The economic boom of the last decade failed to bring us happiness, as skewed priorities placed material wealth over personal and ecological wellbeing. But
maybe there’s an upside to the downturn, argue Sarah van Gelder and Doug
Pibel.
The leaders of the G-20 Group of countries are like the blind men who failed to see the elephant - which in this case is the crisis-stricken international financial system. We have been too busy partying, and the hangover is too strong for us to see the silver lining, says Devinder Sharma.
When the G20 summit convenes on 15 November, world leaders need to realise that economic alternatives cannot be designed by western
powers alone, and a
densely interconnected world with 2 billion marginalised people will never be
either secure or stable, writes Dirk Messner and Simon Maxwell.
The Reagan-Bush mythology of small government and small-borne solutions has led the US to a macro-economic collapse. Barack Obama offers the breathtaking hope of a new economics that could save the US, the poor and the planet simulaneously, says Jeffrey Sachs.
The prescient analysis of John Maynard Keynes suggests that contradictions in 'laissez-faire capitalism' lead us to inevitable boom and bust. Now, we must use his ideas to reform the global economy by 'returning the state', suggests Prabhat Patnaik.
The 'financial hurricane' of 2007-2008 leaves fundamental questions of our economy, environment and political systems. Can democracy deliver a sustainable environment - and will a system-wide crisis be connected to system-wide change? By John Elkington and Mark Lee.
The writings of University of Chicago economists led to a liberation of greed in the name of freedom. Now, the finanical crisis should be for Friedmanism what the fall of the
Berlin Wall was for authoritarian communism: an indictment of ideology, argues Naomi Klein.
The most unnerving fact about the financial crisis is that it
started in the world’s strongest economy, the US. However, the crisis could have a silver lining: a wiser, more nimble US could emerge from the chaos, writes Branko Milanovic.
The
global financial crisis provides a unique opportunity to change, quickly and profoundly, the way the
majority thinks and feels and acts. I can see only one way out: the coming together of people, business and
government in a new incarnation of the Keynesian war economy strategy, says Susan George.
While 9/11 changed the way we view the world, the current financial
crisis has changed the way the world views us. And it will also change,
in some very fundamental ways, the way the world works - what historians might deem a true global watershed: the end of one period and the
beginning of another, says David Rothkopf.
