Financialization and financial profit

Vol. 34 No. 3 (2014)

Jul-Sep / 2014
Published July 1, 2014
PDF-English
PDF-English

How to Cite

Guillén, Arturo. 2014. “Financialization and Financial Profit”. Brazilian Journal of Political Economy 34 (3):451-70. https://doi.org/10.1590/0101-3157-2014-2422.

Financialization and financial profit

Arturo Guillén
Research Professor of Economics and Coordinator of the Social Economy Branch of the Graduate Program in Social Studies, Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, Iztapalapa, Mexico.
Brazilian Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 34 No. 3 (2014), Jul-Sep / 2014, Pages 451-470

Abstract

This article starts from the critical review of the concept of financial capital. I consider it is necessary not to confuse this category with of financialization, which has acquired a certificate of naturalization from the rise of neoliberalism. Although financial monopoly-financial capital is the hegemonic segment of the bourgeoisie in the major capitalist countries, their dominance does not imply, a fortiori, financialization of economic activity, since it depends of the conditions of the process reproduction of capital. The emergence of joint stock companies modified the formation of the average rate of profit. The "promoter profit" becomes one of the main forms of income of monopoly-financial capital. It is postulated that financial profit is a kind of "extraordinary surplus-value" which is appropriated by monopoly-financial capital by means of the monopolistic control it exerts on the issue and circulation of fictitious capital. 

JEL Classification: E44.


Keywords: financial capital financialisation financial profit Hilferding-promoter’s profit