The Credit Crunch

This paper offers a broad overview and analysis of some of the main causes and consequences of the current economic crisis. While attempting to flag up some of the key continuities between the conditions contributing to the current crisis and those that produced the 'great crash' of 1929, it is argued that the 'credit crunch' must be understood in broad historical context. Specifically, it is suggested that the turn to neo-liberal economics in the late 1970's, principally in the UK and US, restored many of the structures and socio-economic characteristics that were prevalent in the 1920's, inevitably producing a highly similar outcome. Overall, it is argued that the (re)financialisation of the economy, the deregulation of markets, together with the cultivation of a culture of rampant individualism and acquisition, pervading the markets and wider society, have coalesced to sow the seeds of reckless profit seeking that have led to the current crisis. Moreover, given that latter, it is suggested that the current upheaval is as much a reflection of social and cultural decay as it is a failure of economic governance

Corporate governance · Credit crunch · Deregulation · Economics · Financial system · Individualism · Liberalism · Market economy · Neoclassical economics · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Economic Theory and Policy · Housing, Finance, and Neoliberalism · Law · Political and Economic history of UK and US

• Neoliberal Nomads

  Open Access•John Bone•Sociological Research Online•2014

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• Woolworths and Wales

  Open Access•Robin Smith, Robin James Smith et al.•Sociological Research Online•2011

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• An Apotheosis of Well-Being

  Open Access•Matt Dawson•Journal of Classical Sociology•2015

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• Irrational Exuberance

  Robert J Shiller•Irrational Exuberance•2015

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• Globalization and Inequality

  John Rapley•Globalization and Inequality•2004

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