Project for the New American Humility
Freefall: America, Free Markets, and Sinking of the World Economy is the excellent new book from educator/economist Joseph Stiglitz.
Loosely structured around the story of our recent “Great Recession,” Stiglitz not only does a fine job of explaining what happened from an economic viewpoint, but also includes politics, culture, and history within his scope of vision. The author should also be commended for remaining calm and reasonable as he discusses this monumental calamity of human greed and folly. Some great restraint exhibited there.
One insight I really appreciated was drawing a parallel between the fall of the Berlin Wall, representing the end of Soviet-style Communism, and the fall of Lehman Brothers, representing the end of American-style Capitalism. The interim period (1989-2008) Stiglitz calls “American Triumphalism,” which I thought was a fine name for it. [It is interesting to note how well the hubristic “Project for the New American Century” (1997-2006) fits into this particular narrative, and that those same PNACers have now coalesced into yet another think tank called the “Foreign Policy Initiative.”]
This is a book Americans could really benefit from reading, as Stiglitz provides plenty of solid, sensible recommendations on how to pull out from the nosedive we’re in.