Critical Junctures in Mobile Capital

Description

During the recent financial crisis, the conflict between sovereign states and banks over who controls the creation of money was thrown into sharp relief. This collection investigates the relationship between states and banks, arguing that conflicts between the two over control of money produces critical junctures. Drawing on Max Weber's concept of 'mobile capital', the book examines the mobility of capital networks in contexts of funding warfare, global bubbles and dangerous instability disengaged from social-economic activity. It proposes that mobile capital is a primary feature of capitalism and nation states, and furthermore, argues that the perennial, hierarchical struggles between states and global banks is intrinsic to capitalism. Featuring authors writing from an impressively diverse range of academic backgrounds (including sociology, geography, economics and politics), Critical Junctures in Mobile Capital presents a variety of analyses using current or past examples from different countries, federations, and of differing forms of mobile capital.

Jocelyn Pixley is an Honorary Professor at Macquarie University and Professorial Research Fellow with the Global Policy Institute. An economic sociologist, her fieldwork involves interviewing top officials in financial centres. She is the author of Emotions in Finance, now in its second edition (Cambridge, 2012), and edited a volume on the same theme entitled New Perspectives on Emotions in Finance (2012). With Geoff Harcourt, she edited the volume Financial Crises and the Nature of Capitalist Money (2013). Helena Flam is Professor of Sociology at the Universitat Leipzig. Previous to this appointment, she assisted in setting up the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study and was a Fellow at Max Planck Institute for Social Research in Cologne. She has written and organized conferences on transnational social movements, transitional justice and transnational financial institutions.

'A lively and thoroughly engaging collection. Every chapter comes at the question of contemporary money and finance from a new and often surprising angle. Provocative and energetic, the book has been assembled with wit and insight. The introduction alone is worth the price of admission, and the rest of the volume follows through on its promise.' Geoff Mann, Simon Fraser University, Canada The 'critical juncture' of the 1970s marked the end of decades of seemingly inevitable progress towards more equal societies, and the resurgence of a financialised capitalism. This volume presents a range of critical perspectives that help to unwrap the mysteries of mobile financial capital.' John Quiggin, Australian Laureate Fellow in Economics, University of Queensland