Modern Money and the Rise and Fall of Capitalist Finance examines the true nature of modern money and seeks ideas for an alternative economic system for a just society. This book suggests that adopting the ideas and institutions of a trust allowed personae to be combined with creditor-debtor relations and, by doing so, led to the evolution of modern money. This also helps explain why modern banking arose in England rather than continental Europe, by conceptualizing modern money as a trust and investigating the inseparable relationship between personae and modern money, because it is more than creditor-debtor relations - it takes the form of a trust. In explaining how the capitalist credit-money economy differs from previous economies, this book is a significant contribution to the literature on modern money, heterodox economics and the philosophy of economics and finance.

The book studies the trends that led to the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, as well as the unfolding of the crisis, in order to provide policy recommendations to improve financial stability. The book starts with changes in monetary policy and income distribution from the 1970s. These changes profoundly modified the foundations of economic growth in the US by destroying the commitment banking model and by decreasing the earning power of households whose consumption has been at the core of the growth process. The main themes of the book are the changes in the financial structure and income distribution, the collapse of the Ponzi process in 2007, and actual and prospective policy responses. The objective is to show that Minsky’s approach can be used to understand the making and unfolding of the crisis and to draw some policy implications to improve financial stability.

As the center of capitalism in China, Shanghai banking provides a unique perspective for assessing the impact of the changes from financial capitalism to socialist planning banking in the early 1950s, and for evaluating the reform of China's banking system since the 1980s. This book offers a comprehensive history of Shanghai banking and capital markets from 1842 to 1952, and illustrates the non-financial elements that contributed to the revolutionary social and financial changes since the 1950s, as well as financial experiences that are significant to China's economic development today. The book describes the rise and fall of China's traditional native banks, the establishment of foreign banks, and the creation of modern state banks, while focusing on the colorful world of banking, finance, and international relations in modern Shanghai. It assesses the Chinese government's intervention in banking and finance during the Qing dynasty and the Republican era, as well as the concept of state capitalism after the establishment of the People's Republic. The author examines various modern-style Chinese banks through fascinating stories of Shanghai bankers. In addition, she provides detailed coverage of market-oriented international trade, banking associations, the conflicts between state and society, the government involvement in business, the management of foreign exchange, joint venture banks, wartime banking and finance, hyperinflation, corruption, and banking nationalization.

How Wall Street concocted a more volatile and dangerous capitalism The Fall and Rise of American Finance traces the collapse and reconstitution of American financial power from the disintegration of robber baron J. P. Morgan’s vast empire to the rise of finance behemoth BlackRock. Contrary to what is taken for common sense by figures from Hillary Clinton to Bernie Sanders, Maher and Aquanno insist that financialization did not imply the hollowing out of the “real” economy or the retreat of the state. Rather, it served to intensify competitive discipline to maximize efficiency, profits, and the exploitation of labor—with the support of an increasingly authoritarian state.

This book renews the Marxian theory of the general equivalent by highlighting the contradiction between the social functions of money (unit of account, means of circulation) and its private functions (store of value, accumulation). It draws a clear distinction between the monetary base and the commodity base of money and thus avoids the confusion between money and credit on the one hand, and money and capital on the other, which are found in other heterodox monetary theories. It accounts for the new forms of monetary constraints weighing on the banking systems under and inconvertible fiat money standard, the class relationships underlying the interventions of monetary authorities and governments, and presents a definition of the state which emphasises its mode of intervention on the collective and social conditions of capitalisms which are money and labour power. The emphasis on the contradiction between these two types of monetary functions gives a more fundamental account of the conflict between the international role and the national origin of the dollar than the Triffin dilemma, which has been constantly overcome or deferred by the US since 1960. The author explains this evolution by demonstrating how, from the 1950s onwards, the dollar began a process of acquiring relative autonomy from the US economy. By focusing on the role and international functions of the dollar, he offers a fresh look at the 2008 crisis and its consequences for the international monetary system, but also for a possible post-capitalist financial system – which post-revolutionary Russia experimented with in the form of the NEP, and whose contemporary implementation is foreshadowed by the rise of digital central bank currencies. The book thereby provides a necessary update to the tools and concepts inherited from Marx for analysing and understanding money, capital and the state.

