The Crisis of Global Capitalism
The Crisis of Global Capitalism
Toward a New Economic Culture?
This chapter looks to the possibility of a new economic culture superseding that of the recent past. The global financial crisis is viewed a direct outgrowth of the institutional arrangements and practices adopted as capitalism shifted into a global informational economy in the late twentieth century. Financialization had allowed global imbalances to grow more and more extreme, but seeds of a new economy began to sprout. Experiments in barter and alternative currencies to cooperatives and projects like urban farming are generally of very small scale today. Nonetheless, they suggest that alternatives are possible if the institutional constraints of conventional capitalism are reduced. Technological innovation, networking, and higher levels of education underwrite this new economy. They were important to capitalism in its ascendant financial phase, though it blocked their transformative potential by concentrating capital and limiting wages. And they support alternative-lifestyle communities today.
Keywords: new economic culture, global financial crisis, financialization, global imbalances, alternative economy, institutional constraints
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