Keynesianism, Monetarism & the Crisis of the State

First published in 1988, this book has acquired new relevance in the wake of the global financial crisis. This important book focuses on the fundamental theoretical and political issue of the relationship between money and the state raised by the crisis of Keynesianism and the rise of monetarism. Simon Clarke starts with the classical political economists' analysis of the state based on their view of money as the only acceptable form of capitalist regulation. He then draws on Marx’s critique of the classical theory of money to develop an analysis of the tendency to the overaccumulation of capital, which underlies the permanence of class struggle and monetary disturbances. He then analyses the liberal form of the capitalist state, which determines the manner in which crises appear politically and ideologically at the level of the state, and whose contradictory form defines the nature and limits of state intervention. This argument is developed through an historical analysis of the rise of the modern state, leading to an original account of the crisis of Keynesianism and the rise of monetarism. The conclusion outlines the implications of the analysis, highlighting the limits of monetarism, the crisis of social democracy and the future of socialism. The book makes a major original contribution to contemporary academic and political debate.