The Social Structures of Financialised Accumulation : a contribution to the analysis of capitalist finance.

Abstract

Our purpose in this paper is to outline the general properties and significant relations of a financialised accumulation regime from a sociological perspective. As a contribution to the “financialisation” literature this paper focuses on the institutions and institutionalised relations that characterise such an accumulation regime as a social structure of accumulation, which it brings together in an “idealtypical” fashion. We propose drawing on Keynes' analysis of industrial and financial circulation as a principle that organises the structural relations between forms of financial relations and institutions and delineates their relationship to industrial – corporate accumulation and to the economy as a whole. Our argument implies that the interrelations between financial and industrial circulation, typical of a financialised accumulation regime, are not characterised by the disconnection or radical autonomy of finance; we rather argue that financial capital's dominance can be more appropriately understood through an analysis of its structural and hierarchical embeddedness in industrial circulation. We will explore in the paper the forms of structural and hierarchical embeddedness, linking a specific determination of industrial circulation by financial processes.