financial speculation

The remarkable thing about finance, however, is that it is not simply inefficient but also exploitative in ways that industrial capital cannot be. It is a primordial capitalist activity that long predates the establishment of industrial capitalism and has retained its ancient predatory outlook. Finance can extract profits from any money income and stock of money - its profits are not limited to the fresh flows of value produced annually. During the past four decades, it has become expert at making zero-sum profits that involve transfers from one economic agent to another. Financial profits have become an incredible proportion of total profits - particularly in the USA for which we have relevant data. The exploitative outlook of finance in relation to households and individual workers is also evident. This is a characteristic feature of financialization and marks it out as a historical period in the development of capitalism. 

Instead, financial profits accrue due to the beneficiary's function in relation to the financial system and often take the form of income from work, rather that payment for ownership of capital. Bonuses are the most egregious - but far from the only - form of such remuneration. There is an aspect of "rent" to such returns, but they derive in good part from function relative to the financial system rather than simply the ownership of money capital. 

It is far from accidental that the main concern of the US state in 2008-09 was to restore financial profits, which it did successfully. The ability of the state to control the issuing of legal tender and to mobilize tax revenues has been placed at the disposal of this group. Moreover, modern rentiers, precisely because they are not related to the classical ones, can make enormous profits even when the rate of interest is driven to zero by the central bank. This appears to be one of the great paradoxes of financialization, but the paradox disappears when financial profit is conceived in the way I am suggesting. 

While notable, what this analysis by Paul Craig Roberts fails to recognise is the rapid integration between finance capital and the military, as manifest by the fact that companies that profit greatly from militarisation, such as Boeing has an established financial arm called Boeing Capital Corporation.

He has headed the South Centre which is responsible for devising policies for the South by the South.

In essence, in political-economic terms, kleptocratic capitalism is a system of economic production and exchange based on fictitious wealth without going through production of real wealth and political governance controlled by “looters and daytime robbers”.

there are occasional reports from UN agencies that cannot hide the truth. In a recent paper-- “Governing development in Africa - the role of the state in economic transformation”, 22 March 2011-- the UN ECA argues that despite high growth rates in Africa there has been no improvement in employment and welfare of ordinary people.