The collapse of capitalism
Here are a couple of my recent Facebook status updates:
- Sep 02: Jon thinks rumours of recession are crazily exaggerated. Worst times for 60 years? What, since the War?? Calm down, Darling…
- Sep 15: Jon wishes newsreaders wouldn’t use hyperbole like “global financial meldown”. It makes him nervous.
That now seems like ancient history. I was wrong. “Global financial meltdown” isn’t an exaggeration after all. This is the worst financial crisis since 1929, possibly in the history of Western capitalism. Now that every investment bank has folded, been taken over or redefined as a holding bank; now that a Republican administration in the US has nationalised two huge mortgage lenders and is trying to hoover up all those bad sub-prime debts at the tax payer’s expense; now that HBOS has been taken over by LloydsTSB, and UK competition law relaxed to allow it; now that short selling has been banned; now, after all that, will things settle down?
It seems we’ve not quite hit the bottom yet. Today, five banks failed before lunchtime, including the 150-year-old Bradford and Bingley. The controversial US bank bailout bill has, at the time of writing, failed, blocked by Republicans themselves.
The last couple of weeks have felt a bit like the ending to Fight Club - you know, when Tyler Durden causes a literal banking collapse by blowing financial headquarter buildings up.
But what will happen next? And how do we describe it? Post-capitalism? Neo-capitalism? The end of hyper-capitalism?
Trust me. Everything’s going to be fine. You met me at a very strange time in the economy.
2 Comments
Paul Watson
Monday, 29th September 2008 at 8:06 pm
I think that Umair Haque has some good ideas on “what next”. It’ll still be capitalism (unfortunately) but in a different key.
Jon Reed
Wednesday, 15th October 2008 at 7:22 am
Thanks for the link, Paul - he seems to have a v. interesting perspective on things!
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