Ten original essays examine the political and institutional factors that influence the initiation and efficiency of preferential credit policies in Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, Chile, Mexico, and Brazil.
Since 2008, the financial sector has been the subject of extensive criticism. Much of this criticism has focused on the morality of the actors involved in the crisis and its extended aftermath. This book analyses the key moral and political philosophical issues of the crisis and relates them to the political economy of finance. It also examines to what extent the financial sector can or should be reformed. This book is unified by the view that the financial sector had been a self-serving and self-regulating elite consumed by greed, speculation and even lawlessness, with little sense of responsibility to the wider society or common good. In light of critical analysis by authors from a variety of backgrounds and persuasions, suggestions for reform and improvement are proposed, in some cases radical reform. By placing the world of finance under a microscope, this book analyses the assumptions that have led from hubris to disgrace as it provides suggestions for an improved society. Rooted in philosophical reflection, this book invites a critical reassessment of finance and its societal role in the 21st century. This book will be of interest to academics, politicians, central bankers and financial regulators who wish to improve the morality of finance.
Can the contemporary Islamic finance movement be shown to meet the requirements of modern commerce? In the wake of the terrorist attacks on America the UN Security Council passed a resolution targeting transnational sources of terrorist funds. The United States and the International Monetary Fund are encouraging the governments of the Middle East to adopt policies of economic liberalism and a new type of capitalism, based on Islamic values and beliefs, is emerging.The aims of the book are:* to explore the political implications of the slow but steady accumulation of Islamic capital* to analyse the connections between Islamic finance and Islamic political movements in Middle Eastern and North African countries* to show that the commonly-perceived connection between Islamic finance and money laundering and terrorism is by no means the complete picture. Readers will learn to appreciate the various political contexts in which Islamic finance operates in the Middle East and North Africa and will acquire some understanding of its political as well as economic constraints. Hopefully possible misunderstandings about Islamic banking and finance will be corrected.The book is divided into two parts - part one is thematic and lays the ground for the country-specific case studies in part two (covering the Sudan, Kuwait, Jordan, Turkey, Tunisia and Egypt). The contributors include political scientists, economists and historians.Key Features:* A major topical issue* Written by the world's leading experts on Islamic Political Economy* Explores the connections between Islamic finance and Islamic political movements* Includes country-specific case studies
A ball of hot money rolls around the world. It seeks anonymity and political refuge. It dodges taxes and sidesteps currency controls. It rolls through offshore shell companies and secret bank accounts, phoney charities and fraudulent religious foundations. It is kept rolling by white-collar criminals, gun-runners, drug dealers, insurgent groups, scam artists, tax evaders, gold and gem smugglers, and, not least, secret service agents plotting coups and financing revolutions. R.T. Naylor explains the origins of this pool of hot and homeless money, its origins, its uses and abuses, how the world of high finance, corporate and governmental, became hostage to it, and the price the world is paying and will continue to pay until the hostages are released. This book was one of the first, and remains the most comprehensive, to dissect the world of offshore finance, capital flight, money laundering, and tax evasion. Once a subject of concern principally to tax authorities and finance ministries, since the September 11, 2001 hot and homeless money has now become a central preoccupation for police forces and intelligence services around the world.
Money in the history of political thought, from ancient Greece to the Great Inflation of the 1970s In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, critical attention has shifted from the economy to the most fundamental feature of all market economies—money. Yet despite the centrality of political struggles over money, it remains difficult to articulate its democratic possibilities and limits. The Currency of Politics takes readers from ancient Greece to today to provide an intellectual history of money, drawing on the insights of key political philosophers to show how money is not just a medium of exchange but also a central institution of political rule. Money appears to be beyond the reach of democratic politics, but this appearance—like so much about money—is deceptive. Even when the politics of money is impossible to ignore, its proper democratic role can be difficult to discern. Stefan Eich examines six crucial episodes of monetary crisis, recovering the neglected political theories of money in the thought of such figures as Aristotle, John Locke, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Karl Marx, and John Maynard Keynes. He shows how these layers of crisis have come to define the way we look at money, and argues that informed public debate about money requires a better appreciation of the diverse political struggles over its meaning. Recovering foundational ideas at the intersection of monetary rule and democratic politics, The Currency of Politics explains why only through greater awareness of the historical limits of monetary politics can we begin to articulate more democratic conceptions of money.
What if our financial system were organized to the benefit of the many rather than simply empowering the few? Robert Hockett and Fred Block argue that an entirely different financial system is both desirable and possible. They outline concrete steps that could get us there. Financial systems move the worlds savings from investment to investment, chasing the highest rates of return. They run on profit. But what if investment went to the enterprises or institutions that provided things that the majority of people would prioritize? Democratizing Finance includes six responses that seek to amend, elaborate, and challenge the arguments developed by Hockett and Block. Some of the core arguments put forward by other contributors include calls for the rapid elimination of private financial entities, the dilemmas of the politics associated with financial reforms, and the fate of parallel proposals advanced in the US in the 1930s.
Henry Laurence traces financial market reform in Britain and Japan over the last two decades, charting the movement of the Anglo-Saxon and Japanese styles of capitalism toward a new, hybrid form of economic organization. He explains what these two stories reveal about changes in the nature of business-government relations in an age of convergence.The package of reforms known in Britain as the "Big Bang" and in Japan as "Biggu Bangu" decontrolled prices, liberalized the number and nature of financial instruments that could be traded, opened both countries' markets to foreigners, and introduced a much greater degree of competition than would have been believed possible twenty years earlier. At the same time, Britain and Japan have undertaken stringent measures to improve the transparency and fairness of their markets.Why did two countries with traditionally very different regulatory styles adopt such strikingly similar reforms, and why did these reforms result in a mixture of deregulation in some areas and tighter control in others? In explaining these apparent contradictions, Laurence invokes the powerful domestic political impact of international capital mobility.Money Rules challenges the view that bureaucracy is the most powerful actor in the policymaking process. Using extensive interviews with more than one hundred policymakers and financial professionals in both countries, the author rebuts conventional wisdom. He argues that the events in Britain and Japan demonstrate striking crossnational convergence of political and economic institutions.
One of the most troubling critiques of contemporary democracy is the inability of representative governments to regulate the deluge of money in politics. If it is impossible to conceive of democracies without elections, it is equally impractical to imagine elections without money. Costs of Democracy is an exhaustive, ground-breaking study of money in Indian politics that opens readers’ eyes to the opaque and enigmatic ways in which money flows through the political veins of the world’s largest democracy. Through original, in-depth investigation—drawing from extensive fieldwork on political campaigns, pioneering surveys, and innovative data analysis—the contributors in this volume uncover the institutional and regulatory contexts governing the torrent of money in politics; the sources of political finance; the reasons for such large spending; and how money flows, influences, and interacts with different tiers of government. The book raises uncomfortable questions about whether the flood of money risks washing away electoral democracy itself.