The Dissolution of the Financial State

Which individuals, or entities, control the issue and operation of modern money? In the popular conception both these matters are the responsibility of the monetary authorities ? the state. Yet, in the four decades since Miliband?s ?The State in Capitalist Society?, we have experienced a reduction in the scope and size of the state generally. Does this extend to a diminishing state-role in the national monetary system? Whilst some thinkers, such as Killick, have outlined the existence of restricted (fiscal and monetary) policy autonomy, as a consequence of international capital flows, privatisation and foreign corporate investment, far less discussion has taken place regarding the existence and impact of the increasing private control of money-creation and money-value (Killick 1995). This is despite monetary debates, since the classical period, on topics as diverse as convertibility, neutrality or endogeneity.