Marx after Minsky: Capital Surplus and the Current Crisis

Abstract

Minsky’s theory of financial instability helps clarify how Marxist theory can explain the highly financialised capitalism of today, and the crisis which started in 2008. The advanced economies currently have high realised profits in the productive sector and lagging rates of investment. Shareholder pressures encourage corporate strategies which focus on stock-market ratings and M&A operations, less on productive investment. Tax evasion and the build-up of reserve cash piles by corporations have contributed to a global surplus of what Marx calledloanable capital. This surplus has been augmented by the increasing inequality of personal wealth ownership and, in the international economy by, large current-account surpluses. The results include: huge profits for the financial system; low interest rates; recurrent boom and bust in asset markets; the fuelling of huge increases in household and government debt; and the combination of instability and stagnation which results from an excess supply of loanable capital.