In and Out of Crisis : The Global Financial Meltdown and Left Alternatives

Contents: Preface. 1. Surveying the crisis: is neoliberalism over?. 2. Neoliberalism, finance, and crises. 3. Finance, regulation, and the American state. 4. Crisis management from Bush to Obama. 5. From finance to industry: the crisis in auto. 6. Labor\'s impasse and the left. 7. Another way out of the crisis? strategic considerations for the North American left. 8. Ten theses on the crisis. Suggested readings. Notes.

While many around the globe are increasingly wondering if another world is indeed possible, few are mapping out potential avenues-and flagging wrong turns-en route to a post capitalist future. In this groundbreaking analysis of the financial meltdown, renowned radical political economists Albo, Gindin, and Panitch lay bare the roots of the crisis in the inner logic of capitalism itself.

With an unparalleled understanding of capitalism, the authors provocatively challenge the call by much of the left for a return to a largely mythical golden age of economic regulation as a check on finance capital unbound. They deftly illuminate how the era of neoliberal free markets has been, in practice, under girded by state intervention on a massive scale. The authors argue that its time to start thinking about genuinely transformative alternatives to capitalism and how to build the collective capacity to get us there. In and out of crisis stands to be the enduring critique of the crisis and an indispensable springboard for a renewed left. (jacket)