Abstract

The so-called "Theory of Monetary Circuit" not only represents an original Marxian rereading of Keynesian macroeconomic categories, but also provides an essential tool for the analysis (and the critique) of recent developments in capitalist economies, including the financialization process. Starting from a "circuitist" view, it is argued that the twin financial crises of 2000 and 2007 can be regarded as the "friction points" of the law of creation of value and surplus value (that still relies on the extension and intensification of the exploitation of the living labor in the production sphere) with the private realization of value created (i.e. the historically determined way of setting relative prices, including return rates on financial assets) under current financially sophisticated capitalist economies.