JSPES, Vol. 35, No. 3 (Fall 2010)
pp. 356-365

BOOK REVIEW ARTICLE
A Financial Treatise that Provokes Much Thought: Richard Posner’s The Crisis of Capitalist Democracy

Dwight D. Murphey

Wichita State University, retired

A silver lining that can be found in the financial crisis of 2008-2009 is that it has produced a substantial literature that provokes much thought. Richard Posner’s The Crisis of Capitalist Democracy is such a work. A discussion of it has carried us into so many matters of intellectual and practical importance that an article, not just a review, is in order. Among other things, we will consider the role of ethics in the marketplace, the global financial community’s ever-present brinkmanship, the crises in macroeconomic theory and in the U.S. political system, the difference in values between those who follow completely the logic of economic globalism and those who don’t, and whether there needs to be a radical rethinking of the role of banking. In addition, we will see Posner’s assessment of the Obama Administration’s responses to the crisis, and the reforms he favors.