金融化了的资本主义:危机和金融掠夺

Financialised capitalism:crisis and financial expropriation

当前危机是当代资本主义金融化的产物。这场危机发端于美国是由于抵押贷款的极度扩张,其中包括对工人阶级中最贫困阶层提供的贷款。它通过金融机构之间的债务交易而展开。这些现象是金融化的组成部分。在过去的三十年中,大企业转向公开市场进行融资,从而推动银行去寻找其他的利润来源。一种途径就是对单个工人提供金融服务。这一趋势由于住房、养老金、教育等公共服务的收缩而得到了促进。另一个途径就是在公开金融市场中从事投资银行业务。直接从个人收入中榨取的金融利润构成了金融掠夺。它与投资银行业务一道,促成了当前这场巨大的危机。更一般地说,金融化支撑了新的食利者阶层的产生,这个阶层主要是根据他们与金融体系的关系,而不是对可贷资本的所有权来定义的。最后,金融化给金融资本和帝国主义提出了重要的问题。

The current crisis is an outcome of the financialisation of contemporary capitalism. It arose in the USA because of the enormous expansion of mortgage lending,including to the poorest layers of the working class.It became general because of the trading of debt by financial institutions.These phenomena are integral to financialisation.During the last three decades large enterprises have turned to open markets to obtain finance,forcing banks to seek alternative sources of profit.One avenue has been provision of financial services to individual workers.This trend has been facilitated by the retreat of public provision from housing,pensions,education,and so on.A further avenue has been to adopt investment banking practices in open financial markets. The extraction of financial profits directly out of personal income constitutes financial expropriation.Combined with investment banking,it has catalysed the current gigantic crisis.More broadly,financialisation has sustained the emergence of new layers of rentiers,defined primarily through their relation to the financial system rather than ownership of loanable capital.Finally,financialisation has posed important questions regarding finance capital and imperialism.