GLOBAL RESEARCH – Karl Marx on Financial Bubbles: Much Keener Insights than Contemporary Economists
“In the earlier stages of capitalist development, that is, before the rise of big banks and the modern credit system, growth of finance capital was regulated or determined by the growth of industrial capital. Under commercial credit system, where one person lent the money to another in the reproduction process (for example, the wholesaler lent to the retailer, or the retailer lent to the consumer), finance capital could not deviate much from the industrial capital (…)
But at higher stages of capitalist development, the growth of finance capital no longer moves in tandem with the growth of industrial capital. Under these conditions, “Profit can be made purely from trading in a variety of financial claims existing only on paper. . . . Indeed, profit can be made by using only borrowed capital to engage in (speculative) trade, not backed up by any tangible asset”
read “The Making of Economic Society” by Robert Heilbronner who describes seven phases of capitalism in the USA.