Your Money or Your Life!

FINANCIAL GLOBALISATION/61

The Changing Face of Financial Investment 1980-94

As can be seen in Figure 4.1, banks are no longer the main players
on financial markets. They have been hugely outstripped by pension
funds, mutual funds and even insurance companies.
To whom do pension funds belong? Do they belong to a section of
the working population that, through investing its savings, has
become an integral part of the capitalist class? Certainly not. As Michel
Aglietta has pointed out, pension funds are not 'workers' property, but
rather the property of the capitalist class' (Aglietta, 1976).
Pension funds and other institutional investors are not oblivious to
industry. A significant portion of their massive financial holdings is
held in the form of company stock. The size of their share in a

11980 Dl990 □ 1994*

5000

4500

4000

3500

3000

2500

2000

1500 --

1000

500

o -H—■—■—4="—■—H>—■—■—H>o —■—■—'I ■ ■—H J=ci

Pension Mutual Insurance Banks Foundations

Funds Funds

* End of third quarter.

Figure 4.1 The evolution of financial assets by investor type,
1980-94

Source: Merieux and Marchand (1996, p. 269) in Chesnais (1996,
p. 27)