Stoking the bonfire of illusions
In August 2008 Russia went to war with its neighbour, Georgia. One month later Lehman Brothers bank went bust, plunging capitalism into crisis. In reviewing Alex Callinicos's new book, Jane Hardy explores how these apparently unrelated events signalled epochal changes in the global economy
Two recent events, unequal in magnitude, represent epochal changes to the global economy. The first was the brief war between Georgia and Russia in early August 2008. This was followed by the second: the collapse of Lehman Brothers in September of the same year, which precipitated the biggest financial crash since the Great Depression of the 1930s.