Introduction: The Structural Power of Finance Meets Financialization

IF 4.1 2区社会学 Q1 POLITICAL SCIENCE

Politics & Society Pub Date : 2022-09-25 DOI:10.1177/00323292221125563

Florence Dafe, S. Hager, Natalya Naqvi, Leon Wansleben

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引用次数: 3

Abstract

How do we theorize and analyze the structural power of finance when global capitalism itself undergoes constant and profound structural transformation? The literature continues to assume that the source of financial structural power is its unique ability to provide credit to the real economy, playing a crucial role in meeting the investment imperative. But recent research documents that most financial market activities no longer facilitate productive investment and can even be a drag on economic development. If the financial sector's primary role is not to support productive investments, then on what basis does it continue to hold structural power? The contributions to this special issue engage with how decades of financialization have transformed the basis of structural power toward alternative functions that have gone unnoticed in the existing literature. These include household and real estate lending that fuels consumption-led growth, concentration and expansion of financial institutions as tools of geo-economic strategy, financing current account deficits that facilitate global imbalances, and wealth preservation that bolsters inequality.

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导论:金融的结构性力量与金融化

当全球资本主义本身经历了持续而深刻的结构转型时，我们如何对金融的结构力量进行理论化和分析？文献继续认为，金融结构力量的来源是其向实体经济提供信贷的独特能力，在满足投资需求方面发挥着至关重要的作用。但最近的研究表明，大多数金融市场活动不再促进生产性投资，甚至可能拖累经济发展。如果金融部门的主要作用不是支持生产性投资，那么它在什么基础上继续拥有结构性权力？对这一特刊的贡献涉及几十年的金融化如何将结构性权力的基础转变为现有文献中没有注意到的替代功能。其中包括家庭和房地产贷款，以推动消费主导的增长，金融机构作为地缘经济战略工具的集中和扩张，为促进全球失衡的经常账户赤字融资，以及加强不平等的财富保护。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Politics & Society Multiple-

CiteScore

5.00

自引率

4.20%

发文量

期刊介绍： Politics & Society is a peer-reviewed journal. All submitted papers are read by a rotating editorial board member. If a paper is deemed potentially publishable, it is sent to another board member, who, if agreeing that it is potentially publishable, sends it to a third board member. If and only if all three agree, the paper is sent to the entire editorial board for consideration at board meetings. The editorial board meets three times a year, and the board members who are present (usually between 9 and 14) make decisions through a deliberative process that also considers written reports from absent members. Unlike many journals which rely on 1–3 individual blind referee reports and a single editor with final say, the peers who decide whether to accept submitted work are thus the full editorial board of the journal, comprised of scholars from various disciplines, who discuss papers openly, with author names known, at meetings. Editors are required to disclose potential conflicts of interest when evaluating manuscripts and to recuse themselves from voting if such a potential exists.