ABSTRACT
At the time of writing, the principal research centres are torn between expectations of a tangible recovery making it possible to announce the end of the Great Recession, and fears that the world may plummet once again into the abyss of a systemic crisis. The reasons for this uncertainty include the fact that the root causes of the crisis appear in many respects to be still shrouded in mystery. The media give currency to the idea that economists are unanimous in considering the permissive financial legislation of recent years as a decisive factor in triggering the crisis. The truth is, however, that this interpretation, though largely accepted, is regarded as wholly insufficient to account for a collapse of such vast proportions. Moreover, as it becomes immediately apparent on probing beneath the superficial media coverage of the debate to a deeper level of analysis, economists disagree with one another so radically that it is hard to identify any one explanation of the crisis as prevailing over the others. The disarray within the mainstream literature is emblematic in this respect. On the one hand, we have the interpretation exemplified by John Taylor (2009), which sees the collapse of 2008-2009 as the result of an excess of money in circulation due to the expansionary policy of the Federal Reserve in the US. On the other, Alan Greenspan (2009, 2010) and others identify the cause of the current crisis in a global ‘excess of saving’ caused above all by China’s determination to spend little and firmly maintain its position as creditor with respect to the rest of the world. Despite their shared theoretical roots, these two views have conflicting political implications, with the blame for the crisis being laid respectively at the doors of American and Chinese economic policy. A variant of these theses points not only to the problems deriving from very low interest rates or excessive global savings, but also to the unrestrained use of ‘leverage’ – that is, buying financial assets on credit, made possible by banking deregulation.4 The divisions between orthodox economists do not end here, however. Various more or less openly avowed ‘heretics’ can also be glimpsed in the ranks of the mainstream, especially Fitoussi and Stiglitz, who have even taken up one of the heterodox theses that the cause of the current crisis is due to a decrease in workers’ consumption caused in turn by the great inequality of incomes established over the last thirty years.5 While this approach presents some elements of unquestionable interest, it could also cause embarrassment among orthodox economists, as it appears scarcely compatible with the logical foundations of mainstream analyses, including the models usually adopted by Fitoussi and Stiglitz themselves.6
