A Political Economy of Contemporary Capitalism and its Crisis

4Derivatives as money?

1 Introduction: money, speculation, and derivatives

So far we have analyzed the social nature of money in capitalism in line with Marx’s reasoning in his mature writings. We have not yet touched upon modern finance nor put forward our argument with regard to (financial) derivatives; we have not yet properly discussed financialization. Nevertheless, at least from the time of Hilferding’s intervention at the start of the twentieth century and continuing until the present, there is a tendency in a small part of the literature to see derivatives as a money form. This chapter will focus on this issue and can be seen as a preliminary introduction to the workings of derivatives markets. And since the term derivatives brings to ...