大逆轉：金融擴張如何推升不平等

by Ken-Hou Lin, 林庚厚, Megan Tobias Neely

從促進經濟效率變成榨取社會資源：
反客為主的金融化現象為何發生？
該如何改善？

近年各國對經濟不平等的熱烈討論當中，經常提及「金融化」的重要性。然而什麼是金融化？金融化又是如何擴大貧富不均？

本書針對何謂金融化與其歷史背景，以及金融化透過什麼樣的方式擴大貧富差距，提供了非常完整清楚的解釋。

金融活動原本是用以輔助整體經濟活動，不但可以為經濟交易提供便利，更能夠媒合資金運用，讓資源獲得更有效率的配置，從而提升整體經濟的生產力，此外還能增加我們面對不確定性的能力，協助降低風險。

但從一九八○年代以來，金融業高度擴張，透過愈來愈多方式賺取利潤，從整體經濟榨取資源。這些發展鮮少引導資本投入有益的用途，也沒有提升其他產業的經濟利益。同時，許多大型企業也將更多資本投入金融活動，而非投入本業的經營。

金融的角色大幅逆轉，從服務經濟的僕人，變成掌控經濟的主人，將自己的邏輯、利益和做法強加於整個經濟體與社會。此外，金融業也不斷鼓吹家庭與個人積極從事投資理財，過去由工會、企業和政府承擔的風險與不確定性，如今則轉移到個人身上。作者認為，金融體系擴張最嚴重的後果並非一再發生的國際金融危機，而是貧富之間的社會鴻溝不斷擴大。

Genres: Economics, Nonfiction, Finance

288 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2020

About the author

Ken Hou-Lin is an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Texas at Austin. His research examines how the economic and demographic changes in past four decades shape the distribution of resources in the United States.

Reviews

[Yousif Al Zeera · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brilliant book on the increasing inequality caused by the "financialization" of the economy. While access to credit is vital to lots of people, the structure and rules of the financial industry does not assist in tackling the inequality issue. In fact, it is inherently built to cause further inequality (not necessarily by intention but by regulators overlooking the “inequality” issue and focusing on having “access to credit”).

Change in key dynamics on the relationship between capital and labor in recent decades transformed more power from the worker to the owner. This coupled with the increasing "deunionization" led to further inequality and divergence between the rich and the poor.

The book also sheds light on the ever-growing power of the "finance/banking" industry in relation to the industries, turning it from a "support" player into the "central" player in the economy where everything and all industries revolves around finance. Non-financial companies started offering financial products/services and making investments into various financial assets (as opposed to their core business).

[Alina · Rating 3 out of 5]

There were issues with this book. Fortunately, there are some good counter arguments made. They were too briefly discussed; I was curious to know more, but I felt like information was obscured. The narrative is biased towards the fact that wealth inequality is unnatural, so the book made fatal generalizations. In fact, there is hardly any economics language used here. This significantly diminishes the depth of this book’s analysis. There could have been so much more to this! Making a larger distinction between commercial and investment banking, then analyzing these two contributions to wealth inequality individually would have been a good start. Breadth was more important to them than depth, which decreased the enjoyment I had reading. Furthermore, I wish they discussed the role of restructuring as a tertiary contributor to wealth inequality.

If you know next to nothing about economics but want to learn more, then this book is for you.

[Paul · Rating 2 out of 5]

Maybe, just maybe, unions are not the answer to every problem. Book makes a lot of judgment calls backed by no arguments. Beyond that unless you're really young or were asleep last 20 years you already know the history this book is trying to present.