I have been following the credit crisis and the potential of a global financial meltdown has worried me as it did everyone else. However, I stray away from business and economics for two main reason. Firstly, because I had to drop out of a course of Economics because I just refused to relate the emotional to the fiscal. I am like Wangchuck who refused to only consider GNP (Gross National Product) but opted to create GNH (Gross National Happiness) as his scale for quality of life. Secondly, to me it just seems like the big boys are pulling their weight around the testosterone roulette table. Of course, I might be wrong. But, I seek proof in the fact that anyone who is made to suffer the downfalls of capitalism is everyone but them.

I speak as someone who is a student of politics and history and not some financial advisor.

In any case, this whirlwind of a credit crisis is affecting everyone.  For us right here and to countries with astounding standards of living, like Iceland, which has been hit hard. The western governments that had once boasted at the marvel of capitalism are suddenly succumbing to pressure and biting their own tongues. The US is putting in almost a trillion to buy into many corporations, including chunks of banks. 

That is the new socialism. I bet Marx is laughing in his grave now. There is no turning around it:

“Capitalism is the economic system in which the means of production are owned by private persons, and operated for profit^[1] and where investments, distribution, income,production and pricing of goods and services are predominantly determined through the operation of a free market^[2], rather than by central economic planning.”

Now that all these governments (American, Icelandic, Kuwaiti and what have you) have planned the outcome of free trade by boosting and aiding the market, it means that the money flow is not private and it is controlled by an actor, and in this case the actor of all actors – the central law-making one. I mean if the mighty rich want a capitalist world shouldn’t they play by the rules and fall with their own market? Shouldn’t this bailout be given to people who have no choice but to follow that system and have their bank accounts at stake? 

I personally am not a communist, nor do I have an aversion to the word. I also believe the rampant capitalism has its gaping flaws. But, I believe that loose socialism (in its simplest definition) is the closest thing to a perfect system there is now. Following the Red Scare “socializing” anything become immediately synonymous with Leninism or Stalinism, two tyrannic leaders who have branded Marxist theory theirs and meddled with its origins. When I look around I see a lot of socialist things in the free market world. Like national healthcare, public libraries, taxation, minimum wage, traffic… a lot of things.

Even nature has socialist attributes. Should one species of insect decide to raid a whole plant genus in its ecosystem because it has the freedom of market then a entire food chain would collapse. Which is what we are seeing right now with global warming and the environmental crisis. Humans have exercised their “free market” rights on this earth without restraint resulting in an imminent catastrophe.

Anyway, I hope this nosediving of markets will make the world realize that its not such a bad word after all. It’s nice to have a space to jump around a be free, but a part of it has to have a ceiling and floor for when the rain comes.