With authors Scott Aquanno and Steve Maher. Moderated by Lenart Nici. 

Recorded in Toronto, 27 April, 2024.

The Leo Panitch School for Socialist Education is proud to present the launch of the new book from Scott Aquanno and Steve Maher: The Fall and Rise of American Finance: From J.P. Morgan to Blackrock (Verso, 2024).

Today, it is all but taken for granted that finance is parasitic on industry. Financialization, in this view, amounts to financial institutions capturing the state, hollowing out the ‘real’ economy, and hastening the decline of capitalism. Stephen Maher and Scott Aquanno challenge these arguments in their new book. They insist that, despite the costs to workers and the middle class over the last decades, financialization has boosted competitiveness and strengthened capital – all with the support of an ever stronger and more authoritarian state.