Pre-election special: Missing the Issue

This article is rather more impressive than a thousand other contemporaries discussing non-issues such as ‘Bigotgate’, immigration, and tv debates. We remain so far stuck within a crisis of capitalism we cannot regain perspective upon it. Too large to contemplate, too problematic to challenge.

The current farce at Goldman Sachs should shock us in to action, though not akin to the action taken with Greece’s economic woes – the wrong prescription from an institution with an almost unparalleled history of disastrous economic intervention, which will ultimately aid those who need it least.

The market remains largely unadmonished, unregulated, and propelled through flawed speculation. Staffed by over-privileged incompetents, the financial sector will fail again; only this time there’ll be no state to pick up the pieces, no protection from brutal levels of unemployment, no safety net.

On a wider scale, the neoliberal system has somehow remained despite overwhelming indications of its complete inability to work effectively. On a local scale, a Conservative Party victory on Thursday/Friday will tear apart the fabric of UK society for the foreseeable future. It doesn’t have to be this way – small victories for the left will save the global financial system. Listening to Krugman, Stiglitz et al can help to craft the widespread regulation that is so vital. Sustainable growth should be the aim.