This book analyses the logic of applying the American Post-Keynesian economist Hyman Minsky’s Financial Instability Hypothesis (FIH) to the financial crisis of 2007–08. Arguing that most theories of financial crisis, including Minsky’s own, only describe events, but do not actually explain them, the book surveys theories of financial crisis that have been developed to describe instability in the post-WW2 US financial system and analyses them in their historical context. The book argues that explanation of the financial crisis of 2007–08 should involve interpretation of the concept of 'risk', which guides the construction and pricing of contemporary financial products such as derivatives and asset backed securities, as a form of 'liquidity', the concept that Minsky sought to explain the financial crises of the 1970s and 1980s with. The book highlights the continuing relevance of Minsky’s theory of liquidity crisis as "immanent", in a historical sense, to the products and trading practices of modern finance, because these products were developed to obviate the crisis dynamics that Minsky described. Minsky's FIH can therefore inform historical understanding of the crisis of 2007–08 but is not directly explanatory itself. The book explores explanation of the financial crisis of 2007–08 interpreting 'liquidity', in practical historical terms, as involving a process of development out of prior crisis dynamics. Seeking to contribute to debates over the causes of the financial crisis of 2007–08 by blending a discussion of historicizing philosophy, economic theory and contemporary financial banking and trading practices this work will be of great interest to scholars of international political economy, heterodox economics and critical theory.

This book analyses the logic of applying the American Post-Keynesian economist Hyman Minsky’s Financial Instability Hypothesis (FIH) to the financial crisis of 2007–08. Arguing that most theories of financial crisis, including Minsky’s own, only describe events, but do not actually explain them, the book surveys theories of financial crisis that have been developed to describe instability in the post-WW2 US financial system and analyses them in their historical context. The book argues that explanation of the financial crisis of 2007–08 should involve interpretation of the concept of 'risk', which guides the construction and pricing of contemporary financial products such as derivatives and asset backed securities, as a form of 'liquidity', the concept that Minsky sought to explain the financial crises of the 1970s and 1980s with. The book highlights the continuing relevance of Minsky’s theory of liquidity crisis as "immanent", in a historical sense, to the products and trading practices of modern finance, because these products were developed to obviate the crisis dynamics that Minsky described. Minsky's FIH can therefore inform historical understanding of the crisis of 2007–08 but is not directly explanatory itself. The book explores explanation of the financial crisis of 2007–08 interpreting 'liquidity', in practical historical terms, as involving a process of development out of prior crisis dynamics. Seeking to contribute to debates over the causes of the financial crisis of 2007–08 by blending a discussion of historicizing philosophy, economic theory and contemporary financial banking and trading practices this work will be of great interest to scholars of international political economy, heterodox economics and critical theory.

Much has been written since Capital was first published, and more recently after the demise of the Soviet Union and the consequent triumph of neoliberalism, about the irrelevance, inconsistency, and obsoleteness of Marx. This has been attributed to his unworkable method of inquiry. This book goes against the current. It introduces the issues that are presently most hotly debated, it evaluates them, and it groups them into four headings, each one of them corresponding to a chapter. At the same time, it submits a new reading of Marx’s method of social research and on this basis it argues that Marx’s work offers a solid foundation upon which to further develop a multi-faceted theory of crises highly relevant for the contemporary world.

Today we hear much talk of crisis and comparisons are often made with the Great Depression of the 1930s, but there is a crucial difference that sets our current malaise apart from the 1930s: today we no longer trust in the capacity of the state to resolve the crisis and to chart a new way forward. In our increasingly globalized world, states have been stripped of much of their power to shape the course of events. Many of our problems are globally produced but the volume of power at the disposal of individual nation-states is simply not sufficient to cope with the problems they face. This divorce between power and politics produces a new kind of paralysis. It undermines the political agency that is needed to tackle the crisis and it saps citizens’ belief that governments can deliver on their promises. The impotence of governments goes hand in hand with the growing cynicism and distrust of citizens. Hence the current crisis is at once a crisis of agency, a crisis of representative democracy and a crisis of the sovereignty of the state. In this book the world-renowned sociologist Zygmunt Bauman and fellow traveller Carlo Bordoni explore the social and political dimensions of the current crisis. While this crisis has been greatly exacerbated by the turmoil following the financial crisis of 2007-8, Bauman and Bordoni argue that the crisis facing Western societies is rooted in a much more profound series of transformations that stretch back further in time and are producing long-lasting effects. This highly original analysis of our current predicament by two of the world’s leading social thinkers will be of interest to a wide readership.

