By Paul Williams
As argued in the previous post, the current sub-prime crisis is not simply a ‘sub-normal’ functioning of our economy, it is a sign that the way we have ordered our economy is ‘sub-human’. This is, I suggest, an incredible irony. Isn’t capitalism’s promise that through the exercise of personal freedom of choice in the market we will achieve progress and enter our future? Capitalism promised us this freedom yet it has led instead to stagnation, despair, and ultimately increasing enslavement.
The current attempts to resolve the crisis, from stimulus packages to bank bailouts, should make us feel that as a society we have not yet got to grips with the difficult questions that we need to grapple with. While some of the actions being taken are necessary to prevent an even worse catastrophe, they are merely attempts to prop up the system, to return as soon as possible to business as usual.
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By Paul Williams
Mainstream media analyses would have us believe that the current sub-prime crisis is ‘sub-normal’; a one-off, albeit rather large, blip that can be tackled by greater transparency in ‘securitized investment products’, learning from mistakes and tweaking regulation. If the government helps encourage the banks to restart lending, this golden era of economic growth can continue unabated.
This rather optimistic approach ignores the fact that banks, regulators and rating agencies have not merely dropped their performance, but have actively functioned to do the exact opposite of what they are supposed to do in a well functioning society.
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Beyond Growth: The Economics of Sustainable Development
–Herman Daly
Reviewed by Russell Pinson
For those seeking an economically grounded critique against the growth-based ethos of mainstream economists Daly’s Beyond Growth is a welcome ally. As a former economist at the World Bank and now professor at the University of Maryland, Daly brings fiscal credibility to his protests against growth as the solution to global poverty.
Daly’s primary concern in this book is that population growth and production growth have already pushed the world beyond its environmental carrying capacity. In order to resolve this problem he thinks there must be a fundamental shift in the current pursuit of “growth based” economics. By revealing the illogical underpinnings of current economic practices Daly shows how the illusion of increased throughput (what he calls growth) not only distracts, but actually hinders us from resolving welfare disparities.
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By Mark Sampson
Recently, I happened to watch an interview on a major television news channel with Donald Trump, the American celebrity-businessman. The interviewer carefully approached the topic of the current economic crisis. She delicately approached the question of how the recession has affected Trump’s enormous real estate portfolio and other [...]
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