John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods Market. Credit: http://www.sustainablebrands.com. All rights reserved.
The collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008 was a shock for many people. For a moment it seemed like capitalism, or at least ‘neoliberal’ capitalism, was on its last legs. But the moment passed and capitalism survived. The combination of huge cash subsidies for Wall Street and austerity for working people revived corporate profitability, trade, and production growth. Yet a sense of crisis and uncertainty remains pervasive in American society and many other countries around the world.
In the US, the economy remains the top concern. Good jobs lost during the recession have been replaced by low-wage, part-time jobs, while traders and lawmakers worry over whether Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen’s plan to raise the federal funds rate this year will derail the ‘recovery.’ The runaway success of Thomas Piketty’s treatise on global inequality; the surprising crowds drawn by an openly socialist candidate for the US Presidency like Bernie Sanders; and recent widespread mobilizations against police brutality in cities across the United States, all indicate a growing dissatisfaction with the status quo.
Outside the spheres of politics and economics, a different but related sense of crisis is apparent. There’s a growing feeling of dread that our way of life is destroying the planet, highlighted by books such as Paolo Bacigalupi’s The Windup Girl and David Mitchell’s The Bone Clocks, and popular films likeElysium and Snowpiercer. Naomi Klein’s far-reaching critique of capitalism and global warming has received the most attention, but she is not alone. Voices from across the political spectrum have declared that capitalism is in crisis.
