Financialisation of natural resources: A Marxist approach
Year: 2011
Type: conference-paper
Abstract: The collapse of the Bretton Woods Agreement in 1973 unleashed the forces that would drive the capital restructuring that we have seen in the last three decades. This has involved the expansion of markets in general through processes of privatization of activities and capital assets that were previously under state control, as well as the deregulation of financial markets and institutions. Financial activities have spread into several new economic sectors and areas of daily life – housing, pensions, consumption, and so on. \nThe financialisation of natural resources has recently come to the fore in both academic and NGO circles with the food price crisis of 2008 and its implications for the poor across the globe. In addition, the perverse implications of the creation of markets for the right to pollute such as Kyoto carbon trading in increasing environmental degradation and exacerbating inequalities between the developed and developing would have been recognised. As the European sovereign debt crisis in 2011 has worsened, the discussion on the connection between natural resources sector and finance has also gained importance again as spill over from the commodities trade finance is threatening the raw material markets. (FT, 2011) \nThis paper aims to develop a systemic and structural understanding of the financialisation of natural resources so as to identify key areas for policy intervention. The paper begins with a literature review of financialisation, locating it within contemporary capitalism; section 2 takes a Marxist perspective to unravel and specify the nature of financialisation of natural resources; section 3 explores the specific instruments and mechanisms by which the financialisation of natural resources take place; section 4 summarises a number of implications of the financialisation of natural resources and opens a way towards policy discussion.
Language: English
Subfield: Finance
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2900027683