Banks, Banks, Banks: The Elephant Nobody Even Sees
Our faith in the wobbling world of hyper-financialization will soon be tested.
It’s interesting, isn’t it, that amidst a tsunami of commentary about banks, nobody mentions the proverbial elephant in the room, which is the overwhelming dominance of finance in the economy and society, a dominance which raises the big question: is the dominance of finance healthy for the economy and society?
The reason why nobody even sees this elephant is we’ve come to believe “it’s always been this way” and “this is the natural order of things.” Both are false. Yes, debt and lending have been integral to “money,” trade and civilization from the beginning, as David Graeber so memorably detailed in his book Debt: The First 5,000 Years. But essential isn’t the same as dominant.
Without much in the way of recognition or inquiry, we’ve allowed finance to become the foundation of the entire economy. The entire economy will now grind to a halt without trillions of dollars of credit sluicing through every rivulet, stream and river of commerce. From overnight lending facilities to 30-year mortgages, debt/credit is the lubricant of the economy.
What’s been forgotten is the economy that once relied not just on credit but on savings and cash. In the pre-financialization economy, capital and credit were scarce; capital commanded a premium, and lending / credit slu
Article from LewRockwell
