Financialisation — the increasing influence of financial institutions and the creation of financial value in the ordering of social relation — has been one of the most important dynamics in the seemingly irresistible rise of neoliberal government in world affairs ever since the late 1970s. The destructive implications of these developments have been increasingly evident in recent years, especially after the global financial meltdown of 2008. How are we to understand these difficulties — and what are the alternatives? In this review essay for Development and Change, Andries du Toit considers three important new books contributing to this debate: Neo-Keynesian Mariana Mazzucato’s The Value of Everything, radical political economist Sarah Bracking’s The Financialisation of Power: How Financiers Rule Africa, and political theorist Martijn Konings’s Capital and Time. Read more!
