Financialization acts as unaccountable global economic planning with profit as its only goal

Evidence

Finance capital’s power over labour and commodities in an age of globalization is as dramatic as it is compulsive. Our lives and fates are increasingly in the grip of a system based on the ever more frantic, abstract and, indeed, imaginative competition between financial actors. As Michael Hudson (2012, xii) astutely notes, financialization essentially represents an unaccountable form of global economic planning, yet one with no broad goal, save for the endless competitive maximization of profit. — Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, 33

Categorization

• DEFINE: Core working definition of financialization borrowed from Michael Hudson: global planning with no goal but profit maximization — the load-bearing concept for the whole book.
• XREF: Direct precursor to deWaard’s cultural argument about how finance’s reach shapes economic life; also echoes the ‘superego’ framing from paragraph 32. — connects to: Financialization must be measured by profit generation, not employment or output — Greta R. Krippner, The Financialization of the American…, 14; Financialization functions as a disciplinary mechanism to exploit labor and displace capitalist contradictions — Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, 58; Measuring profits rather than employment reveals financialization as the dominant economic trend — Greta R. Krippner, The Financialization of the American…, 37 (+3 more)
• QUESTION: The unaccountable-planning frame suggests financialization has a systemic direction without intentional design — worth chasing how that claim is defended later.

Broader Connections

• Financialization operates without centralized direction yet reproduces itself through transformed agency #qualifies (0.85) — Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, 38
• Financialization functions as a disciplinary mechanism to exploit labor and displace capitalist contradictions #expands (0.82) — Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, 58
• Financialization must be measured by profit generation, not employment or output #corroborates (0.80) — Greta R. Krippner, The Financialization of the American…, 14
• Financialization operates as decentralized power through everyday financial practices #qualifies (0.80) — Natascha van der Zwan, Making Sense of Financialization, 20
• Measuring profits rather than employment reveals financialization as the dominant economic trend #corroborates (0.78) — Greta R. Krippner, The Financialization of the American…, 37