Saving Planet Capital – the Logical Bailout of the Financial Market

• Main Author: Marta Olesik Marta Olesik
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Adam Mickiewicz University 2020-06-01
• Series: Praktyka Teoretyczna
• Subjects: financial crisis; debt; competition; financialization; neoliberalism; “too big to fail”
• Online Access: https://pressto.amu.edu.pl/index.php/prt/article/view/23808

When analyzing the neoliberal model of the market in terms of the transcendental conditions it creates, researchers concentrate on two distinct categories - competition and debt. Together, they constitute a form of reason specific to the economic development which occurred in our recent history. The aim of this text is to show how the financial crisis of 2007-2008 affected these two iterations of the neoliberal economic paradigm, with the bailout procedure simultaneously breaching the rules of competition and debt and then slyly re-purposing them in order to justify the situation. This re-purposing is the eponymous logical bailout which depended on a brand new transcendental form which the market has taken on. This form is introduced in a nutshell by the formula “too big to fail”. The essay shows that this slogan helped introduce an understanding of the market in terms of an environment – an intricate and inherently fragile network whose preservation is necessary for the survival of the species inhabiting it. This transcendental shift will be discussed as a survival mechanism which allowed the neoliberal paradigm to avoid demise despite its complete fiasco.