How Wall Street concocted a more volatile and dangerous capitalism

The Fall and Rise of American Finance traces the collapse and reconstitution of American financial power from the disintegration of robber baron J. P. Morgan’s vast empire to the rise of finance behemoth BlackRock. Contrary to what is taken for common sense by figures from Hillary Clinton to Bernie Sanders, Maher and Aquanno insist that financialization did not imply the hollowing out of the “real” economy or the retreat of the state. Rather, it served to intensify competitive discipline to maximize efficiency, profits, and the exploitation of labor—with the support of an increasingly authoritarian state.

Stephen Maher has been writing about Canadian politics since 1989. As a columnist and investigative reporter for Postmedia News, iPolitics, and Maclean’s, he has often set the agenda on Parliament Hill, covering political corruption, electoral wrongdoing, misinformation, and human rights abuses. He has also won many awards, including the Nieman Fellowship at Harvard University, the Michener Award for meritorious public service journalism, the National Newspaper Award, two Canadian Association of Journalism Awards, a Canadian Hillman Prize, and has been nominated for several National Magazine Awards.

Stephen Maher's profile page

Scott Aquanno's profile page

"Worthy heirs to their teacher, the great Leo Panitch, Maher and Aquanno sketch an alternative history of the last century that every critical scholar of finance must now engage and contend with."
—Quinn Slobodian, author of Crack-Up Capitalism

"A groundbreaking historical work with vital implications for theory and politics. The Fall and Rise of American Finance changes our vision of the present—and the future."
—Clara E. Mattei, author of The Capital Order

"Critical political economists tend to separate finance and ‘the real economy,’ seeing the former as parasitic on the latter. But what if finance has always been there and has always been the mechanism that disciplined capitalism as a whole? Maher and Aquanno explore this alternative reading of financialization. It is a compelling and convincing account."
—Mark Blyth, Professor of International Economics at Brown University

"The Fall and Rise of American Finance: From J. P. Morgan to BlackRock should be required reading for climate justice militants, even if it does not at first appear related to environmental concerns."
—Ashley Dawson, Los Angeles Review of Books