Parkland multimedia
2009-11-21 - Robin Broad - How the Market Met Its Match
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27:48 |  |
A/V from the event:
How the Market Met Its Match and The Financial Crisis: Causes, Dimensions, Consequences
Nov 21, 2009
Robin Broad: Development Redefined: How the Market Met Its Match…
& What We Should be Learning from the Global Economic, Environmental, and Food Crises
The financial crisis began on Wall Street in the United States, but quickly spread to the far reaches of the developing world—deepening crises of poverty, inequality, food, debt, and the environment. Hence, there is now a deep crisis of development at the tail-end of a thirty year period where most development thinking and policy was dominated by a “market fundamentalist” frame. This moment of crisis could – and should – open the door to new understandings of development and usher in a paradigm shift to development models more rooted in human needs and ecological balance. To do so, we must overcome the myths that dominated the three decades of market fundamentalism. But the Group of 20 has responded to the global crisis by pressing more resources on the failed global institutions: the World Bank and the IMF. By first looking at the myths that dominated mainstream economic thinking and policies since 1980 and then analyzing the current moment of development debate and policies, I will help participants understand the perils and the possibilities of this moment in development thinking.
Brenda Spotton Visano: Resolving Crises: One More Chance to get it Right…by going Left
Financial Crises have punctuated our history with finance capitalism. From the early 18th century South Sea and Mississippi Bubbles through to current day, we have repeatedly been witness to economic collapse attributable to a prior self-satisfied financial exuberance…the only real surprise is why so many found this crisis surprising! While historical episodes have had similar root structural causes, policies designed to resolve the crisis have repeatedly focused on the idiosyncratic and individual—the individual cause, the individual solution. The orthodox interpretations of the crisis preserve the sanctity of individual as paramount. But it is precisely this culture of individualism that ensures these crises will recur. We’ve been given another chance to do better by challenging this ethos of individualism. We have a chance to get it right…by going left.
This talk will highlight the ways in which individualism imbues both the crisis itself and the orthodox perspective on it. The audience will be invited to consider ways in which the paths to both crisis prevention and a better understanding of the economy lie in building a community of citizens who celebrate and welcome diversity. Where orthodox economics celebrates the homogeneous individual, this talk will highlight the need to develop instead the culture of the heterogeneous collective.