Implications of the New Pattern

The method of analysis used in the previous pages is based on Aristotle’s multi-modal causality with input from Braudel, which allows different timeframes to be taken into account. Part I of this report described the soil in which financialization first took root — the Thirty Golden Years and the period of economic liberalization — and looked at the phenomenon of ‘savings silos’, players specially designed and equipped to collect and manage savings. Finally, it showed that the eager pursuit of financial gain, rationalized by the modern science of finance, can be seen as an extension of the efficiency ethos that has underpinned Western civilization for almost two centuries. As for the actual financialization process, the subject of Part II, it is maintained by the tendency in all areas of the economy and society to replace relationships with transactions. The gradual replacement of a network of relationships with a dazzling display of transactions has fuelled the spread of financialization and enabled it to permeate every area of the economy and society. This process has not been automatic or peaceful; on the contrary, it has often involved one partner in a relationship being exploited by the one who is leaving it.