A World Without Wall Street?

As the aftershocks of the latest economic meltdown reverberate throughout the world, and people organize to physically occupy the major financial centers of the West, few experts and even fewer governments have dared to consider a world without the powerful markets that brought on the crash. Yet, as Fran ois Morin explains in A World Without Wall Street?, this is the very step that needs to be taken as quickly as possible to avoid a perpetual future of dehumanizing working conditions, devastated ecosystems, and the submission of public policies to private interests. In this insightful and radical take on global finance, Morin recommends nothing less than a revolutionary reconstruction of the international monetary system. More, he recommends that the laws of societies be reformed so that the power of management may be shared among all of the actors involved in production, not concentrated in the hands of the few. This shift, argues Morin, will transform the monetary system into a common good for all of humanity, rich or poor. With Wall Street at the center of the very power structure that needs to be dismantled, Morin takes broad aim at the purely speculative financial games and arcane instruments by which the global economy and its citizens are held captive. In this very timely and provocative book, Morin bravely offers a way forward--instead of simply triaging a hemorrhaging system, he persuasively asks us to consider a subversive reinvention.

François Morin is emeritus professor in economic science at the University of Toulouse-I. He has been a member of the general council of the Banque de France and the Council of Economic Analysis. Krzysztof Fijalowski is senior lecturer in critical studies at the Norwich School of Art. Michael Richardson is a writer and translator. Together, Fijalkowski and Richardson have translated various leading French-language authors.