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| Author: | Walter Russell Mead, Henry A. Kissinger Senior Fellow for U.S. Foreign Policy |
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December 5, 2008
The Australian
There is a lot of gloom and doom around today. Even very optimistic people are understandably shaken when they see George W. Bush, one of the most conservative presidents in the history of the US, presiding over the effective nationalisation of the banking industry. And now it looks as if the same may occur with the automobile industry.
We face what could well be one of the most sustained and deep economic recessions since World War II.
The past 300 years is the story of the rise of two interlinked systems: the global capitalism system and a geopolitical structure resting on the power of first Britain and now the US.
And those 300 years have been marked by one financial crisis after another.
Even before the English began to dominate global markets, the Dutch suffered though the tulip bubble of the 17thcentury. There was the South Sea bubble of the early 18th century. There were the panics of the Napoleonic wars, followed by successive and intensifying panics and crashes during the 19th century. Financial crises have continued throughout the 20th century and now into the 21st.
And none of those panics and crashes interrupted or fundamentally altered the liberal capitalist path of development.
It is possible, of course, that this time is different, but history gives us sound reason to believe that this kind of economic crisis does not mean the system is failing or has failed. Indeed, economic crisis is intrinsic to the capitalist economic system. It's not pleasant, but it is a regular and inevitable part of our lives.
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