The Fall and Rise of American Finance traces the collapse and reconstitution of American financial power from the disintegration of robber baron J. P. Morgan's vast empire to the rise of finance behemoth BlackRock. Contrary to what is taken for common sense by figures from Hillary Clinton to Bernie Sanders, Maher and Aquanno insist that financialization did not imply the hollowing out of the "real" economy or the retreat of the state. Rather, it served to intensify competitive discipline to maximize efficiency, profits, and the exploitation of labor-with the support of an increasingly authoritarian state.

This accessible yet rigorous book examines the development of ‘financial socialism’ in advanced capitalist economies in the decade since the global financial crisis of 2007–2009. This new term refers to an attempt to resolve the accumulation crisis of capital through coordinated central bank activism, where state circuits of monetary capital assume a critical role in the reproduction of capitalist social relations. The book explains the dynamics of the crisis as it has developed and assesses the response of monetary elites to systemic financial risk in the global economy. Their failure to re-engineer growth following the technology boom of the late 1990s and the global financial crisis are driving fundamental changes in the form and function of capitalist money, which have yet to be theorized adequately. Finance, Accumulation and Monetary Power presents a revealing and radical critique of the failure of the International Political Economy to apprehend changes taking place within capitalism, employing a critical-theoretical analysis of contradictions in the capitalist reproduction scheme. The book will be of key interest to scholars, students and readers of international political economy, critical political economy, heterodox economics, globalization, international relations, international political sociology, business studies and finance.

In the winter of 1933, the American financial and economic system collapsed. Since then economists, policy makers and financial analysts throughout the world have been haunted by the question of whether "It" can happen again. In 2008 "It" very nearly happened again as banks and mortgage lenders in the USA and beyond collapsed. The disaster sent economists, bankers and policy makers back to the ideas of Hyman Minsky – whose celebrated 'Financial Instability Hypothesis' is widely regarded as predicting the crash of 2008 – and led Wall Street and beyond as to dub it as the 'Minsky Moment'. In this book Minsky presents some of his most important economic theories. He defines "It", determines whether or not "It" can happen again, and attempts to understand why, at the time of writing in the early 1980s, "It" had not happened again. He deals with microeconomic theory, the evolution of monetary institutions, and Federal Reserve policy. Minsky argues that any economic theory which separates what economists call the 'real' economy from the financial system is bound to fail. Whilst the processes that cause financial instability are an inescapable part of the capitalist economy, Minsky also argues that financial instability need not lead to a great depression. This Routledge Classics edition includes a new foreword by Jan Toporowski.

In the late sixteenth through seventeenth centuries, England simultaneously developed a national market and a national literary culture. Writing at the Origin of Capitalism describes how economic change in early modern England created new patterns of textual production and circulation with lasting consequences for English literature. Synthesizing research in book and media history, including investigations of manuscript and print, with Marxist historical theory, this volume demonstrates that England's transition to capitalism had a decisive impact on techniques of writing, rates of literacy, and modes of reception, and, in turn, on the form and style of texts. Individual chapters discuss the impact of market integration on linguistic standardization and the rise of a uniform English prose; the growth of a popular literary market alongside a national market in cheap commodities; and the decline of literary patronage with the monarchy's loosening grip on trade regulation, among other subjects. Peddlers' routes and price integration, monopoly licenses and bills of exchange, all prove vital for understanding early modern English writing. Each chapter reveals how books and documents were embedded in wider economic processes, and as a result, how the origin of capitalism constituted a revolutionary event in the history of English literature.

Since the financial crisis of 2007/2008, a renewed discussion on the ethics and finance is being examined from different dimensions – finance for good society, responsible finance, ethical finance, financial crimes, and financial repression. The principal objective of this Handbook on Ethics of Islamic Economics and Finance is to provide a deeper understanding of the ethical underpinning of Islamic economics and finance. The reader will notice that the Handbook reflects a diversity of views on the subject of economic and business ethics in Islam across the intellectual spectrum of Muslim thought over the globe. Handbook attempts to find answers to some questions concerning the definition and characteristics of the ethical system in Islam. What is its goal and how do its rules and practices ensure welfare for individuals and society? Are the moral principles universal and invariable or do they change and adapt with the social changes of communities and progress in science and technology? Is the present generation accountable for the welfare of future generations? Where is the boundary between law and ethics and who guarantees their adoption and implementation?