Financialization: precisions and expansions of fictitious capital and its logic

Abstract

The crisis facing world capitalism, whose origins date back to the subprime market in the United States in the past decade, has contributed to the emergence of several critical studies that address the issue of financialization of contemporary capitalism. This article aims to contribute to the understanding of this phenomenon in the light of the critique of political economy, using as central explanatory category the fictitious capital. This category constitutes a dialectical development of interest bearing capital, and redefines both in time and space the capitalist relations of production. Financialization is understood as a phenomenon whose origin is related to the responses to the structural crisis of the 1970s and that transcends the economic sphere, possessing narratives and ideas that penetrate society as a whole, and seeks connections with their implications for the everyday life of working families, based on examples from the Brazilian scenario. According to the view defended here, therefore, financialization comprises a global phenomenon, in the sense of world-wide and influences the social fabric as a whole. The text is concluded with a brief reflection on the challenges to oppose this phenomenon, both from the point of view of an academic agenda and political practice, which point to systemic ruptures and to the rescue of the
commons.