The Current Global Economic Crisis: Transformation of the Labour Market

Since the economic crisis of the 1970s, the surplus value accumulated in the real economy has been shared by the financial market in order to decrease the organic composition of capital by limiting investment into constant capital and to achieve higher returns of profit. Real profits accumulated at the productive market have been transferred to the financial market rather than being utilised in production (Tonak, 2009: p. 37). This capital transfer has downsized the real economy. It has circumvented the tendency for the rate of profit to fall, and hence, over accumulation, for a certain period of time. Capital has fled from the risky and low-profit real economy to the high-profit financial market, and growing levels of financialisation have postponed and/or limited dévalorisation of capital. In this respect, ‘capital’s agony to survive’ necessitated it to become ‘more aggressive, global and expansionist’ (Fouskas and Dimoulas, 2013: p. 21).