Doctoral Dissertation Research: Finance and the Transformation of American Capitalism, 1968-2000

University Of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison WI

Investigators

Abstract

This project examines the growing importance of finance in the American economy and its relationship to state policy. It defines financialization as the phase of capitalist development in which accumulation occurs largely through financial channels in the investment, insurance, and real estate sectors. Such growth of the finance sector replaces traditional channels of accumulation through trade and commodity production. The investigator suggests that the growth began with the crisis of Keynesianism in 1968 and continued into the decade of the 1970s. To evaluate this argument, the project uses data from national income accounts, financial newspapers, federal reserve documents, congressional records, and interviews with policy makers to answer three questions: 1) To what extent is financialization occurring in the American economy in the post-1970 period? 2) What configuration of political forces within the state promoted the turn to finance? 3) How has financialization altered patterns of state intervention in economy?