What is it about?
Following the 2008 financial crisis, the literature examined the predictions and proscriptions of Karl Marx, with some asking whether existing financial systems had run their course. Nevertheless, Marxist-leaning literature and policies never took hold, and state-level banking/ finance policies have remained largely unchanged. This paper examines Belarus, a ‘neo-communist’ or ‘market-socialist’ state, to provide a new perspective on the continuation of capitalism in the United States and Europe, nearly unchanged, following the financial crisis.
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Why is it important?
Examining Belarus' path to and out of its financial crisis makes apparent that the role of the international lender of last resort (LOLR). The LOLR acts as a key element in protecting states embroiled in the financial crisis from facing the possibility of making the difficult policy changes put forth by the Marxist literature.
Perspectives
While mainstream literature is no longer pondering whether the post-2008 world would realize some of Marx’s predictions, the paper gives some interesting perspective on the role of the LOLR. When Belarus's leadership, notoriously sceptical of Western reforms and outside intervention by even its, allies is willing to promise market-based reforms in times of financial crisis to qualify for much-needed liquidity, it should be little wonder that the Marxist advice espoused in the thick of the financial crisis has been largely ignored by policymakers.
Professor Robin Bell
University of Worcester
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This page is a summary of: Post-crisis Belarus: Marxism and the lender of last resort, Journal of Eurasian Studies, July 2015, Elsevier,
DOI: 10.1016/j.euras.2015.03.007.
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