Financialization is a product of power and can only be sustained so long as there are significant economic imbalances between major countries and peripheral countries (Arrighi 1994). Militarization is not just a major source of profits but also an indispensable tool to reproduce finance capital by protecting and expanding markets. Also, finance capital has increased its power over the military sector by buying stock in arms corporations to become a major component of the military industrial complex. Therefore, financialization and militarization reinforce each other in the US.

In this video, Professor Adem Elveren, a member of the Security in Context Financialization and Militarism working group, presents the main findings of his latest book The Economics of Military Spending: A Marxist Perspective (Routledge 2019).