Assets and assetization in financialized capitalism

Abstract

In the wake of the global financial crisis of 2007–09, political economists have typically identified and interrogated speculative logics and credit-debt relations as the markers of financialized capitalism. This paper argues that assets, and the contingent processes which turn all manner of things into assets (i.e. ‘assetization’), can also be usefully foregrounded to understand the character and movement of financialized capitalism in the contemporary conjuncture, particularly in its Anglo-American heartlands. Centred on assets and assetization, research is refocused on the constitution of political economies of rent and investment, especially as the frontiers of financialized capitalism are extended to further incorporate nature and society. Research into financialized capitalism is also connected more explicitly to wider political debates over intensified inequalities, as the production and distribution of assets is key to wealth disparities and shapes fundamental stratifications across society.