Fictions of Financialization: Rethinking Speculation, Exploitation and Twenty-First-Century Capitalism

‘Incisive, politically engaged, and theoretically sophisticated … A must-read for anyone concerned with the prospects of a liveable and sustainable future for all on this planet’ Ilias Alami, author of Money Power and Financial Capital in Emerging Markets

‘A comprehensive critique of the financialization discourse, offering vital insights’ Jack Copley, author of Governing Financialization

For decades, many people on the left have decried the finance sector as the main culprit for the toxic effects of capitalism. Only by confronting finance, so the story goes, can there be any hope for a more sustainable economy.

Nick Bernards makes the case against the dominance of this story. Arguing that the concept of financialization is ill-understood, Bernards shows how we risk glossing over the true nature of capitalism when focusing on the mythical powers of finance.

Rather than indulging in the harmful fantasy that confronting the financial elite will fix the economy, Bernards provides an alternative approach. Starting from the premise that risk and speculation are core to the operation of all capital and not just the hallmark of a perverted financial sector, this Marxist reading of the interconnection between capitalism’s uneven exploitation of labour and nature and financial capital lays the groundwork for a much-needed view of the real powers of finance.

Nick Bernards is Associate Professor of Global Sustainable Development at the University of Warwick. He is the author of A Critical History of Poverty Finance and The Global Governance of Precarity.