Joscha Wullweber’s Central Bank Capitalism is an ambitious and engaging book that brings clarity to one of the most consequential developments in the political economy of our time: the transformation of central banking into the central infrastructure of contemporary financial capitalism. Wullweber takes readers deep into the mechanics of financial markets, showing both their inherent fragility and their surprising resilience, which is made possible by central bank interventions. Yet, in a strikingly paradoxical twist, these very interventions that stabilize markets also foster new forms of instability, leaving us in a state of permanent economic crisis.

The book focuses on the pivotal moments of 2008 and 2020, when the global financial crisis and the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic prompted unprecedented interventions by central banks, especially in the United States and Europe. Wullweber’s central claim is that the extraordinary measures introduced during these crises have become normalized, creating what he terms “central bank capitalism.” As Wullweber summarizes the change, “The measures taken by central banks [after 2008] were not just unconventional in terms of their nature and extent; they were historically unprecedented. When the financial system threatened to collapse during both the global financial crisis and the COVID-19 crisis, the dramatic turn of events forced central banks to radically alter their course and expand their financial instrument inventories” (pp. 145–146). In short, the book shows how “unconventional” monetary policies have become regularized, erasing the line between the state of emergency and the routine. In this account, central banks are not external arbiters stepping in to restore order, but rather constitutive actors whose decisions shape, sustain, and ultimately entrench a fragile financial system.

One of the book’s major strengths is the clarity with which Wullweber explains highly technical matters. His treatment of shadow banking and the complex instruments of liquidity provision, for example, renders comprehensible what might otherwise remain obscure to nonspecialist readers. The explanations of quantitative easing, credit creation, and the centrality of credit to the functioning of the economy are particularly effective. This makes the book especially valuable for scholars of political economy who want to understand not just the technical but also the political significance of central banking’s evolving role and policy decisions.

Theoretically, the book draws inspiration from Michel Foucault’s genealogy of different types of power to argue that central bank interventions do not operate according to a logic of sovereign control, but rather offer a form of laissez-faire governmentality aimed at keeping markets alive. This framing shifts the debate from whether states or markets are the more powerful institutions to assessing the changing forms of governance that sustain financial capitalism. In the author’s words, the far-reaching crisis intervention strategies used by central banks follow “an entirely new kind of governance rationality involving the transformation in the exercise of statehood. It is neither the resurgence of the Leviathan in opposition to financial markets nor the re-embedding in society of unchained market forces” (p. 31). Rather, Wullweber concludes that “[f]inance is embedded in state relations and vice versa” (p. 31). In this light, central banks emerge not simply as “the only game in town,” filling the void left by hesitant fiscal authorities, but also as active participants in the reproduction of a system prone to instability.

The arguments and findings of Central Bank Capitalism naturally give rise to a set of pressing questions. What, ultimately, are central banks for in a financial system that has come to depend structurally on their interventions? How should we understand the evolving balance between monetary stability and financial stability when the pursuit of one often comes at the expense of the other? What legitimacy can central banks’ independence claim when their interventions are no longer confined to rare emergencies but have become a permanent feature of market governance? And how do these dynamics reshape the relationship between central banks, fiscal authorities, and regulatory bodies?

Wullweber does not aim to provide systematic answers to all of these questions, nor is that the book’s primary purpose. Instead, the value of Central Bank Capitalism lies exactly in placing these issues squarely on the research and policy agenda. By reframing central banking as part of the problem rather than merely as a solution, the book compels scholars and policymakers alike to confront questions of legitimacy, accountability, and institutional design that too often remain implicit.

This makes the book especially important for political scientists interested in the politics of monetary and financial governance. Scholars of international political economy will find in it rich connections to debates on financialization, inequality, and the democratic legitimacy of economic governance. In this way, Wullweber’s contribution is less about offering definitive solutions than about reshaping the terrain on which future inquiry must proceed—a major achievement in itself.

While I find Central Bank Capitalism both illuminating and provocative, in dialogue with Wullweber’s account, I also see room for a different emphasis. Wullweber treats the interventions of central banks almost as a foregone conclusion: faced with market fragility, their response appears somehow automatic, driven by systemic necessity. This perspective is powerful in highlighting the structural dependence of financial capitalism on central bank action, but it risks downplaying the uncertainty and political contingency of the choices made at the time. While central banks did intervene forcefully in these instances, the alternative of inaction or more limited engagement could not be ruled out. The paths taken reflected not only systemic pressures but also contested technocratic debates and political dynamics—in particular, the relationship with fiscal authorities and patterns of societal support and opposition to central banks.

It is also worth noting that while Wullweber rightly emphasizes the historical novelty of the post-2008 interventions in the US and Europe, these measures were not entirely without precedent in a broader comparative perspective. Emerging market economies had long experimented with extraordinary forms of central bank support in the face of recurrent financial crises, and Japan had already deployed innovative monetary tools well before 2008. What appeared “unprecedented” in the transatlantic core thus had earlier echoes elsewhere—a reminder to all of us that the trajectory of monetary experimentation has been more geographically varied than the narrative centered on Wall Street, Frankfurt, or the City of London sometimes suggests.

Relatedly, the relationship between monetary, fiscal, and regulatory authorities was more complex than the “void-filling” image sometimes suggests. Rather than acting in isolation, central banks often coordinated—albeit in different modalities and sometimes uneasily—with other domestic policymakers. To highlight this dimension is not to detract from Wullweber’s central argument, but rather to enrich and complement it: central banks’ prominence was not simply the automatic result of market imperatives. It was also shaped by deliberate political decisions, inter-institutional dynamics between central banks and elected policymakers, as well as patterns of societal contestation.

Overall, Central Bank Capitalism is a lucid, original, and provocative book. It demonstrates how central banks, far from standing above the fray, are integral to the very crises they manage. Like all great works, it leaves readers not with tidy solutions but with sharper questions—questions that should be at the top of the research and policy agenda in the years ahead. Perhaps the biggest of these questions concerns the future direction of central banking, especially in light of increasing political pressures and expanded competencies. As Wullweber argues, “Instead of overtaxing the competencies of, central banks in their role to meet the demands of a deregulated financial system based on market liberal logic, what needs to be done is to restore the conditions that allow them to resume the function for which they were created; in other words, to serve as guardian and provider of elasticity of credit and liquidity for the productive economy” (p. 196). Yet, whether this vision can be realized is far from clear, as central banks confront not only the legacies of past crises but also new challenges posed by the climate transition, geopolitical competition, and enduring political pressures—a reminder that the questions raised in Central Bank Capitalism will only grow more urgent in the years ahead.