An interview with David Graeber, author of Debt: The First 5,000 Years. Keith Roberts on his book The Origins of Business, Money, and Markets. Before the industrial revolution, economists considered output to be fundamentally constrained by the limited supply of land; Tony Wrigley explores how the industrial revolution managed to break free from these shackles. From New Left Project, Pat Hudson on a new history of the Industrial Revolution. The story of barbed wire on the American plains shows that technological improvements, not just legal agreements, can help secure property and thus foster investment and prosperity. Youssef Cassis on his book Crises and Opportunities: The Shaping of Modern Finance. From Political Affairs, John Batchell on three irresolvable crises of capitalism. Paul Gilding on how our current model of economic growth is driving us over the cliff. From n+1, Stephen Squibb on the origins of the crisis. Wolfgang Streeck (Max Planck): The Crisis in Context: Democratic Capitalism and its Contradictions. How much of the economic crisis is real? Economic headlines are often misleading. Is capitalism doomed? Nouriel Roubini investigates. Financial capitalism has lost its legitimacy — the spiral of ever-increasing national debt and Wall Street speculation must be broken and we must speak up against rhetorical embellishments that try to sell "business as usual" as the only option. The recent global financial crisis has been wasted thus far; political crises — and not economic turmoil — that actually bring about reforms. Luigi Zingales on the perverse politics of financial crisis. Researchers have long noted variations from country to country in citizens’ feelings about redistribution — is the gap the product of different economic institutions and situations, or is it something economics can’t account for, culture?
