Crisis and Distribution

Abstract

Textbooks typically depict the advanced world as a wonderfully perfect machine chugging along, subject to shocks but with no possibility of falling apart. Quite to the contrary, studying the history of the advanced world predisposes one to expect a standard recurring pattern which is called, historically, great depression. Global crises tend to occur with surprising regularity; not a perfect regularity in terms of schedule, but they tend to stay within certain dimensions of typically 30-45 years. The financial crisis of 2008 arose in the advanced world and it is significant to the understanding of capitalism in the historical context of other crises.