We need to be wary of narratives of economic catastrophe

The humanitarian, arms-control and ecological agreements now in peril have their foundations in legitimising the story of deepening integration at a time when world affairs were so uncertain. Talk of a new world economy gave way to the Washington Consensus; socialist integration lost its age-old appeal. The fall of the Berlin Wall and the triumph of neoliberalism launched a new story that championed market purity, visionary entrepreneurs and the liberating power of gadgets for a world ruled by a global elite nicknamed ‘Davos Man’. In The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century (2005), the American journalist Thomas Friedman celebrated the glories of free trade, open communications and the bounty of global supply chains. Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World (2018) by the British historian Adam Tooze also leaves a sinking feeling: the 2008 crisis couldn’t even fail right!

Source: aeon.co