Just finance and fair play

Abstract

The consequences of the recent financial and economic crises have been, for countless people around the world, just as real as our inability, on the whole, to understand how this could have happened and indeed what exactly happened in the first place. We also remain at a loss when it comes to how the financial crises of 2008 and 2010 will continue to develop and what we need to learn from them. Was this all caused by individuals in particular areas of the economy, or by the financial markets and their often opaque means of operation, or does it reflect political failures or fundamental flaws in the economic system itself? We do not pose questions such as these for their own sake, but as a way of reaching the goal of effectively and sustainably mitigating the risks and – often existential – dangers entailed in our globally active and interlinked economies.