A Marxist Analysis of Silicon Valley Bank’s Collapse

The article engages in a Marxist analysis of legislative background and events in the global political economy that lead to collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and its subsequent acquisitions by other banks. It mainly places reliance upon two (2) key works of Marxism: (i) the chapter ‘Class Society and the State’ from the book ‘The State and Revolution’ by Vladimir Lenin and (ii) the chapter ‘Capitalist Crisis’ from Hadas Thier’s book A People’s Guide to Capitalism. Through such an approach, the article analyses the lobbying of the United States Congress, unexpected increase in the bank’s deposits, sudden decrease and increase in interest rate, the bank’s inability to predict these changes, and its subsequent acquisitions. The article argues that the collapse and subsequent acquisitions of Silicon Valley Bank are not unprecedented events, as many would argue, but rather a standard manner in which financial crises are resolved by capitalism.