Financialization is one of the most innovative concepts to emerge in the field of political economy during the last three decades, although there is no agreement on what exactly it is. Profiting Without Producing puts forth a distinctive view defining financialization in terms of the fundamental conduct of non-financial enterprises, banks and households. Its most prominent feature is the rise of financial profit, in part extracted from households through financial expropriation. Financialized capitalism is also prone to crises, none greater than the gigantic turmoil that began in 2007....

Building on his work as a leading member of the renowned Research on Money and Finance group, Costas Lapavitsas presents a searing critique of the neoliberal nature of the Eurozone and ruthlessly dissects the roots of the current financial turmoil and the European debt crisis. Lapavitsas argues that European austerity is contradictory because it leads to recession, and worsens the burden of debt, further imperilling banks and the monetary union itself. Controversially, Lapavitsas suggests that impoverished states would be wise to quit the Euro and pursue debtor-led, sovereign and democratic...

The Ottoman Empire, as it approached its end, went through rapid economic and social development in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Profound changes took place in its European territories, particularly and prominently in Macedonia. In the decades before the First World War, industrial capitalism began to emerge in Ottoman Macedonia and its impact was felt across society. The port city of Salonica was at the epicentre of this transformation, led by its Jewish community. But the most remarkable site of development was found deep in provincial Macedonia, where...