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The Politics of Debt brings together philosophers, political scientists, and economists and sets them the task of reflecting on the political role played by debt. Focusing on the aftermath of the 2008 economic crisis, particularly in the United States and Europe, the book is split into groups. It contains six essays and five interviews that aim to fully comprehend the political consequences of the economic crisis and specifically of debt.

Germany's financial collapse in the summer of 1931 was one of the biggest economic catastrophes of modern history. It led to a global panic, brought down the international monetary system, and turned a worldwide recession into a prolonged depression. The crisis also contributed decisively to the rise of Hitler. Within little more than a year of its onset, the Nazis were Germany's largest political party at both the regional and national level, paving the way for Hitler's eventual seizure of power in January 1933. The origins of the collapse lay in Germany's large pile of foreign debt denominated in gold-backed currencies, which condemned the German government to cut spending, raise taxes, and lower wages in the middle of a worldwide recession. As political resistance to this policy of austerity grew, the German government began to question its debt obligations, prompting foreign investors to panic and sell their German assets. The resulting currency crisis led to the failure of the already weakened banking system and a partial sovereign default. Hitler managed to profit from the crisis because he had been the most vocal critic of the reparation regime responsible for the lion's share of German debts. As the financial system collapsed, his relentless attacks against foreign creditors and the alleged complicity of the German government resonated more than ever with the electorate. The ruling parties that were responsible for the situation lost their credibility and became defenceless in the face of his onslaught against an establishment allegedly selling the country out to her foreign creditors. Meanwhile, these creditors hesitated too long to take the wind out of Hitler's sails by offering debt relief. In this way, a financial crisis soon developed into a political catastrophe for both Europe and the world.

Emerging relatively unscathed from the banking crisis of 2008, China has been viewed as a model of both rampant success and fiscal stability. But beneath the surface lies a network of fissures that look likely to erupt into the next big financial crash. A bloated real-estate sector, roller-coaster stock market, and rapidly growing shadow-banking sector have all coalesced to create a perfect storm: one that is in danger of taking the rest of the world's economy with it.Walden Bello traces our recent history of financial crises – from the bursting of Japan's'bubble economy'in 1990 to Wall Street in 2008 – taking in their political and human ramifications such as rising inequality and environmental degradation. He not only predicts that China might be the site of the next crash, but that under neoliberalism this will simply keep happening. The only way that we can stop this cycle, Bello argues, is through a fundamental change in the ways that we organise: a shift to cooperative enterprise, respectful of the environment, and which fractures the twin legacies of imperialism and capitalism.Insightful, erudite and passionate, Paper Dragons is a must-read for anyone wishing to prevent the next financial meltdown.

How investment strategies designed to reduce risk can increase risk for everyone—and can crash markets and economies Financial crises are often blamed on unforeseeable events, the unforgiving nature of capital markets, or just plain bad luck. Too Smart for Our Own Good argues that these crises are caused by certain alluring investment strategies that promise both high returns and safety of capital. In other words, the severe and widespread crises we have suffered in recent decades were not perfect storms. Instead, they were made by us. By understanding how and why this is so, we may be able to avoid or ameliorate future crises—and maybe even anticipate them. One of today's leading financial thinkers, Bruce I. Jacobs, examines recent financial crises—including the 1987 stock market crash, the 1998 collapse of the hedge fund Long-Term Capital Management, the 2007–2008 credit crisis, and the European debt crisis—and reveals the common threads that explain these market disruptions. In each case, investors in search of safety were drawn to novel strategies that were intended to reduce risk but actually magnified it—and blew up markets. Too Smart for Our Own Good takes a behind-the-curtain look at: • The inseparable nature of investment risk and reward and the often counterproductive effects of some popular approaches for reducing risk • A trading strategy known as portfolio insurance and the key role it played in the 1987 stock market crash • How option-related trading disrupted markets in the decade following the 1987 crash • Why the demise of Long-Term Capital Management in 1998 wreaked havoc on US stock and bond markets • How mortgage-backed financial products, by shifting risk from one party to another, created the credit crisis of 2007–2008 and contributed to the subsequent European debt crisis This broad, detailed investigation of financial crises is the most penetrating and objective look at the subject to date. In addition, Jacobs, an industry insider, offers invaluable insights into the nature of investment risk and reward, and how to manage risk. Risk is unavoidable—especially in investing—and financial markets connect us all. Until we accept these facts and manage risk in responsible ways, major crises will always be just around the bend. Too Smart for Our Own Good is a big step toward smarter investing—and a better financial future for everyone.

