Finance capitalism is a term in defined as the subordination of processes of production to the accumulation of money profits in a financial system. It is characterized by the pursuit of profit from the purchase and sale of, or investment in, currencies and financial products such as bonds, stocks, futures and other derivatives. It also includes the lending of money at interest. Finance capitalism is seen by Marxists as being exploitative by supplying income to non-laborers.
Finance capitalism is seen by traditional Marxists as a dialectical outgrowth of industrial capitalism, and part of the process by which the whole capitalist phase of history comes to an end. In the tradition of Thorstein Veblen, it is contrasted with industrial capitalism, where profit is made from the manufacture of goods.
Fascists were vocal in their opposition to finance capitalism. Academic defenders of the economic concept of capitalism, such as Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk, see profits as part of the roundabout process by which it grows and hedges against inevitable risks.
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“Imperialism is capitalism at that stage of development at which the dominance of monopolies and finance capitalism is established; in which the export of capital has acquired pronounced importance; in which the division of the world among the international trusts has begun, in which the division of all territories of the globe among the biggest capitalist powers has been completed.”
—Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (1870–1924)