Keystroke Capitalism

How the creation of money makes the world go round

Contemporary capitalism produces more and more money, debt, and inequality. These three trends have a common cause: the privilege of private banks to create money by means of accounting—with the stroke of a key. Why was this privilege unaddressed politically for so long—and who benefited from that negligence? At the heart of the answer lies the realisation that the power to create money has been hidden by the way we commonly think and talk about capitalism. Keystroke Capitalism traces the omission of money creation from theories of capitalism and maps its consequences. By expanding the manoeuvring space for the banks to use their privilege, the capitalist countries have financed a transformation of the economy known as financialisation. It is not simply ‘the markets’ but money itself that transfers economic benefits from the masses to a minority.