The crisis of 2007-9 was a systemic upheaval rather than just the result of poor regulation, or of speculative excesses of finance. It was a crisis of financialised capitalism. Financialisation is a structural transformation of advanced capitalist economies, resulting in asymmetric growth of the circulation of money relative to production and allowing finance to penetrate even minor niches of social and personal life. Hence a systemic failure of private banking could become a global crisis.

Low-income workers, for instance, are heavily concerned about pensions, savings, and insurance. The burden of debt – both mortgage and personal – has become a permanent fixture of modern working-class life. Meanwhile, inequality has been exacerbated by bankers and financiers earning astronomical bonuses while shifting the costs of crisis onto society.

Radical activists have long sought to raise demands for improvements in the conditions of workers here and now. In the case of the financial system, such demands could raise broader issues of controlling the economy as a whole. Reorganising the financial system under contemporary conditions could pose a direct challenge to capitalist relations.