Finance should be used to promote shared values and for the common good

Washington, DC

THE decade since the global financial crisis has been tumultuous, to say the least. True, no great war has erupted, and we have more or less avoided the mistakes of the Great Depression that led in the 1930s to greater protectionism, bank failures, severe austerity and a deflationary environment. But renewed market tensions indicate that these risks have not been eradicated so much as papered over.

In a sense, the story of the 2008 financial crisis begins when the global order was created from the ashes of World War II. Initiatives like the Bretton Woods institutions (the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund), the Marshall Plan, and the European Economic Community supported the reconstruction of significant portions of the world economy. Despite the Cold War (or perhaps because of it), they also restarted the globalisation that WWII had brought to a halt.