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The Restructuring of Capitalism in Our Time

Online ISBN:
9780231528030
Print ISBN:
9780231158428
Publisher:
Columbia University Press
Book

The Restructuring of Capitalism in Our Time

Published online:
19 November 2015
Published in print:
3 January 2012
Online ISBN:
9780231528030
Print ISBN:
9780231158428
Publisher:
Columbia University Press

Abstract

Actions taken by the United States and other countries during the Great Recession focused on restoring the viability of major financial institutions while guaranteeing debt and stimulating growth. Once the markets stabilized, the United States enacted regulatory reforms that ultimately left basic economic structures unchanged. At the same time, the political class pursued austerity measures to curb the growing national debt. Drawing on the economic theories of John Maynard Keynes and Hyman Minsky and applying them to the modern evolution of American banking and finance, this book offers a chilling prediction about future crises and the structural factors inhibiting true reform. The book follows the rise of banking practices and financial motives in America over the past thirty years and the simultaneous growth of a shadow industry of hedge funds, private equity firms, and financial innovations such as derivatives. It analyzes the damage that increasing unsustainable debt and excessive risk-taking has done to our financial system and expands his critique to a discussion of world systems and globalization. Revealing the willful blind spots of mainstream finance theory, the text moves beyond an economic model reliant on debt expansion and dangerous levels of leverage, proposing instead a social structure of accumulation that places economic justice over profit and, more practically, institutes an inclusive, sustainable model for growth.

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