The Ascendancy of Finance

Who is sovereign in the modern state? working like a detective to trace the historical roots of the current financial and budgetary crisis and the interplay between markets and government action, Joseph Vogl gives a politically explosive answer to this question. -Jury, Leipzig Bookfair Prize A bold and clever treatise on political economy... A lively debate of the issues raised by this book would be greatly welcomed, being in its essence a debate about the image of the West... and how we might live under great fiscal uncertainty. -Suddeutsche Zeitung With stunning erudition Vogl explores the dark corners of the neoliberal political economy, where states fuse with finance and the public power is simultaneously marketized and de-democratized. Anchored in a concise history of the modern state and its claims to sovereignty, Vogl's analysis focuses on the strangest creation of modern capitalism, money. -Wolfgang Streeck, emeritus director, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, Cologne It is no overstatement to call this book groundbreaking. In The Ascendancy of Finance, Joseph Vogl recasts nearly half a millennia of economic history to argue that the symbiosis of the finance and political spheres is longstanding, and that the informalization of policy-making, as seen most dramatically in 2008, threatens to bypass democracy. Indispensable reading, and, in these tumultuous times, the Ascendancy of Finance is both illuminating and chilling. -Janine Wedel, George Mason University `In elegant historical-institutionalist fashion, Vogl recounts the long story of modern money's development, tracing the co-evolution of sovereign states and financial markets-each needing the other in defence of its own credit and credibility.' -New Left Review