Social Sciences in China (Chinese Edition)

No.12, 2018

 

The Rise and Influence of Financial Capitalism—A Sociological Analysis of a New Form of Capitalism

(Abstract)

 

Yang Dian and Ouyang Xuanyu

 

Compared with the first “great transformation” proposed by Karl Polanyi, the second “great transformation”—the emergence of financial capitalism—has had a more farreaching impact. The global expansion of financial capitalism has extended its reach beyond the scope of the nation-state. Actors, including governments, enterprises, families and individuals, are increasingly guided and reshaped by financial markets, resulting in a trend toward the “financialization of social life.” Its important social consequences are: financial markets’ increasing disembedment from society; the erosion of such forces as the state, trade unions, and civil society; and the exacerbation of the employment crisis, the polarization of rich and poor and structural inequality in developed capitalist countries. In the face of financial capital’s erosion of society, Western society has engendered a “social selfprotection” initiative, but so far this seems to have had a negligible effect. The establishment of a new financial and market governance structure at the global level to deal effectively with the negative impact of financial capitalism still has a long way to go.