This book explores the IMF's role within the politics of austerity by providing a path-breaking comprehensive analysis of how the IMF approach to fiscal policy has evolved since 2008, and how the IMF worked to alter advanced economy policy responses to the global financial crisis (GFC) and the Eurozone crisis. It updates and refines our understanding of how the IMF seeks to wield ideational power by analysing the Fund's post-crash their ability to influence what constitutes legitimate knowledge, and their ability fix meanings attached to economic policies within the social process of constructing economic orthodoxy.This book is interested in the politics of economic ideas, focused on the assumptive foundations of different approaches to economic policy, and how the interpretive framework through which authoritative voices evaluate economic policy is an important site of power in world politics. After establishing the internal conditions of possibility for new fiscal policy thinking to emerge and prevail, detailed case studies of IMF interactions with the UK and French governments during the Great Recession drill down into how Fund seeks to shape the policy possibilities of advanced economy policy-makers and account for the scope and limits of Fund influence. The Fund's reputation as a technocratic, scientific source of economic policy wisdom is important to for its intellectual authority. Yet, as this book demonstrates, the Fund makes normatively driven interventions in ideologically charged economic policy debates. The analysis reveals the malleability of conventional wisdoms about economic policy, and the processes of their social construction.

In Governing Social Risks in Post-Crisis Europe, Colin Crouch mounts an impressive comparative analysis to uncover the contrasting ways in which different countries have sought to address the exacerbated social risks, both'new'and'old', unleashed by the financial and economic crisis. It demonstrates that growing recourse to market forms of governance in social and labour market policy is inversely related to the strength and influence of organised labour across countries and, in turn, to the degree of security provided for workers and their dependents. The three main patterns identified for governing social risks in the current era - neo-liberal, social democratic and traditional - are shown to exhibit a clear lineage reaching back to the early 20th century.'- Paul Marginson, University of Warwick, UK'Crouch's new book offers an empirically based up-to-date theory relating governance, egalitarianism, and labor market security in contemporary post-industrial societies. It provides a highly sophisticated, original assessment of modes of governance in Europe in terms of their social and economic performance, drawing on extensive comparison of European countries including the new Eastern democracies. Contrasting in particular neoliberalism and social democracy, Crouch shows that the social-democratic model of state and associational intervention in markets performs much better than its neoliberal opponent, raising the question why it is the latter rather than the former that has become the leading model for the post-crisis capitalist political economy.'- Wolfgang Streeck, Max-Planck-Institute for the Study of Societies, GermanyHow can a capitalist system reconcile its need to combine workers on uncertain incomes and conditions with consumers confident that they can spend? The approaches of different national economies to this conundrum have had varying degrees of success, as well as diverse implications for social inequality. Through the study of European societies, and comparisons with experience from the rest of the world, Colin Crouch scrutinizes this diversity, and looks at how the 2008 global financial crisis has impacted it.Crouch identifies three broad approaches that countries adopt in response to this central dilemma of a capitalist economy, and examines these across three different contexts: time, place, and the role of inclusion and exclusion. This primarily statistical study embraces all except the smallest European countries, with comparative material on Japan, Russia and the United States. Countries are grouped according to differences found in them in the roles of governance by market, state, and community.This important book will appeal to academics, policy makers and others interested in comparative employment relations, European political economy and social policy. Undergraduate and postgraduate students alike will also find this a compelling, jargon-free insight into social policy and the 2008 global financial crisis in Europe.

When family members migrate internationally, it usually means a deep change in the relationships they maintain with each other. The author examines this process in families organized across borders between Ecuador and Spain. In doing so, the effects of the recent economic crisis in the country of arrival are considered in the light of a process of familial change that has lasted several decades. The particular resilience of familial power relations is thereby evaluated as ambivalent., Gesellschaftliche Umbrüche bedeuten für Migrierende und ihre Familien eine besondere Herausforderung; zusätzlich zur meist notwendigen Neuaushandlung der Beziehungen nach der Migration eines Familienmitglieds. Die biographisch angelegte Fallstudie untersucht diesen Prozess in grenzübergreifend organisierten ecuadorianischen Familien und schaut besonders auf sich verschiebende Machtbalancen. Die Bedeutung der jüngsten Wirtschaftskrise im Ankunftsland Spanien wird dabei vor dem Hintergrund eines mehrere Jahrzehnte andauernden familialen Wandlungsprozesses erschlossen. Im Ergebnis erweist sich die Krise als weniger einschneidend als zuvor angenommen, wobei die Resilienz familialer Machtverhältnisse als ambivalent bewertet wird.