Accumulating Capital Today

This book explores the renewal of forms of capital accumulation and the institutions that shape it. It focuses on three main sources of accumulation: the extraction of profit through labor and the commodification of nature, financial speculation and the ways in which profit is converted into wealth. It thus offers a new understanding of the economic and political logics of capital accumulation within capitalism in the 21st century. It shows the recomposition of the sources of profit, from the traditional mechanisms of labor exploitation to the contemporary logics of speculation and dispossession. Bringing together the work of scholars who study the social fabric of capitalist accumulation, Accumulating Capital Today goes beyond disciplinary frontiers to describe how capital is accumulating in a world threatened by social and environmental collapse. This book heralds the emergence of "accumulation studies" and will be of interest to researchers in sociology, anthropology, politics, political economy, geography and economics.

Marlène Benquet is Research Fellow at University Paris-Dauphine and CNRS, France. Théo Bourgeron is Postdoctoral Researcher at University College Dublin, Ireland.

Introduction PART 1: Accumulating through the Exploitation of Labour and Nature 1. The dynamics of capital accumulation in managerial capitalism: the United States since World War II 2. Dispossessive wage labour: understanding accumulation and its crisis in contemporary Cameroon large-scale plantations 3. Between green growth and de-growth: locating the roots of climate change in capitalist accumulation 4. Exploring accumulation in the New Green Revolution for Africa. Ecological crisis, agrarian development and bio-capitalism PART 2: Accumulating through Financial Investment 5. Constructing a favourable environment for financial accumulation: the case of the City of London Corporation 6. Collective effort, private accumulation: constructing the Luxembourg investment fund, 1956-2019 7. Financial accumulation and exploitation: the case of leveraged buy-outs 8. Philanthrocapitalist accumulation and financial inclusion PART 3: Accumulating through Digital Technologies 9. Struggling to reform data capitalism: blockchain and the pipe dream of paying up 10. Predation in the age of algorithms: the role of intangible assets 11. Ghost management as a central feature of accumulation in corporate capitalism: the case of the global pharmaceutical sector PART 4: Accumulating Through the Transformation of Profit into Personal Wealth 12. The role of the owner in new capitalist accumulation processes: the case of Finland 13. Wealth managers, guardians of enrichment: the case of wealth managers in France 14. Accumulation and tax professionals: the case of tax consultants in Germany 15. Why do women accumulate less wealth than men?