Sublime

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Determined to unshackle market forces from the heavy hand of the state and the millstone of “tax and spend,” the classes that led this bloc aimed to liberalize and globalize the capitalist economy. What that meant, in reality, was financialization: dismantling barriers to, and protections from, the free movement of capital; deregulating banking and

end. If central banks can’t keep pushing longer-term rates lower, then mortgages will become more expensive again, corporate buybacks of stocks will slow or stop, and stock valuations will be hurt by rising long-term rates.

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Credit and debt, in short, are among the essential building blocks of economic development, as vital to creating the wealth of nations

Wilson’s economic analysis was unsophisticated and not quite responsive to the specific banking problem. Individuals did lack credit, but not merely—not even primarily—due to monopoly. He ignored the larger issue identified by Paul Warburg—the need to pool reserves to ensure a continual flow of loans.

One person who was willing to risk political suicide was the visionary systems thinker Donella Meadows – one of the lead authors of the 1972 Limits to Growth report – and she didn’t mince her words. ‘Growth is one of the stupidest purposes ever invented by any culture,’ she declared in the late 1990s; ‘we’ve got to have an enough.’ In response to t