The City also situates global finance as a critical component to the daily workings of capitalist production. Norfield’s book explains in detail how London was able to maintain its role as the center of world finance, despite Washington’s rise to global dominance. Throughout this period, the UK’s relationship with the United States has been a combination of both rivalry and cooperation, so while Britain accepted the dollar as the international currency following the war, it strove to generate business for British capitalism within the new dollar-dominated system. He illustrates how Britain has acted to serve its own economic interests and has found ways to play to its strengths. While Britain has had less power in the global financial system than the US, especially since the war, to view it as merely a “satellite” of US power, Norfield argues, is incorrect. Norfield’s first point is best illustrated by his description of the UK’s relationship to the US following World War II. And finally, regarding imperialism and world power, Norfield asserts that access to finance both reflects economic power, and serves as a way of maintaining that power internationally. Second, Norfield stresses that the financial system is an integral part of capitalism, not an aberration as some who write about the “financialization” of capital claim. First, he disagrees with writers who overemphasize the dominance of US capitalism, arguing that this stance overlooks the interests that other countries hold in the system and how they oppress weaker states. Norfield makes a number of important points. Norfield is a Marxist, and The City elucidates an explicitly Marxist analysis of the financial system and how it relates to the broader system of global capitalist power, an aspect of imperialism about which there is very little written. Tony Norfield’s book The City: London and the Global Power of Finance provides readers with an insider’s look at the inner workings of London’s financial operations and international finance.
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