The financialisation of capitalism in recent decades has prompted a vast literature on the subject. Given the leading role of Marxist and Marxisant scholars in it, the question of the relevance of Rudolf Hilferding’s Finance Capital (1910) to understanding financialisation has naturally risen. However, serious discussions have judged any such relevance to be limited. Costas Lapavitsas’ verdict is that Hilferding’s concept of finance capital, which denoted the relation between banks and industry in the monopoly capitalism entered in the late nineteenth century, also considered the most developed and mature form of the relation, needs to be treated ‘with considerable caution.’
