“from the Crisis of Certainties to the Certainty of Crisis”

“From the Crisis of certainties to the certainty of crisis”

Mauro Di Benedetto

MIM-S3

March 2015

On September 15th 2008 Lehman Brother, the fourth largest investment bank in the US declared bankruptcy. Few days later, on September 22nd, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley (respectively first and second most important investment banks in the US) were forced to leave their status of investment banks, starting the process to become commercial banks. That was the first time investors, politicians and normal citizens around the world became aware of the beginning of the crisis. A crisis that changed lifestyles and beliefs of billions people around the world. As prestigious economists and politicians explained several times in newspapers and documentaries, the crisis started in 2008 was mainly a real-estate crisis, evolved into a financial crisis that in turn escalated into an economic crisis (at least in Europe). However very few enlightened intellectuals, focused on the sociologic aspect of that crisis. Crises are produced by human behaviours and these behaviours are led by values. Consequently, can the 2008 crisis be considered just a financial meltdown? Were there any moral reasons behind it?

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how the last financial crisis was, in a deeper analysis, firstly a crisis of western society values. I will focus just on western society, not because that society is more important than others, but mainly because capitalism and liberal thought were born in that side of the world. At this point one could argue that the West failed many times in accomplishing those values over the centuries. That’s true, and crusades, colonialism and imperialism are just few evidences. However, the existence of some distinguishing values within western mind-set is also undeniable. Given that, the analysis will be conducted by describing the historical evolution of these values from the Greek roots to the fall of Berlin wall. Throughout this...