The Great Credit Crash

Most accounts of the current financial crisis tell a story of deregulation, out-of-control markets and irresponsible speculation. But few of those works have done more than regurgitate the newspaper coverage. In contrast, The Great Credit Crash digs deeper, drawing on some of the most prominent radical analysts of the modern market to foreground the key questions that are still waiting to be answered. This volume presents a more complete and convincing analysis of the recent economic disaster, which is revealed as a product of a social order built during the triumphalist years of neoliberal capitalism. The contributors assess current events and political responses, critically examining official rhetoric and hegemonic narratives to point the way to an understanding of the crisis beyond the subprime headlines.

About the Author :
Martijn Konings is a Researcher in the Amsterdam Institute for Metropolitan and International Development Studies at the University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Walden Bello is a political activist and Professor of Sociology and Public Administration at the University of the Philippines in Manila, as well as executive director of Focus on the Global South, a policy research institute based in Bangkok and for which he was the Founding Director. He was previously executive director of the Institute for Food and Development Policy (Food First) in Oakland, California and was educated at Princeton University. He has taught at the University of California, Berkeley. In 2003, Bello was awarded the Right Livelihood Award, whose website describes him as "one of the leading critics of the current model of economic globalization, combining the roles of intellectual and activist." Bello is also a fellow of the Transnational Institute (based in Amsterdam), and is a columnist for Foreign Policy In Focus. In March 2008 he was named Outstanding Public Scholar for 2008 by the International Studies Association. Bello is the author of Deglobalization: Ideas for a New Global Economy, Dark Victory: The United States and Global Poverty and Dilemmas of Domination: The Unmaking of the American Empire. Sam Gindin is the former Research Director of the Canadian Autoworkers Union and Packer Visiting Chair in Social Justice at York University. Among his many publications, he is the author (with Greg Albo and Leo Panitch) of In and Out of Crisis: The Global Financial Meltdown and Left Alternatives. Peter Gowan (1946-2009) taught international relations for many years at London Metropolitan University. He was the author of The Global Gamble and A Calculus of Power, co-editor of The Question of Europe, cofounder of the journal Labour Focus on Eastern Europe, and a longstanding member of the editorial board of New Left Review - who published an interview with Peter Gowan along with an obituary in Sept-Oct 2009. Leo Panitch is Canada Research Chair in Comparative Political Economy and Distinguished Research Professor of Political Science at York University. Editor of The Socialist Register for 25 years, his many books include Working Class Politics in Crisis, A Different Kind of State, The End of Parliamentary Socialism, and American Empire and The Political Economy of Global Finance. William Robinson is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is the author of several books, including David and Goliath: The US War Against Nicaragua and A Theory of Global Capitalism.