ABSTRACT

Public banks are pervasive, with more than 900 worldwide, and powerful, having assets nearing $49 trillion. Yet they are too often perceived as static financial institutions, based on economic theories that begin from fixed notions of what it is to be a publicly owned bank. This has given rise to polarized debate wherein public banks are characterized as being either essentially good or bad. This is unrealistic and unhelpful as we seek ways to confront the crises of finance and of climate finance. We need instead to rethink public banks as dynamic and contested institutions within the public spheres of states. In this view, public ownership itself predetermines nothing but it does open up a particular public realm of possibilities. Change becomes possible and is a result of social forces making it so, if within the structural confines of gendered, racialized, and class-divided capitalist society. A dynamic theory of public banks provides a novel theoretical alternative and a practical pathway towards financing green and just transitions in the public interest.

摘要

公共银行无处不在，在全球拥有 900 多家，实力雄厚，资产接近 49 万亿美元。然而，它们往往被视为静态的金融机构，其基础是经济理论，这些理论从关于什么是公有银行的固定概念开始。这引起了两极分化的辩论，其中公共银行被描述为本质上是好还是坏。在我们寻求应对金融危机和气候金融危机的方法时，这是不切实际且无益的。相反，我们需要重新将公共银行视为国家公共领域内充满活力和有争议的机构。在这种观点看来，公有制本身并没有预先决定任何东西，但它确实开辟了一个特定的公共可能性的领域。如果在性别化、种族化和阶级划分的资本主义社会的结构范围内，变革成为可能，并且是社会力量促成变革的结果。公共银行的动态理论为公共利益的绿色和公正转型提供了新的理论替代方案和实践途径。