Ten years after the outbreak of the financial crisis, this issue brings together all the texts devoted to it in La Vie des idées. Tools for understanding how it spread to the world, by placing it in the global context of changes in capitalism.
There Life of Ideas was born at the same time as the financial crisis, which experienced its first tremors in the summer of 2007 before becoming truly systemic at the end of the summer of 2008. Beyond this historical coincidence, we have not stopped questioning the causes of this crisis and the errors of the financial markets, but also its deeper consequences in political and economic terms.
A 2010 dossier brought together the main contributions of the Life of Ideas on these issues. Eight years later, it is time to bring together a number of texts published more recently, which shed light on the different dimensions of the crisis, from its most technical financial aspects to the most general issues on the political regulation of markets or the nature of debt.
The crisis originated in a financial bubble linked to US real estate loans, but it is impossible to understand how it spread to the world – and in particular to Europe – and led to the emergence of new political radicalisms, without placing it in the general context of changes in capitalism (growing financial interconnections, political power of financial circles, public debt crisis, rising inequalities, etc.).
The banking crisis and changes in finance
Pedagogy of financial bubbles
Ten years ago, Lehman Brothers
by Christian Chavagneux
The well-kept secrets of international finance
About: Brooke Harrington, Capital Without Borders. Wealth Managers and the One PercentCambridge
by Anne Monier
Stock market trading at home
About: Alex Preda, Noise. Living and Trading in Electronic FinanceThe University of Chicago Press
by Pierre de Larminat
Finance and the truth of prices
About: Horacio Ortiz, Financial Value and Truth. A Political Anthropology Investigation into the Valuation of Listed CompaniesSciences Po Press
by Jeanne Lazarus
A century of tax evasion
About: Nicholas Shaxson, Tax Havens: An Investigation into the Ravages of Neoliberal FinanceAndré Versaille
by Arnaud Bourgain & Skerdilajda Zanaj
Banks, from one crisis to another
About: R. Grossman, Unsettled Account: The Evolution of Banking in the Industrialized World since 1800Princeton University Press
by Eric Monnet
Are financial markets efficient?
by Guillaume Vuillemey
Financial crises and banking regulation: a history
Interview with Eugene White
by Eric Monnet
The economic and social sources of the crisis
The Crisis through the Prism of Karl Polanyi
Listed: Fred Block & Margaret Somers, The Power of Market Fundamentalism: Karl Polanyi’s CritiqueHarvard University Press
by Gianfranco Poggi
Ecological transition, the future of Europe
About: Gaël Giraud. Financial Illusion. From Subprime to Ecological TransitionWorkshop Editions
by William Oman
Consuming on credit in France and the United States
About: Gunnar Trumbull, Consumer lending in France and America – Credit and WelfareCambridge
by Adrienne Sala
Get into debt!
The “American Dream” and Consumer Credit
by Nicolas Delalande
The Origin of the Great Recession
About: Atif Mian and Amir Sufi, House of debt. How they (and you) caused the Great Recession, and how we can prevent it from happening again. The University of Chicago Press
by Marine Duros
Iceland in its crises
About: V. Ingimundarson, P. Urfalino and I. Erlingsdóttir (eds.), Iceland’s Financial Crisis: The Politics of Blame, Protest and ReconstructionRoutledge
by Lionel Cordier
Finance, a factor of inequality
by Olivier Godechot
The Power of Wall Street
About: S. Johnson & J. Kwak, 13 Bankers. The Wall Street Takeover and the Next Financial MeltdownPantheon
by Adrien Auclert
Monetary policy and the “hand of God”
About: Mervyn King, The End of Alchemy: Money, Banking, and the Future of the Global Economy, WW Norton & Company
by Jean-Pierre Landau
Political reactions and consequences of the crisis
Why Financial Crises Give Birth to Legends
by Nathan Marcus
For a radical reform of monetary creation
About: Adair Turner, Between Debt and the DevilPrinceton
by André Grjebine
Europe without austerity
About: Bruno Tinel, Public debt: getting out of catastrophismReasons for action
by Jérôme Creel
Euro, the critical years
by Eric Monnet & Claudia Sternberg
To the polls, financiers!
About: Wolfgang Streeck, Bought Time. The Endlessly Postponed Crisis of Democratic CapitalismGallimard
by Nicolas Delalande
Inequality: a crisis for nothing?
by Nicolas Frémeaux
Political responses to the economic crisis
A historical and comparative perspective
by Jonas Pontusson & Damian Raess
How to dress the bank
About: Anat Admati & Martin Hellwig, The Bankers’ New Clothes. What’s Wrong with Banking and What to Do about It?Princeton
by Jézabel Couppey-Soubeyran
Central banks and economic inequality
by Clément Fontan