Globalised finance-dominated accumulation regime and sustainable development

Abstract

Ecological, economic and social issues are tightly interwoven and relate to a specific mode of production and social relations. Hence, we use the term sustainable development in a very broad sense, aimed at questioning how much and how far the dynamics of end-of-century capitalism is compatible with social well-being and environmental preservation. The new finance-driven accumulation regime, which came to being in the l980s, was consolidated thanks to neo-liberal governmental policies that strove to reduce social expenditure, including health-care benefits, retirement pensions and unemployment benefits. Connected to depressive macroeconomic trends, this regime caught third-world countries, including newly industrialised countries, in a debt trap, and contributed to a worsening of the economic, social and ecological situation of most of non-OECD countries.