Role of the banks in the capitalist system?

[The-Spark]

Im not sure i understand the role of banks in the capitalist system from a marxist point of view (anarchist point of view welcome too)

Thanks

[Die Neue Zeit]

It's more complicated than banks nowadays (to understand what role they play, you have to look at certain levels of "the bigger picture"). They're merely one group of financial institutions, and the capital of these institutions is merely one of three subsets of the overall finance capital. I suggest, for starters, to read Hilferding's Das Finanzkapital (in order to understand Lenin's comments in Imperialism regarding finance capital).

There's also a second subset: the controlling stake of a parent company in its direct and indirect subsidiaries, as well as "significant influence" investments (between 20% and 50%, but also judged through the other facts as not being a controlling stake).

Then try reading more on that other subset of finance capital which is playing a more important role: speculative capital.

New developments in capital accumulation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_accumulation#New_developments_in_capital_a ccumulation)

Globalization, Speculative Capital and U.S. Hegemony (http://www.lrna.org/2-pt/v16ed5art2.html)

Speculative Capital Unit Two: Yesterday and Today (http://www.scienceofsociety.org/onlinestudy/speccap/yesterday.today.html)

Lessons from Lenin (a surprisingly Xian site) (http://oxford-institute.org/docs/2007papers/2007-6Jennings.pdf)

[Hiero]

If you read Imperialism the Highest Stage of Capitalism by Lenin he explains the role of banks. Check out this chapter.

II. BANKS AND THEIR NEW ROLE (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/imp-hsc/ch02.htm#v22zz99h-210-GUESS)