>Open access<
Jack Copley (University of Warwick) counters the popular narrative that the 2008 crisis was a purely financial failure that a decent set of regulations would solve, by pointing to flagging capitalist profitability as the motor behind such financial expansion. In this sense, this well-written and easy-to-read pamphlet serves not just as a guide to the central pillars of contemporary finance (disintermediation, ‪securitisation‬ and ‪derivatives‬) but as an introduction to Marxist perspectives on financialisation, whereby these financial practices play a functional role within contemporary capitalism