At The Boston Globe Derrick Z. Jackson reminds us that Nelson Mandela has prescient things to say about the global economic system more than ten years ago:
When Mandela came to Harvard University in 1998 to receive an honorary degree, he said, “The current world financial crisis also starkly reminds us that many of the concepts that guided our sense of how the world and its affairs are best ordered, have suddenly been shown to be wanting.’’ He noted how economic theorists went “unchallenged in the day-to-day operations of a system that operated in the interests of the powerful.’’
We sure learned a lot in the decade since, didn’t we? Not only are we back to hearing about millions in cash and stock bonuses to the heads of taxpayer-bailed-out banks, it appears that someone got to President Obama to tone down his populist outrage.
I take Jackson’s point about reconceptualizing economic freedom, but his article is pretty short on specifics. We all know that we’re in something of a pickle, but far fewer of us have concrete solutions to these very real problems.