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This is a new translation by Ben Fowkes of the classic book by the twentieth century German socialist leader Rudolf Hilferding, first published in 1910.
Finance Capital offers an unusual Marxist pathway towards an understanding of macroeconomics and financialisation. But the study also illuminates the background to the First World War (and indeed wars in general). It was famously used by Lenin as the basis for his analysis of imperialism. Hilferding’s three-way comparison between the US, UK and German systems of finance and economics is given extra zest by his concentration on specific firms, banks, and banking systems. He pursues capital through its manifold configurations, always stressing the social meaning of individuals’ actions. He demonstrates how the industrial, commercial and financial sectors of the economy became increasingly intertwined during the late 19th century, showing the impact of changes in the financial sphere on the policies of the European powers towards the non-European world, including colonial expansionism in Africa and Asia.
Hilferding’s book ends with a moving exhortation to his readers to end wars by ending the rule of finance capital. This didn’t happen, but his work continues to have relevance over a hundred years later.
List of contents
Preface
Translator’s Note
PART ONE: MONEY AND CREDIT
1 The Necessity of Money
2 Money in the Process of Circulation
3 Money as Means of Payment. Credit Money
4 Money in the Circulation of Industrial Capital
5 The Banks and Industrial Credit
6 The Rate of Interest
PART TWO: THE MOBILISATION OF CAPITAL. FICTITIOUS CAPITAL
7 The Joint-Stock Company
8 The Stock Exchange
9 The Commodity Exchange
10 Bank Capital and Profit
PART THREE: FINANCE CAPITAL AND THE RESTRICTION OF FREE COMPETITION
11 Obstacles to the Equalisation of Rates of Profit: How They Are Overcome
12 Cartels and Trusts
13 Capitalist Monopolies and Trade
14 Capitalist Monopolies and the Banks. The Transformation of Capital into Finance Capital
15 The Determination of Prices by Capitalist Monopolies and the Historical Tendency of Finance Capital
PART FOUR: FINANCE CAPITAL AND CRISES
16 General Conditions for a Crisis
17 The Causes of Crises
18 Changes in Credit Circumstances during the Business Cycle
19 Money Capital and Productive Capital during a Depression
20 Changes in the Character of a Crisis. Cartels and Crises
PART FIVE: THE ECONOMIC POLICY OF FINANCE CAPITAL
21 The Transformation of Commercial Policy
22 The Export of Capital and the Struggle for Economic Territories
23 Finance Capital and Class
24 The Struggle over the Labour Contract
25 The Proletariat and Imperialism
About the author
Rudolf Hilferding (10 August 1877 – 11 February 1941) was an Austrian-born Marxist economist, socialist theorist, politician and the chief theoretician for the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) during the Weimar Republic, being almost universally recognized as the SPD's foremost theoretician of the twentieth century. He was also a physician. He was born in Vienna, where he received a doctorate having studied medicine. After becoming a leading journalist for the SPD, he participated in the November Revolution in Germany and was Finance Minister of Germany in 1923 and from 1928 to 1929. In 1933 he fled into exile, living in Zurich and then Paris, where he died in custody of the Gestapo in 1941. He was the author of many works, but
Finance Capital is the one he is most famous for
