Re: Information requested: US finance capital? which fraction of the bou

Mine, Richard:

There is some evidence that the distinction between financial and
industrial capital is increasingly blurred, from the perspective of
attempting to distinguish discrete units of capital with distinct
functions.

If "financial capital" be understood as capital that appears in the form
of financial assets (stocks, bonds, bills, deposits, etc.) and which
circulates in Marx's M-M' circuit, growing at an interest rate and
involved in activities such as borrowing and lending, facilitating
the reorganization of corporations, and facilitating the
accumulation of real capital ("pure"
financial capital); and if "industrial capital" is understood as capital
embodied in fixed and circulating "real" or physical capital seeking a
profit through organizing production and selling products in Marx's
M-C-P-M'-C' circuit, then it is difficult to determine which category most
economic units of capital (corporations) fall within each category.

This is primarily so because ostensibly nonfinancial firms such as General
Electric or General Motors increasingly have a large percentage of their
capital in the financial circuit.

I wrote two small papers which appeared in the Journal of Economic Issues
in the 1980's which offered empirical evidence regarding the phenomenon:

"The increasing importance of financial capital in the US economy," June
1988 and "Financial innovation and the distinction between financial and
industrial capital," June 1986.

Sociologial analysis of the class structure of society probably should
take this phenomenon into account.

Chris Niggle



On Fri, 16 Jun 2000, Richard N Hutchinson wrote:

> Mine-
>
> Ah, good old power structure research.
>
> Two sources that are particularly useful on the question of bank control,
> and finance capital, and its relation to corporate capital, are:
>
> Mintz, Beth and Michael Schwartz.  1985.  The Power Structure of American
>       Business.  U. of Chicago Press.
>
> Kotz, David M.  1978.  Bank Control of Large Corporations in the United
>       States.  U. of California Press.
>
> Kotz summarizes the important work of the Soviet scholar Menshikov
> (Millionaires and Managers, Moscow, 1969).
>
> I try to follow this field, and I know of no works that have updated the
> two works I've cited.  Domhoff is great, of course, but his work focuses
> on evidence for, and a theory of, the existence of a ruling class/elite,
> and he doesn't take it farther into the murky depths of factions.
>
> Good luck!
>
> Richard
>
>
>