Title: Globalised finance-dominated accumulation regime and sustainable development

Authors: Claude Serfati

Addresses: C3ED, Universite de Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, 47 boulevard Vauban, 78047 Guyancourt, France

Abstract: Ecological, economic and social issues are tightly interwoven and relate to a specific mode of production and social relations. Hence, we use the term ||sustainable development|| in a very broad sense, aimed at questioning how much and how far the dynamics of end-of-century capitalism is compatible with social well-being and environmental preservation. The new finance-driven accumulation regime, which came to being in the l980s, was consolidated thanks to neo-liberal governmental policies that strove to reduce social expenditure, including health-care benefits, retirement pensions and unemployment benefits. Connected to depressive macroeconomic trends, this regime caught third-world countries, including newly industrialised countries, in a debt trap, and contributed to a worsening of the economic, social and ecological situation of most of non-OECD countries.

Keywords: accumulation regime; finance capital; social costs of capitalism.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSD.2000.001525

International Journal of Sustainable Development, 2000 Vol.3 No.1, pp.40-62

Published online: 04 Jul 2003 *

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