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Meltdown: The End Of The Age Of Greed (2009)

by Paul Mason(Favorite Author)

3.98 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

1844673960 (ISBN13: 9781844673964)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Verso

review 1: This is a really great account of the collapse of the economic 'hyperbubble' in 2008. The author is not an anti-capitalist, and cites a bunch of good things capitalism and neoliberalism has done for us: the destruction of a conservative social order and the social solidarities created by the working class movements of the 19th and 20th century have given way to a society where you can "borrow big-time, negotiate your own salary, duck and dive, migrate if you have to... but lock your door at night. And let your hair down. They can treat you like shit at work, but they can't tell you who to sleep with or what time the pubs close anymore."He argues that free market fundamentalism is as discredited as Leninism, and there will be an 'unwinding' of the imbalances between east an... mored west, but with china (and growing chinese working class power) calling the shots. It is worth reading this book just for the last chapter about post-neoliberal politics and economics. Familiarity breeds contempt, which might explain my pleasure at his assertion that, "in conditions where the state has made the biggest intervention into the world economy in a century", social movements must not ignore the state, and can't restrict themselves to 'think global, act local'. Take that, anarcho-tosspots.
review 2: A call for fresh thinking and new leadership to shape the character of capitalism in the wake of the 2008 meltdown in the global financial system, which this book documents both accurately and accessibly.Final sentences put it well:"The task of finding a better model confronts us in a period of economic recession and rising social unrest, and with the ideology of neoliberalism now lying shattered alongside that of Stalinist Marxism, which has been dead for twenty years.The magnitude of the crisis is much bigger than most of us yet imagine....In the first week of October 2008 a deregulated banking system brought the entire economy of the world to the brink of collapse. It was the product of giant hubris and the untrammelled power of a financial elite. The crisis happened because the world was persuaded to forget the causes and consequences of 1929. It must never forget the events of 2008." (p172/173) less

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