(Un)sustainable Consumption and the New Political Economy of Growth

The cataclysm that began to sweep through international financial markets during the summer of 2007 placed the weaknesses of neoliberal economic globalization in bold relief. Venerated over the past thirty years, so-called Anglo-American capitalism was revealed to be little more than a combustible house of cards built on a foundation of unsecured credit, rampant consumerism and fervent deregulation. In a paroxysm of fiscal turpitude, central banks surrendered control of the money supply to pernicious financial managers who proved more than glad to grant themselves exorbitant salaries as compensation for indulging consumers’ spendthrift proclivities.