April 8, 2009
Postmodern Financial Crisis
André Glucksmann’s analysis of the current crisis:
What led to the current crisis was not so much a faulty financial technique that we might promise to control from now on, that is, but the general state of mind that allowed its unchecked use. Capitalism, we should have remembered, involves at once prudent regulation and the imprudent transgression of old rules, the sharing of risks and the audacity to risk more successfully than others. Economic progress is not peaceful; it is always alternating between creation and destruction, as old productive forces are left behind and new sources of wealth explode. But after the end of the Cold War, the promise of a pacified world seemed to announce the blessing of a postmodern history without challenges, without conflict, and without tragedy, a history in which you could get away with anything. We are reaping the consequences of an excess of confidence, suffering for lack of a Cassandra.
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