Abstract
Money capital, as a seemingly autonomous entity, does not produce value. Its “profit” arises as interest and dividend from industrial profit for productively invested loans, as interest on taxes levied by the state to service the public debt and as interest from wages for consumer loans to workers. Money capital corresponds to a real value that is either productively invested or consumed privately, but which can expand fictitiously, thus creating a “toxic value”. Financial derivatives created an opaque environment and permitted an unprecedented growth of fictitious value and of its “toxic part”. They stimulated consumption and investment for a while, but they also led to an unsustainable growth of debt that was an integral part of neoliberal schemas of accumulation.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Bibliography
Aglietta, M. (2008, February). Comprendre la crise du crédit structuré. La lettre du CEPII, 275. Retrieved from: http://www.cepii.fr/francgraph/pageperso/aglietta.htm
Chavagneux, C. (2008, November). Comment les États ont sauvé le capitalisme. Alternatives économiques, 274.
Chesnais, F. (2011). Les dettes illégitimes: Quand les banques font main basse sur les politiques publiques. Paris: Raisons d’agir.
Chesnais, F. (2013). The first five years of the on-going world economic and financial crisis. Social Sciences: Trilingual Revue of Social Research, Volume 2–3, 148–162.
Chesnais, F. (2016). Finance Capital Today. Corporations and Banks in the Lasting Global Slump. Leiden-Boston: Brill Academic Publisher.
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform (2008, October 23). The Financial Crisis and the Role of Federal Regulators. Retrieved from: https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CHRG-110hhrg55764/html/CHRG-110hhrg55764.htm
Down R. (2007, July 26). CDOs: Toxic or Tonic. HSBC Global Research.
Duménil, G., & Lévy, D. (2011). The Crisis of Neoliberalism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Hilferding, R. (1981). Finance capital: A study of the latest phase of capitalist development. London, Boston and Henley: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Husson, M. (2008). Un pur capitalisme. Lausanne: Éd. Page deux.
Lapavitsas, K. (2013). Profiting without Producing. How Finance Exploits Us All. London: Verso.
Mian, A., & Sufi A. (2008, January). The Consequences of Mortgage Credit Expansion: Evidence from the 2007 Mortgage Crisis. Retrieved from: https://www.moodys.com/microsites/crc2008/papers/cons_morg_cred_exp.pdf
Moatti, S. (2008, November). La machine à dette. Alternatives économiques, 274.
Soros, G. (2008). The New Paradigm for Financial Markets: The Credit Crisis of 2008 and What it Means. New York: The Perseus Books Group.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Tombazos, S. (2019). Money Capital, Fictitious Capital and “Toxic” Capital. In: Global Crisis and Reproduction of Capital. Palgrave Insights into Apocalypse Economics. Palgrave Pivot, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05725-1_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05725-1_4
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Pivot, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-05724-4
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-05725-1
eBook Packages: Economics and FinanceEconomics and Finance (R0)