ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the psychodynamics of the recent financial crisis. I argue that we have reached a state of economic development where creativity is a productive force, and imagination is the human activity that propels creativity. The market, I suggest, has become the projective screen for our imaginative capacities. But at the same time, the market itself creates systemic risks that require the exercise of authority and the subordination of imagination to rules and regulations. The result is a tension between imagination and authority. When poorly managed, this tension leads to crises.
