Financialization and value: why labour and the labour process still matter

Abstract

Despite expanding literatures on financialization, scholarship exploring its relationship to labourand the labour process remains under-developed. A further obstacle has arisen from argumentsthat novel financialized modes of value extraction render the labour process and labour processanalysis less relevant. This article challenges that view and explores how the labour process isstill a vital focal point for value creation and extraction. It sets out what scholars should ‘look for’to understand the ways in which distinctively financialized mechanisms operate in non-financialcorporations and how these dynamics are translated into outcomes for and through labour. Thearticle then provides four key propositions, drawing on labour process theory, which specify howthose mechanisms are operationalized and their consequences.Keywordsfinancialization,