Clarifying ‘Secular Stagnation' and the Great Recession

by Andrew Kliman | New Left Review | Click HERE to read article

In ‘Clarifying the Crisis,’ published earlier this year in /Jacobin/ magazine, the Canadian political economist Sam Gindin reasserted his view that the global economic crisis that erupted in 2008 ’needs to be understood primarily as a /financial/ crisis.’ To be sure, the U.S. financial crisis was the event that triggered the Great Recession, and Gindin is certainly correct that the recession ’turned into such a generalized and profound economic catastrophe’ largely because of the size of the financial sector, global financial integration, and the securitization of mortgage loans. Yet has one really ‘clarified the crisis’ by saying only this and then quickly moving on, as he does?