著者

野下 保利

出版者

経済理論学会

雑誌

季刊経済理論 (ISSN:18825184)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.45, no.2, pp.36-48, 2008-07-20

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The globalization has two aspects, i. e., the globalization of the real sector and the globalization of the financial sector. It should be noteworthy that the globalization of the real sector has been led by the globalization of the financial sector, i. e., the financial globalization. In today's global economy, the volume of the world financial transactions led by investors such as hedge funds exceeds that of the world trade and world production considerably. The capital movements that seek to earn capital gains over the world financial markets require most of businesses to enhance capital efficiency and to reduce cost thoroughly. Further, this kind of capital movements urges many countries to reform their social and economic institutions, which aim to materialize the securitization of all the assets that create cash flows. Now, the capital movements self-proliferating in world financial markets seem to make the decisions what to invest and how to reform all over the world. After Wicksell, the political economists such as Hilferding and Keynes in the early twentieth century had disputed about the economic system led by new rising capital movements using financial assets to make money. While Hilferding conceptualized that new capital movement as Financial Capital, Keynes almost recognized that the economy of those days was led by Financial Capital and expounded the working of the economy by using the framework of Monetary Equilibrium. Under the economy led by Financial Capital, production and employment must be adjusted to Monetary Equilibrium, i. e., the equilibrium of all returns of capital assets with financial assets. As a result, the causal relationship between the real sector and the financial sector is reversed and is opposite to that of the classical schools. Both concepts of Financial Capital and Monetary Equilibrium are indispensable to analyze the relationship between the real sector and the financial sector in modern economy. The importance of both concepts, however, has not been recognized sufficiently in economic literatures, and the definitions of both concepts have not been clear. The modern economy cannot be analyzed systematically without both concepts. Because we do not know who makes the decisions to select and invest if Financial Capital is not defined clearly and we cannot explain how the economy with financial assets work if Monetary Equilibrium is not precisely understood. In this sense, both concepts of Financial Capital and Monetary Equilibrium should be defined more clearly. This paper examines Hilferding's concept of Financial Capital and Keynes' de facto recognition about Financial Capital to redefines the concept of Financial Capital. Then, after evaluating Keynes' concept of Monetary Equilibrium, this paper reinterpret the concept of Monetary Equilibrium with Financial Capital to get the new perspective to integrating the relationship between the real sector and the financial sector in modern economy. Based on this new perspective, Keynesian (neo-Wicksellian) and neo-Walrasian macroeconomics after WW II are examined critically. Both macroeconomics cannot specify economic agents or capital movements that lead modern economy mainly. Therefore, they have to make ad hock assumptions about the main variables such as asset valuations and investment decision and the others. Finally, investigating Post Keynesian and Marxian approach to the modern economy, this paper show that integrating Post Keynesian analysis of Monetary Equilibrium with Marxian analysis on financial systems would be one of the effective approaches to analyze the modern economy led by Financial Capital systematically. If Financial Capital will continue to proliferate all over the world from now on, we have to integrate Post Keynesian macroeconomics perspective with Marxian analysis on the capitalist financial structures to understand the process and the effect of the globalization.