Blätter
Eurozine
Blätter
2008-10-31
Summary for Blätter 11/2008
Immanuel Wallerstein
The Great Depression
The world is facing a global economic crisis. But what will be the outcome? For Immanuel Wallerstein, Professor em. for Sociology at Yale University, the current financial crisis indicates the end of a decades-long economic and hegemonic cycle. The consequences for capitalist economy will be dramatic the future thus looks rather bleak.
Heiner Flassbeck
Panic in the financial casino
Suddenly, Adam Smith's prominent idea of an "invisible hand" balancing market and society turns out to be an illusion. Heiner Flassbeck, head of the UNCTAD Department of Macroeconomics and Development Policies, analyses the current fundamental crisis. His proposal: More governmental regulation is needed in order to stop the disastrous logic of the financial market, as well as an end to policies that privatize profits and socialize losses.
Jörg Huffschmid
The return of government
"Basel II", the EU bank reform in 2007, called for "individual responsibility" and "market discipline", thereby speeding up financial gambling. Jörg Huffschmid, Professor em. for Economy at the University of Bremen and co-editor of "Blätter", calls for a reorganisation of capital markets. According to Huffschmid, only a limitation and slowdown of financial transactions along with a more equal distribution of income and wealth could prevent future crises.
James K. Galbraith
The world financial crisis and what the next President of the United States should do
James K. Galbraith, Professor of Economics at the University of Texas, reports on a recent meeting of leading economists in Paris: Which are the prime tasks the next president will have to face? And how can the US cope with the economic crisis in an increasingly multipolar world?
Weimar, Italian-style
Interview with Valentino Parlato, co-founder of "il manifesto"
A look at the Italian left reveals a gaping void. In an interview with "Blätter", Valentino Parlato of "il manifesto" talks about reasons for the Italian left's crisis as well as hopes for a "new left" in the face of the current economic crisis and about the dangers of an "Italian Weimar".
Wulf D. Hund
A dream of reason
James Watson's white Eutopia
Last year, James Watson, 1962 Nobel laureate in medicine in 1962 for discovering DNA, was dismissed by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in Long Island, New York because of his racist statements. Wolf D. Hund, Professor of Sociology at the University of Hamburg, shows that Watson's comments were not mere lapses but part of Watson's repeatedly announced vision of a "white utopia".
Gert Krell
Anti-Semitic legacy
From Nazi Germany to the Arab-Israeli conflict
Germany's historic role for the Arab-Israeli conflict is complex and contradictory. Gert Krell, Professor of International Politics at University of Frankfurt, assesses the impact of Germany's Nazi propaganda on Arab anti-Semitism. His thesis: While anti-Semitism did exist in the Arabic societies long before the Nazis came to power, the Nazis and the Holocaust have had a deep impact on the Arabic world as well as on the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Harald Schmid
Convenient remembrance
The culture of commemoration in unified Germany
Harald Schmid, Lecturer of Political Science at the University of Hamburg, problematises the current tendencies in German commemoration culture. As the last eye witnesses are dying, Schmid discerns a rising of f"convenient remembering" and illustrates its dangers.
Joachim Perels
Neglected and forgotten
The philosopher and publicist Theodor Lessing
In 1933, Theodor Lessing was one of the first citizens to be assassinated by the SA. Joachim Perels, Professor of Political Science at the University of Hannover, analyses the life and works of this important Jewish cultural philosopher and "spokesman" of the Nazi regime's political prisoners. And shows how, after WW II the Federal Republic neglected Lessing's legacy.