Financialization

Financialization is a term sometimes used in discussions of the financial capitalism that has developed over the decades between 1980 and 2010, in which financial leverage tended to override capital (equity), and financial markets tended to dominate over the traditional industrial economy and agricultural economics.

Financialization describes an economic system or process that attempts to reduce all value that is exchanged (whether tangible or intangible, future or present promises, etc.) into a financial instrument. The intent of financialization is to be able to reduce any work product or service to an exchangeable financial instrument, like currency, and thus make it easier for people to trade these financial instruments.

Workers, through a financial instrument such as a mortgage, may trade their promise of future work or wages for a home. The financialization of risk sharing is what makes possible all insurance. The financialization of a government's promises (e.g., US government bonds) is what makes possible all government deficit spending. Financialization also makes economic rents possible.