The Fetish of Finance: Metatheoretical Reflections on Understandings of the 2008 Crisis

Abstract

AbstractMany critiques of neoliberal capitalism after the 2008 crisis have relied on unreflexive concepts and positivistic frameworks, yielding selective, one-sided understandings of the key role of finance. These reductionist interpretations, which conceptualize “finance” either as a hegemonic group of strategic actors or as a prominent sector in neoliberal markets, may be critically evaluated in the light of Marx’s theory of fetish forms. The category of fetishism raises an important metatheoretical question about the conditions of possibility for the tacit, widespread acceptance of reified notions of speculative finance in accounts of the 2008 crisis. As an initial gesture toward identifying these conditions, I outline a social-epochal argument about the ways in which the general financialization of society since the 1970s has ultimately rendered (late) capitalism more adequate to what Marx called its “most superficial fetish.” Understanding capitalism in these conditions calls for a greater degree of ...