In his recent book The Bailout State: Why Governments Rescue Banks, Not People, political economist Martijn Konings argues that the contemporary state has become a standing source of guarantees, subsidies and backstops for capital. Government is no longer capitalist in the sense that it protects property rights or is easily infiltrated by moneyed interests (two logics long recognized by Marxists). Instead, public financial management itself has become deeply interwoven with the production of private wealth. Tracing the origins of the bailout state back to the era of welfare capitalism, Konings depicts the neoliberal period not primarily as a sharp reversal of or decisive break with Keynesianism but as a moment in the longer evolution of institutional mechanisms that socialize the downside risk of asset ownership and manage the resulting inflationary pressure with austerity policies.
Mona Khneisser spoke with Martijn Konings about the book:
