New Cultural Foundation Wanted

After years of telling the world the market knows best and not to interfere with its workings it took a matter of weeks for the Western economic establishment to row back on that conviction. This belief in the free market to generate wealth and allocate it among society's participants has been at the center of American culture for many years. At the center and maybe the most defining characteristic of American culture.

In the headlong rush to come up with a large enough number for the government intervention to save the system from collapsing there has been little discussion of what this instant 'about turn' will cause to the American psyche and American culture. What is puzzling is the speed with which the top economists changed their views completely to where government intervention and even nationalisation is essential. One would have to wonder if they ever believed in the free market in the first place and always knew that what existed in the US was not free market capitalism but what Noam Chomsky calls State Capitalism. That however is a question for another day and one that would be hard to answer given the bent for oratory and mendacity the charlatans at the global helm have long displayed. For example developing nations have long found that the free market mantra coming out of Washington was a one way street as they faced massive protection from Western economic blocs.

It is true the world moves at a much faster pace in the 21st century than at any time in history but has any society had to change its grand narrative in such a short period of time? So far the results have been some job losses, some contraction in spending and the disappearance of a great deal of paper and real wealth. But surely some kind of vacuum has been left behind in the whirlwind shift in the foundation to the cultural belief of American society? This void will have to be filled and in this process the history of this turbulent time will be found. Not only will American have to save its economy but once that job is done it will then have to find itself a new self.