The spectre at the feast : capitalist crisis and the politics of recession / Andrew Gamble.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Gamble, Andrew.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Financial crises.

Capitalism.

Economic history--21st century.

Economic history.

Economic security.

Capitalism--History.

History.

Physical Description:

xi, 184 pages : illustrations ; 22 cm

Place of Publication:

Basingstoke ; New York, NY : Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.

Summary:

In the years following the end of the Cold War the capitalist West enjoyed a remarkable feast. Fuelled by ever higher levels of personal and corporate debt and by an abundance of cheap products from China and elsewhere, the consumers of the rich countries went shopping. Conspicuous consumption, once the badge of the leisure class, was now engaged in by all but the poorest. Some even dared to believe that this time the party might last for ever: that the ear of boom and bust had been finally buried and that the global economy was now so sophisticated and flexible that its breakdown was unthinkable.

The series of events that began in 2007 struck like an earthquake at the heart of the institutions, practices and beliefs of these years. The world has suffered a financial crisis of a scale not seen since the Great Depression in the 1930s. Increasingly frantic efforts have been made to stave off disaster, but the aftershocks of the crisis will be felt for years to come - and haunting all attempts at recovery is an old spectre, the spectre of the collapse of capitalism itself.

Contents:

1 From Boom to Bust 13

The Credit Crunch 19

2 Crises of Capitalism 36

The Meaning of Crisis 38

Early Forms of Capitalist Crisis 43

Marx and the Capitalist Business Cycle 46

Crises in the Twentieth Century 49

The Great Crash 53

The 1970s Stagflation 59

3 Globalization and Neo-liberalism 65

Globalization 67

Neo-liberalism 70

The Washington Consensus 84

Prospects for Neo-liberalism 86

4 The Politics of Recession 92

Neo-liberalism and the Return of the State 94

Who Gains? Who Loses? 99

The Political Fallout 101

Right and Left 108

5 The Global Impact 114

The Role of the United States 120

The Role of the EU 124

Japan 128

The Rising Economic Powers 129

The Global South 135

Transfer of Hegemony 137

6 What is to be Done? 141

The Market Fundamentalists 143

National Protectionists 149

Regulatory Liberals 153

Cosmopolitan Liberals 156

Anti-capitalists 159

Spectres at the Feast 164.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780230230743

0230230741

023023075X

9780230230750

OCLC:

317917354