How
has finance capital and the new finance capital elite changed in the 21st century? What is the growing impact
of financial instability on the global economy today? This course will look at
Marx's Vol. 3 of Capital, Keynes' General Theory, Hyman Minsky's contributions
in the 1980s-90s, and contemporary debates today on 'financialization' and its
contribution to recent, and now re-emerging, global economic crises. The global
economy is headed for yet another deeper economic crisis. Both mainstream
economists and left analyses fail to fully understand what's different in the
21st century global economy, and in
particular the new structure of finance capital and the economic and political
influence of today's global finance capital elite. This course will explore
what the best minds of the past have said about finance capital and 'financialization'
in an open-minded, non-dogmatic analysis of selections of key works on the
subject of finance capital by Marx, Keynes, Minsky and others, as well as from
a selective consideration of debates today on the subject of finance
capitalism. The course will then look at specific historical events of financial crashes in the global and USA economy, in the 1990s, the 2008-09 event, developments in China and Europe today, and the prospects of another financial crash in the USA in the next decade. Students will hopefully complete this course with a better
understanding of the coming next financial crisis.
- Teacher: Jack Rasmus