The Destiny Of Civilization: Financial Capitalism, Industrial Capitalism, Or Socialism

This book is based on the lecture series on finance capitalism Michael Hudson presented for the Global University for Sustainability. The book explains why the U.S. and other Western economies have lost their former momentum: A narrow rentier class has gained control and become the new central planner, using its power to drain income from increasingly indebted and high-cost labor and industry. The American disease of de-industrialization has resulted from the costs of industrial production being inflated by the economic rents extracted by this class under the system of financialized monopoly capitalism that now prevails throughout the West. The book explains why the U.S.-China conflict cannot simply be regarded as market competition between two industrial rivals. It is a broader conflict between different political economic systems - not only between capitalism and socialism as such, but between the logic of an industrial economy and that of a financialized rentier economy increasingly dependent on foreign subsidy and exploitation as its own domestic economy shrivels. Professor Hudson endeavors to revive classical political economy in order to reverse the neoclassical counter-revolution. This book explains why the U.S. and other Western economies have lost their former momentum: A narrow rentier class has gained control and become the new central planner, using its power to drain income from increasingly indebted and high-cost labor and industry. The American disease of de-industrialization has resulted from the costs of industrial production being inflated by the economic rents extracted by this class under the system of financialized monopoly capitalism that now prevails throughout the West. The book explains why the U.S.-China conflict cannot simply be regarded as market competition between two industrial rivals. It is a broader conflict between different political economic systems - not only between capitalism and socialism as such, but between the logic of an industrial economy and that of a financialized rentier economy increasingly dependent on foreign subsidy and exploitation as its own domestic economy shrivels. The author endeavors to revive classical political economy in order to reverse the neoclassical counter-revolution Foreword by Wen Tiejun Foreword by Lau Kin Chi Preface Introduction Part I The Dynamics of Economic Polarization 1 Industrial Capitalism’s Reform Program to Free Markets from the Rentiers 2 Finance Capitalism Promotes Rent Seeking and Rentier Tax Avoidance 3 The Democratic Imperialism of Finance Capital 4 Economic Rent: Price without Value 5 Financializing Rent and Imposing Debt Deflation 6 Free-Trade Imperialism and its Financialized Class War against Labor 7 Food, Oil, Mining and Natural-Resource Rents Part II The Rentier Counter-Revolution 8 How the Rentiers Diverted Politics away from Socialism 9 The Neo-Rentier Road to Serfdom 10 Dollar Hegemony: The Privilege of Creating “Paper Gold” 11 The War against Nations that treat Money and Land as Public Utilities Part III The Alternative 12 Reviving the Classical Concepts of Value, Rent and Fictitious Capital 13 The War against Governments Strong Enough to Check Oligarchs Summary of Michael Hudson’s Intellectual Contributions Selected Bibliography The principal conflict in today’s world is between the United States and China. This book by Professor Hudson explains this conflict as a process of international transformation, above all in the sphere of economic systems and policy. He explains why the U.S.-China conflict cannot simply be regarded as market competition between two industrial rivals. It is a broader conflict between different political-economic systems—not only between capitalism and socialism as such, but between the logic of an industrial economy and that of a financialized rentier economy increasingly dependent on foreign subsidy and exploitation as its own domestic economy shrivels.