We live in a world in crisis. Comparisons to the 1920s and 1930s are inevitable, but the crisis, similarly to the ones before it, conceal not economic, but political roots: It is a crisis born of the fallacies of a world governance, world economy and global priorities decided by and enforced upon the world by a few powerful states and corporate groups that more or less dictate the rules of the game. This time the rules of the game, rigged from the beginning to suit whatever interests were at play at the time of their introduction, were flawed. Flawed, and — as it turned out — dangerous.

It is hard for anyone in touch with reality not to be concerned about the repercussions and the destructive potential of this crisis. If the situation was to be summarised in one word, a pointless endeavour no less, I would say that the elevation of profit as the basic and dominant metric that largely defines modern civilization and the governing policies affecting people, environment and — ultimately — life on this planet was central to this crisis. There is nothing wrong, of course, with individuals, organisations and countries being profitable or aiming to make a profit of coursed. This is true, as long as there is a fair, stable and reasonable system of rules in place that prevents conditions where profit yields unlimited power over other values. Everything is wrong with elevating profit to the sole determinant of social policy, of allowing finance to override sovereign and international institutions. The fallacy with this crisis stems from allowing profit to become this central metric, displacing others, arguably more important to life, culture, long-term prosperity, peace; many, both in Europe and elsewhere are spending huge amounts of time and effort in studying the detailed economic reasons. Such efforts are ultimately irrelevant, a lower level of discourse that is only seemingly important because of the underlying social decision to elevate the importance of trade, finance and profit to such a high place; no, this crisis is a deeply political, social and philosophical one above all. Economists striving to coat every single issue in a pseudo-scientific, pseudo-rational economic explanation are wasting their time — and would be extremely amusing if the current social environment did not empower them with considerable social policy influence.

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