Conclusion

This book addressed the debate about the present characteristics and the future of the City of London within the context of British “exceptionalism”. Although there is a thriving theoretical tradition that recognizes the existence of the peculiar, exceptional nature of the British capitalist evolution, in the most common interpretation, exceptionalism coincides with British traditionalism and retains only a symbolic meaning. In the interpretation adopted in this contribution, however, British exceptionalism is conceptualized as a structural phenomenon that characterizes not only the modalities in which the British economic system evolved, but also its historical and current performance. In particular, this approach recognizes in the persistence of traditionalism in British ideology the symptom of the existence of a clear division within the British capitalist class between its productive component and its financial one, the City of London, which has historically retained a hegemonic position in British civil and political society. This is reflected in the persistence of aristocratic, pre-industrial forms of political and cultural organization as the British financial and banking elite is recognized as the carrier of feudal, aristocratic cultural and social values.