘Supply side socialism’ 134
5.4 New Labour’s policies in practice 136
5.5 Investment in public services 138
5.6 Was New Labour successful in restoring the dynamism of British capitalism? 140
5.7 Did productivity and profits improve? 141
5.8 Profitability 143
6. The UK as an imperialist state 144
6.1 The rise and rise of British monopolies 146
6.2 The importance of capital flows 148
6.3 The City of London and the export of capital 148
6.4 Imperialism and the working class 150
6.5 The sources of profit in the finance industry 151
6.6 Labour and the economy 153
6.7 Long-term contradictions 155
Tables and graphs
Foreign Direct Investment inflows, 1992-2003 (Billions of dollars) 9
Composition of international capital flows, 1980-2005 10
External Debt Stocks as proportion of Exports and
Gross National Income (GNI)
for Low and Middle Income Countries 12
Interest payments on External Debt as proportion of Exports and
Gross National Income (GNI) for Lower and Middle Income Countries 13
Deindustrialisation - The fall in proportion of total employment
in industry in the most advanced capitalist economies across
the 20th and 21st centuries 23
“Growth of the mass of money M3 in comparison to GDP
in current values and in real values” 60
Components that influence inflation (propensity to save,
M3-increase, producer price index) and
consumer price index for Germany, 1995-2007 63
Long-term tendency of different types of interest rates
in the USA, 1954 - 2009 74
Comparison of profit after tax and interest payments
with interest paid/received and dividends paid for
US non-financial corporations, 1954 - 2008 (in billions of dollars) 81
Share of the top 10% wage earners in regard to the
total wage income in the US, 1927-2007 72
Lehmans' Leverage (borrowed capital in relation to
own capital), 2003-2009 93
Key data of US commercial and saving banks, 2004-2009 94
Development of the money supply in relation to real GDP
in the USA, 1981-2006 98
Development of the value of outstanding contracts on the
Derivatives Markets ($ trillions), 1995-2007 99
Price/Earning Ratios for Standard and Poor's 500 102
Development of commodity futures in comparison to spot markets 104
Volumes of daily turnover on foreign exchanges ($bn) 1992-2007 109
Share of major financial institutions in foreign exchange trade, 2007 110
The relationship of the cycle and interest rate movements 117
Investment per worker where UK equals 100 135
Changes in the UK economy. Share of gross value added
by sector (per cent) 141
Gross value added 1998 (black) and 2008 (grey) at
basic prices (£ billions) 142
Annual rates of return (gross) for UK
private non-financial companies 144
Changes in employees by sector (millions) 150
British trade in goods and services 152
