Foreign Rights

As the number of major economic crises brought upon by the financialization of capital-value brutally rises, François Morin advocates an overhaul of the world economic system. In order to replace capital-value with liberated labor-value, it is necessary to take a real political economy approach and adapt the critical economic theory of the great thinkers of modern capitalism to the realities of the XXIst century: from Marx to Keynes and kindred contemporary institutionalists. In response to the daunting intellectual, political and moral challenges we face today, this book explores the political and economic refounding gestures that citizens and political leaders should prepare to act upon : transforming labour and rethinking the notions of money, assets, corporations, and democracy.

On many occasions between the fourteenth and nineteenth centuries, the kings of France did not hesitate to relieve the State of its debts by using such heavy-handed tactics as imprisoning its creditors, or quite simply putting them to death. Such measures were called “bleeding.” François Morin believes we must take note of these lessons from the past if we want to overcome the imminent financial disaster.What will happen when the global bond bubble bursts? The evils to come may include massive uprisings and the instant disintegration of our economic infrastructure. Neither inflation nor growth will reduce worldwide debt levels. Public debt cancellation is therefore unavoidable, either as a consequence of a tremendous financial shock or as a result of a new system of financing the global economy. Our only hope is to set up this new system immediately: wemust bleed finance before it bleeds us!

There are 28 so-called “systemic” banks, whose influence is such that the failure of any one could sink us into the abyss of another recession. These banks form an oligopoly that is anything but public. Their dominant position imbues them with a power similar to that of large public institutions – including the ability to set the price of money – without any requirements for transparency. Through taking huge risks and making fraudulent deals, they weaken markets, but more importantly they exercise such enormous political influence that our hunt for public resources powerful enough to counteract them is in vain. Need we look any further for the causes of the political crises sweeping the Western democracies? Introducing new evidence, François Morin is uncompromising: if we want to protect citizens from the financial crises to come, we must fight this financial hydra and return the money to the collective purse.