The deflation of the subprime mortgage bubble in 2006-7 is widely agreed to have been the immediate cause of the collapse of the financial sector in 2008. Consequently, one might think that uncovering the origins of subprime lending would make the root causes of the crisis obvious. That is essentially where public debate about the causes of the crisis began—and ended—in the month following the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers and the 502-point fall in the Dow Jones Industrial Average in mid-September 2008. However, the subprime housing bubble is just one piece of the puzzle. Asset bubbles inflate and burst frequently, but severe worldwide recessions are rare. What was different this time? In What Caused the Financial Crisis leading economists and scholars delve into the major causes of the worst financial collapse since the Great Depression and, together, present a comprehensive picture of the factors that led to it. One essay examines the role of government regulation in expanding home ownership through mortgage subsidies for impoverished borrowers, encouraging the subprime housing bubble. Another explores how banks were able to securitize mortgages by manipulating criteria used for bond ratings. How this led to inaccurate risk assessments that could not be covered by sufficient capital reserves mandated under the Basel accords is made clear in a third essay. Other essays identify monetary policy in the United States and Europe, corporate pay structures, credit-default swaps, banks' leverage, and financial deregulation as possible causes of the crisis. With contributions from Richard A. Posner, Vernon L. Smith, Joseph E. Stiglitz, and John B. Taylor, among others, What Caused the Financial Crisis provides a cogent, comprehensive, and credible explanation of why the crisis happened. It will be an essential resource for scholars and students of finance, economics, history, law, political science, and sociology, as well as others interested in the financial crisis and the nature of modern capitalism and regulation.

Dialectics in Social Thought examines the work of thinkers who used dialectics in their attempts to understand the world. Among them are foundational thinkers such as Marx, Freud, and Nietzsche; seminal social critics of the last century such as Camus and Sartre; and current contributors like Badiou, Rancière, and Žižek.

The eighteen articles in this book present fresh looks at the meaning of politics, praxis, labour, dialectics and modernity in the work of Czech philosopher Karel Kosík, best known for his book Dialectics of the Concrete.

The book is the first attempt to offer a holistic and integrated exploration of the political-economic framework underpinning economic regionalism. In doing so it provides a much-needed contribution to the literature on international political economy, international relations and Asian political economy in relation to economic regionalism. The existing literature provides broad generalizations and limited discussion on economic integration (i.e. free trade agreements, FTA) with most analyses of regionalism generally contained to the field of economics with a focus on the welfare implications of FTAs, both for participating countries and the world as a whole. Readers of this book can view economic regionalism from a variety of perspectives with input from Chinese, Japanese and Korean research institutes, business and industry groups, and government officials. Drawing on the considerable country experience and expertise of the authors, the book attempts to unravel the paradox of the market-driven economic globalization process (regionalism) and address a serious gap in the current literature relating to the political-economic characteristics and strategies of China, Japan and Korea in relation to economic regionalism.

Financial regulation has entered into a new era, as many foundational economic theories and policies supporting the existing infrastructure have been and are being questioned following the financial crisis. Goodhart et al’s seminal monograph "Financial Regulation: Why, How and Where Now?" (Routledge:1998) took stock of the extent of financial innovation and the maturity of the financial services industry at that time, and mapped out a new regulatory roadmap. This book offers a timely exploration of the "Why, How and Where Now" of financial regulation in the aftermath of the crisis in order to map out the future trajectory of financial regulation in an age where financial stability is being emphasised as a key regulatory objective. The book is split into four sections: the objectives and regulatory landscape of financial regulation; the regulatory regime for investor protection; the regulatory regime for financial institutional safety and soundness; and macro-prudential regulation. The discussion ranges from theoretical and policy perspectives to comprehensive and critical consideration of financial regulation in the specifics. The focus of the book is on the substantive regulation of the UK and the EU, as critical examination is made of the unravelling and the future of financial regulation with comparative insights offered where relevant especially from the US. Running throughout the book is consideration of the relationship between financial regulation, financial stability and the responsibility of various actors in governance. This book offers an important contribution to continuing reflections on the role of financial regulation, market discipline and corporate responsibility in the financial sector, and upon the roles of regulatory authorities, markets and firms in ensuring the financial health and security of all in the future.

This book examines the 2008 global economic crisis as a complex social phenomenon or "social hieroglyphic", arguing that the crisis is not fundamentally economic, despite presenting itself as such. Instead, it is considered to be a symptom of a long-standing, multifaceted, and endemic crisis of capitalism which has effectively become permanent, leading contemporary capitalist societies into a state of social regression, manifest in new forms of barbarism. The author offers a qualitative understanding of the economic crisis as the perversion, or inversion, of the capitalistically organized social relations. The genesis of the current crisis is traced back to the unresolved world crisis surrounding the Great Depression in order to map the course and different "inverted forms" of the continuous global crisis of capitalism, and to reveal their inner connections as derivative of the same social constitution. From a historical and interdisciplinary perspective, the book expounds critical social theory, elaborating on the intersection between the early critical theory of the Frankfurt School – mainly Adorno, Horkheimer, and Marcuse – and the "social form" analysis of the Open Marxism school. Global Economic Crisis as Social Hieroglyphic critically addresses the permanent character of the 1920s–1930s crisis and the "crisis theory" debates; the political crisis in Eastern Europe (1953–1968); the crisis of Keynesianism; the crisis of subversive reason; the crisis, negative anthropology and transformations of the bourgeois individual; the state of social regression and the destructive tendencies after the rise of neoliberalism; and finally, the 2008 financial crisis and its ongoing aftermath.