Introduction

This chapter argues that structural change brought on by transnational production and post-industrialization has created space for non-state actors to acquire autonomy from sovereign entities. The depiction of financial asset-holders in the 1960s and 1970s as actors in pursuit of escaping the bounds of sovereign-based entities is an important one. The changed relationship between finance capital and state officials is most graphically illustrated by the difficulties faced by politically Left-oriented governments in carrying out their preferred policies of state intervention and income redistribution. Extensive financial liberalization and market regulatory reform over the past decade or so, international capital movements have increased enormously and dwarf transactions on current account. In an integrated financial market, there should be no significant gap between national interest rates and Eurocurrency interest rates in the same currency. The chapter also provides an overview of this book.