A Crisis and Bailout that Greatly Advance the Capitalist Cause: Folha, Brazil
When it comes to what amounts to the largest corporate bailout in history, the world seems split into two camps: Those who think it demonstrates everything that’s wrong about modern capitalism, and those that think it proves the amazing resilience of the capitalist system.
For Sérgio Malbergier, Money Editor for Brazil’s Folha newspaper, the crisis merely reflects the human condition – and the Bush Administrations reaction to it, a clear sign of pragmatism.
“The current crisis doesn’t weaken capitalism. Rather, it strengthens it. … The greatest evidence of this force is that the United States of liberal George W. Bush and his Treasury Secretary, Henry Paulson, a former executive at Goldman Sachs, are leading state interventions into the icons of Wall Street. The message is not “state intervention is the solution,” but “we are pragmatists, we are not sectarian, we will intervene when necessary. … What we’re living through today is another chapter – part of the cycle of crises of the capitalist system.”
Later, summing up why events like these are inevitable, Malbergier writes:
“Capitalism is now refining and perfecting itself. There will be an increase in markets regulation until new advances in financial engineering overcome it in search of greater profits, generating the next crisis. Such is the way of humanity. … to paraphrase Churchill, capitalism is the worst economic system ever invented, with the exception of all others that have been tried before.”
By Sérgio Malbergier
Translated By Brandi Miller
September 18, 2008
Brazil – Folha – Original Article (Portuguese)
The current financial crisis is quite different from the others. It’s much more global and much faster. But, contrary to those Cassandras who still cry about the end of history and the consolidation of the market economy as the most capable way to organize production efficiently and progressively, the current crisis doesn’t weaken capitalism. Rather, it strengthens it.
[The God Apollo is said to have given Cassandra [daughter of the king of Troy] the gift of prophecy. But because Cassandra rejected Apollo’s romantic advances, he cursed her by making it so that no one ever believed her ].
The greatest evidence of this force is that the United States of liberal George W. Bush and his Treasury Secretary, Henry Paulson, a former executive at Goldman Sachs, are leading state interventions into the icons of Wall Street. The message is not “state intervention is the solution,” but “we are pragmatists, we are not sectarian, we will intervene when necessary.”
READ ON AT WORLDMEETS.US, along with continuing translated foreign and English-language press coverage of the unfolding financial crisis.
