Park & Doucette, ‘Financialization or Capitalization? Debating Capitalist Power in South Korea in the Context of Neoliberal Globalization’

Park & Doucette, ‘Financialization or Capitalization? Debating Capitalist Power in South Korea in the Context of Neoliberal Globalization’

October 26, 2016

Abstract

The article reviews debates concerning financialization in South Korea, with a focus on ongoing arguments between liberal, post-Keynesian, institutionalist and Marxist economists. It argues that post-Keynesian and institutionalist perspectives in particular neglect important class processes through which the financial circuit operates within the Korean economy, especially the power of Korea’s large, family-led conglomerates, or chaebol. In order to build upon Marxist approaches to Korean finance, we argue that Nitzen and Bichler’s approach to the ‘capitalization’ of capitalist class power provides a useful heuristic for understanding the differential power of Korean chaebol and their integration into global capital.

Citation

Financialization or Capitalization? Debating Capitalist Power in South Korea in the Context of Neoliberal Globalization

Park, Hyeng-Joon and Doucette, Jamie. (2016). Capital & Class. 40(3), 533-554.