Crisi e centralizzazione del capitale finanziario

The possible nexus between economic crises and what Marx and Hilferding referred to as “centralisation” of capital is one of the themes raised by the “great recession”. The article reviews the main studies devoted to such a nexus, comparing the Marxist and mainstream economic literature. A double causal relation is analysed: both concerning the role of centralisation in feeding the contradictions of the capitalist system and its recurrent crises, and the impact of these crises on the very process of centralisation.