SOAS Research Online

Abstract

Shortly after the publication of Volume 1 of Capital, the financial requirements of capitalist enterprise forced the financial innovation of bond and stock finance for joint stock companies. Marx intended to re-write Capital in order to incorporate this change. He did not achieve this. The economic analysis of capitalism with long-term finance was undertaken by Hilferding in his Finance Capital. Thereafter, a strand of economic analysis emerged in the work of Austro-Marxists, Veblen, Keynes, Kalecki, Steindl, Sweezy and the Italian Kaleckians Joseph Halevi and Riccardo Bellofiore, that incorporated into their analysis of production as well as distribution the change made to the structure and dynamics of capitalism by long-term finance. However, this shift in capitalist financing has largely been ignored in economic theory, while much of the heterodox analysis that seeks to challenge the role of finance in contemporary capitalism has not integrated finance consistently. The change from the classic capitalism to finance capital raises important questions about the meaning and relevance of Marx’s work today. JEL Classification: B14, B24, E44, P12