Capital and Democracy in an Age of Finance

What is the connection between capital accumulation and democracy in an era when creating financial assets has been decoupled from producing goods and services?

Democracy can pose a threat to capital accumulation when an accelerated rise in asset values deepens historical inequality; financial markets can pre-empt such threats by becoming suddenly illiquid, thereby bringing on an event of disaccumulation until restoring the confidence that capital markets have in their own continuing appreciation becomes the political priority of the state.
This course examines arguments that, if only we preferred consumer price inflation and asset price stagnation to its opposite, we could return to the pre-1970s Fordist/Keynesian model that allowed us to fund WWII and could now finance a “war” on climate change.

But is the objection to finance only that it no longer needs to fund production for accumulation to occur? What about the massive problems–ecological, cultural, political, and social–occurring when it did?

The majority of course readings will focus on how this difference is reflected at the levels of cultural media, social inequality, law/regulation, ecology, and even in the financial options that are now embedded in commodities themselves. We will conclude with reflections on Green financing, social justice, alternative monetary platforms, and the markets in collateralized credit. 

Undergrad consent is required. 

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