Meltdown — the end of the age of greed

Paul Mason,Verso Books, 198 pages, paperback, £7.99

The failure to predict and control the collapse of free market capitalism has reshaped our world. Paul Mason is economics editor on the BBC’s Newsnight programme and his engaging and accessible book explains how we got here and what next.

As well as charting how low we’ve got (McDonald’s was recently rated as more creditworthy than the UK), Mason exposes who benefited from the removal and lax application of regulatory controls designed to prevent financial irresponsibility. We learn, for example, that former US Senator Phil Gramm, a leading light of the deregulation campaign, received $4.6m in campaign donations from the finance industry.

Another fact uncovered by the author reveals how US treasury secretary Robert Rubin, while facilitating the creation of megabank Citigroup, was negotiating terms for his own appointment to the new entity. The year after approving Citigroup’s creation, Rubin became its joint chief executive.

Mason eloquently demonstrates that the failure of our politicians and system of regulatory oversight has been complete. In addition it charts the transfer of power from the West to Asia. A transfer which will now occur in a chaotic fashion and in a way that may not, without active participation by the labour movement, lead directly to a fairer world.

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