IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/reorpe/v53y2021i4p574-578.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Comments on Michael Hudson: Making Capitalism Great Again? A Critique of the “Rentier Takeover†Thesis

Author

Listed:
  • J. W. Mason

Abstract

Michael Hudson argues that a new form of financial capitalism has displaced the industrial capitalism of Marx’s day. Unlike earlier capitalists, whose pursuit of lower costs led to improvements in the organization of production, the typical wealth owner today is a passive rentier who, like a feudal landlord, merely claims the surplus from existing production processes. Some form of this vision of financialization is widely held, but, I argue, misleading. It exaggerates the differences between historical and present-day capitalism, and misses the ways in which “finance†and “industry†form complementary parts of a single process. JEL classification: B51, E44, N20

Suggested Citation

  • J. W. Mason, 2021. "Comments on Michael Hudson: Making Capitalism Great Again? A Critique of the “Rentier Takeover†Thesis," Review of Radical Political Economics, Union for Radical Political Economics, vol. 53(4), pages 574-578, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:reorpe:v:53:y:2021:i:4:p:574-578
    DOI: 10.1177/04866134211028915
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/04866134211028915
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/04866134211028915?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Joel Rabinovich, 2019. "The financialization of the non‐financial corporation. A critique to the financial turn of accumulation hypothesis," Metroeconomica, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 70(4), pages 738-775, November.
    2. James R. Crotty, 1990. "Owner–Manager Conflict and Financial Theories of Investment Instability: A Critical Assessment of Keynes, Tobin, and Minsky," Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(4), pages 519-542, July.
    3. Michael Hudson, 2021. "Finance Capitalism versus Industrial Capitalism: The Rentier Resurgence and Takeover," Review of Radical Political Economics, Union for Radical Political Economics, vol. 53(4), pages 557-573, December.
    4. Arjun Jayadev & J.W. Mason & Enno Schröder, 2018. "The Political Economy of Financialization in the United States, Europe and India," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 49(2), pages 353-374, March.
    5. J. W. Mason, 2018. "Income Distribution, Household Debt, and Aggregate Demand: A Critical Assessment," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_901, Levy Economics Institute.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Braun, Benjamin, 2021. "From exit to control: The structural power of finance under asset manager capitalism," SocArXiv 4uesc, Center for Open Science.
    2. Nicolas Piluso, 2025. "Tobin's Q and shareholder value: Does “shareholder return” impede investment?," Review of Financial Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 43(1), pages 3-7, January.
    3. Gerald Epstein, 1999. "A Comment on Dickens," Review of Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 11(4), pages 399-405.
    4. Joel Rabinovich & Niall Reddy, 2024. "Corporate Financialization: A Conceptual Clarification and Critical Review of the Literature," Working Papers PKWP2402, Post Keynesian Economics Society (PKES).
    5. Pascal Seppecher & Isabelle Salle & Dany Lang, 2019. "Is the market really a good teacher?," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 29(1), pages 299-335, March.
    6. Thomas I. Palley, 2016. "Zero Lower Bound (ZLB) Economics," IMK Working Paper 164-2016, IMK at the Hans Boeckler Foundation, Macroeconomic Policy Institute.
    7. Ryszard Kata & Justyna Chmiel, 2020. "Financialisation Level of Non-Financial Enterprises in European Union Countries: A Comparative Analysis," European Research Studies Journal, European Research Studies Journal, vol. 0(3), pages 378-398.
    8. Cem Oyvat & Oğuz Öztunalı & Ceyhun Elgin, 2020. "Wage‐led versus profit‐led demand: A comprehensive empirical analysis," Metroeconomica, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 71(3), pages 458-486, July.
    9. Hein, Eckhard, 2011. "Distribution, ‘Financialisation’ and the Financial and Economic Crisis – Implications for Post-crisis Economic Policies," MPRA Paper 31180, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Thorsten H. Block, 1998. "Financial Market Liberalization and the Changing Character of Corporate Governance," SCEPA working paper series. 1998-08, Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis (SCEPA), The New School.
    11. Cookson, J. Anthony & Gilje, Erik P. & Heimer, Rawley Z., 2022. "Shale shocked: Cash windfalls and household debt repayment," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(3), pages 905-931.
    12. Marion Dieudonné, 2016. "Thorstein Veblen's 1904 contributions to Q and insider/outsider analysis," Working Papers hal-01313309, HAL.
    13. Özgür Orhangazi & Gary Dymski, 2023. "The Intellectual Odyssey of James R. Crotty: From the War on Vietnam to a Socialist Alternative to Global Capitalism," Review of Radical Political Economics, Union for Radical Political Economics, vol. 55(4), pages 714-724, December.
    14. Ozgür Orhangazi, 2008. "Financialisation and capital accumulation in the non-financial corporate sector:," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 32(6), pages 863-886, November.
    15. Joel Rabinovich & Rodrigo Perez Artica, 2020. "Cash holdings and the financialisation of Latin American nonfinancial corporations," Working Papers hal-02474321, HAL.
    16. J. Anthony Cookson & Erik P. Gilje & Rawley Z. Heimer, 2020. "Shale Shocked: Cash Windfalls and Household Debt Repayment," NBER Working Papers 27782, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Parui, Pintu, 2021. "Financialization and endogenous technological change: A post-Kaleckian perspective," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 221-244.
    18. Huang, Bingbing & Cui, Yuying & Chan, Kam C., 2022. "Firm-level financialization: Contributing factors, sources, and economic consequences," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 1153-1162.
    19. Willem H. Buiter, 2003. "James Tobin: An Appreciation of his Contribution to Economics," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 113(491), pages 585-631, November.
    20. Srinivas Raghavendra & Petri T. Piiroinen, 2019. "Conflict as a closure: A Kaleckian model of growth and distribution under financialization," ICAE Working Papers 96, Johannes Kepler University, Institute for Comprehensive Analysis of the Economy.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    financialization; circuit of capital; corporate governance; rentiers;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • B51 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - Current Heterodox Approaches - - - Socialist; Marxian; Sraffian
    • E44 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Financial Markets and the Macroeconomy
    • N20 - Economic History - - Financial Markets and Institutions - - - General, International, or Comparative

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:reorpe:v:53:y:2021:i:4:p:574-578. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.urpe.org/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.