The Crisis of Capitalism Animated

The Crisis of Capitalism Animated Open Culture



The economic/financial picture is looking ugly once again. Indeed, just yesterday, the most emailed New York Times article warned that the stock market might be on the verge of an epic crash, one that will bring the Dow below 1,000.

So how did we wind up in this global credit mess? We’ve heard various explanations, most assuming that our capitalist system didn’t quite function as it should, and that a few regulations will take care of the problem. But this is not the position taken by David Harvey, an important social theorist and geographer (now at CUNY).

Drawing on Marxian analysis (it’s still alive and well somewhere), Harvey suggests that the crisis is built into capitalism itself. It’s not the result of too few regulations. Rather it’s part of capitalism’s internal logic. (Mark Mancall, an emeritus Stanford history prof, echoes some of these basic thoughts on “Entitled Opinions” by the way.)

The animated video above is an outtake from a longer lecture presented by Harvey at the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce in the UK. You can watch the video in full here.