Critical Junctures in Mobile Capital

Investigates relationships between sovereign states and banks, and their conflicts over the creation of money in government debt and mobile capital.

Jocelyn Pixley (Edited by), Helena Flam (Edited by)

9781316639146, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 11 August 2022

318 pages, 14 b/w illus. 3 tables
22.8 x 15 x 1.5 cm, 0.45 kg

The 'critical juncture' of the 1970s marked the end of decades of seemingly inevitable progress towards more equal societies, and the resurgence of a financialised capitalism. This volume presents a range of critical perspectives that help to unwrap the mysteries of mobile financial capital.' John Quiggin, Australian Laureate Fellow in Economics, University of Queensland

During the recent financial crisis, the conflict between sovereign states and banks over who controls the creation of money was thrown into sharp relief. This collection investigates the relationship between states and banks, arguing that conflicts between the two over control of money produces critical junctures. Drawing on Max Weber's concept of 'mobile capital', the book examines the mobility of capital networks in contexts of funding warfare, global bubbles and dangerous instability disengaged from social-economic activity. It proposes that mobile capital is a primary feature of capitalism and nation states, and furthermore, argues that the perennial, hierarchical struggles between states and global banks is intrinsic to capitalism. Featuring authors writing from an impressively diverse range of academic backgrounds (including sociology, geography, economics and politics), Critical Junctures in Mobile Capital presents a variety of analyses using current or past examples from different countries, federations, and of differing forms of mobile capital.

Introduction Jocelyn Pixley
1. Sovereign nations and the governance of international finance Renate Mayntz
2. Coping with the dangerous component of capital flows and Asia's ineffective cooperation Iwan Azis
3. How mobile capital plays off democracy – the Euro case and other federations Jocelyn Pixley
4. Mobile capital as the ultimate form of war finance Luca Fantacci and Lucio Gobbi
5. Capital moves financially – securitisation, value – and the emergent social relations of labour Dick Bryan and Michael Rafferty
6. International money after the crisis. What do we know? Herman Mark Schwartz
7. Beware of financialization! Emerging markets and mobile capital Andreas Nölke
8. Lagoon immobility. The exceptional case of imperial Venice Sam Whimster
9. 'Convenient reverse logic' in mobile capital's inequalities Jocelyn Pixley
10. Imagine: grassroots against financialization Helena Flam
11. Money, state and capital: the long-term perspective Helmut Kuzmics
12. Super diversity, exploitation and migrant workers Shaun Wilson
13. The bitcoin or the reality of a waking dream Massimo Amato
14. Capital mobility and the fragmentation of monetary sovereignty David Woodruff
15. Surrogate currencies: Sardex Laura Sartori
Index.

Subject Areas: Banking [KFFK], Finance [KFF], Political economy [KCP], International finance [KCLF], Monetary economics [KCBM], Macroeconomics [KCB], Sociology: work & labour [JHBL]