Description
Book Synopsis* This is a work of real quality on an immensely important topic - i.e. why the current financial crisis came about and what we can and should do to reform the financial system.
Trade Review“This is an important book. It is clearly destined to become one of the very best accounts of the financial crisis –
it is clear, concise and very readable. Its deep theoretical understanding of the issues is combined with the best
short account of the historical evolution of the capitalist financial system that I have encountered. The result is a
sophisticated and accessible analysis of how a better financial system might be constructed.”
– Geoffrey Ingham, University of Cambridge
Table of ContentsIntroduction
Part One: Phenomenology
I. Do we know what the financial markets are?
II. At the root of the possibility of crisis: liquidity and risk
III. What is credit?
IV. What is money?
V. Finance starting from the end
VI. Capitalism and debt: a matter of life and death
Part Two: History
I. From credit risk to liquidity risk (2008)
II. The globalization of capital (1973)
III. ‘Fiat dollar'. And the world saw that it was good (1971)
IV. The Eurodollar chimera (1958)
V. The European Payments Union (1950)
VI. Bretton Woods: the plan that might have made it (1944)
VII. Bretton Woods: the system that found implementation (1944)
VIII. The crisis paradigm (1929)
IX. Orchestra Rehearsal
X. Money before and after the gold standard (1717)
XI. The Bank of England and power currency (1694)
XII. The International Currency of the Trade Fairs (1579)
Part Three: Politics
I. Double or quits?
II. The way out of liquidity: the Gordian knot and utopia
III. Prevention or cure? The structural paradox of the anti-crisis policies
IV. The other finance
V. The (rare) "green shoots" of a possible reform
VI. If not now, when?
