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With the demise of Bretton Woods, capital was finally released from its cage. Many countries continued to maintain capital controls and strict financial regulation. But the glut of dollars that had emerged at the international level needed somewhere to go. Meanwhile, the capital that had been store…

The growth of the multinational corporation meant that billions of pounds worth of capital was flowing around the world within corporations. Toyota, General Electric, and Volkswagen couldn’t afford to keep their subsidiaries across the globe insulated from one another — money had to be moved, even …

The Bretton Woods conference marked the dawning of a new era for the global economy. [...] Trade flows increased after the years of autarky during the war, and a new age of globalisation began.

Finance-led growth represents the apogee of the logic of capitalism. The owners of capital are able to derive profits without actually producing anything of value. They lend their capital out to other economic actors, who then hand over a portion of their future earnings to financiers, limiting eco…

Financialised capitalism may be a uniquely extractive way of organising the economy, but this is not to say that it represents the perversion of an otherwise sound model. Rather, it is a process that has been driven by the logic of capitalism itself. As their economic model has developed, the owner…