[...] Because capitalism is fundamentally based on contradictions, financial crises, in a way, regulate the inherent systemic crisis by limiting its effects to the particular sphere of finance. In the aftermath of such crises, capital has the opportunity redraw or renegotiate the lines of regulation. The Keynesian solution to the Great Depression, or the disastrous austerity solution to our own “Great Recession”, are means by which the lines of policy and practice can be redrawn to afford the perpetuation of capital accumulation, at least until the contradictions once again accumulate to such an extent that crisis is inevitable. To this we might add that, given that crises are cyclical and systemic, they can offer tremendous opportunities to financial firms who can hedge their bets correctly. The staggering success of Goldman-Sachs and JP Morgan in profiting from the 2007/2008 crisis and its aftermath, as well as their central role in fomenting that crisis (both pushing and betting against securitized sub-prime loans), bears witness to the reality that crises are not some sort of neutral storm from heaven, but, rather, the “internal exception,” the routine, if brutal, “state of emergency” that is key to the sovereignty of capital.