Banking on Alternatives to Neoliberal Development

The Columbia Journal of World Business, 1994

The Columbia Journal of World Business, 1994

Inequality remains one of the most fundamental challenges of the contemporary world. It has become a global phenomenon which affects the underclass, the deprived and the poor both in the global north and south. Despite the advancement in technology which has fueled economic growth and fostered cross-national mobility of factors of production, inequality and its twin, poverty, remain major issues of inquiry among scholars, consideration for policy makers and concern for the poor. Most studies on inequality have been preoccupied with the economic forces. This article locates the growing degrees of inequality in the world within the global politics of financialisation in which the transnational capitalist class (TCC) adopts a reactionary ideology of neoliberalism to further their interest through the creation of massive fictitious wealth, maintenance of stranglehold on domestic and international policy institutions and spreading of the illogic of the sanctity of the market. I argue that capitalism in its current form is unsustainable for the human society. Consequently, the structure of power that informs and maintains the current order must be transformed to foster inclusive development. Despite the resistance to such transformations by the members of the TCC at the core, the process is inevitable due to the internal contradictions within the system itself, the emergence of new loci of power from different regions of the world and increased revolutionary pressures from below. Overall, the article concludes that there is an inextricable link between financialisation and global inequality.

Asian Studies Review, 2014

Multilateral development agencies have increasingly focused attention on underdeveloped countries in Asia as potential new sites for financial capital. Often referred to as "emerging markets", these economies are seen as ripe for private sector investment and, at the same time, in need of foreign capital to support rapid industrialisation, modernisation and poverty reduction. For development agencies, this confluence of interests suggests a means for quickly closing the "development gap", primarily through mobilising techno-managerial modalities designed to reduce barriers to capital entry and other institutional inefficiencies seen as inimical to investment. Thus development agencies now encourage the construction of "enabling environments" to support "market driven development" through processes of "financialisation". Development, in this sense, is no longer state-led or state-centred, but rather financially driven and privately procured. As we highlight in this special issue, however, financialised modes of development are highly contested and problematic. Indeed, the diffusion into the underdeveloped world of essentially developed world financialisation agendas that seek to instil a broad-based market rationalism that downloads new costs and risks to populations is of significant concern. This Introduction sets in context and introduces a much needed set of articles that bring clarity to financialisation in developing Asia and its implications for development as a process of substantively improving material conditions.

Cambridge Journal of Economics

One of the central premises of the literature on financialisation is that we have been living in a new era of capitalism, characterised by a historical shift in the finance-production nexus. Finance has expanded to a disproportionate economic size and, more importantly, has divorced from productive economic pursuits. In this paper, we explore these claims of ‘expansion’ and ‘divorce’ based on a longue durée analysis of the link between finance and production in Senegal and Ghana. As such, we de-centre the dominant approach to financialisation. Seen from the South, we argue that although there has been expansion of financial motives and practices the ‘divorce’ between the financial and the productive economy cannot be considered a new empirical phenomenon having occurred during the last decades and even less an epochal shift of the capitalist system. The tendency for finance to neglect the needs of the domestic productive sector has been the structural operation of finance in many pa...

Multilateral development agencies have increasingly focused attention on underdeveloped countries in Asia as potential new sites for financial capital. Often referred to as “emerging markets”, these economies are seen as ripe for private sector investment and, at the same time, in need of foreign capital to support rapid industrialisation, modernisation and poverty reduction. For development agencies, this confluence of interests suggests a means for quickly closing the “development gap”, primarily through mobilising techno-managerial modalities designed to reduce barriers to capital entry and other institutional inefficiencies seen as inimical to investment. Thus development agencies now encourage the construction of “enabling environments” to support “market driven development” through processes of “financialisation”. Development, in this sense, is no longer state-led or state-centred, but rather financially driven and privately procured. As we highlight in this special issue, however, financialised modes of development are highly contested and problematic. Indeed, the diffusion into the underdeveloped world of essentially developed world financialisation agendas that seek to instil a broad-based market rationalism that downloads new costs and risks to populations is of significant concern. This Introduction sets in context and introduces a much needed set of articles that bring clarity to financialisation in developing Asia and its implications for development as a process of substantively improving material conditions.

2014

Theoretical and empirical research has shown that a sound and effective financial system is critical for economic development and growth. The financial system, however, is also subject to boom and bust cycles and fragility, with negative repercussions for the real economy. Further, the political structure of societies, often pre-determined by historic experience, is critical for the structure and development of the financial system. This paper is a critical survey of three related strands of literature -the finance and growth literature, the literature on financial fragility, and the politics and finance literature. literature that has explored the causes and socioeconomic costs of financial fragility, including systemic banking crises. Historic analyses and case studies have given way to more systemic cross-country explorations of idiosyncratic and systemic banking distress and their determinants.