In a now quiet and peaceful corner of the German city of Nuremberg there is a motorcycle test centre overlooked by a concrete stage. If you push away the weeds growing out of the cracks and climb the crumbling stage you will find a plaque. On it are the timeless words of George Santayana. Translated into English it reads “Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it”.
I’m not writing this to make an obvious point about fascism, war or genocide. I’m writing this because I’m worried about our lack of precautionary actions following the crash of 2008. The crash happened because greedy people took risk’s with money they did not have. When the shit hit the fan the consequences saw the end for hundreds of important state projects, thousands of small business and hundreds of thousands of jobs. The working and middle classes were hit hardest while the perpeTrators (see what I did there?) paid themselves billions in bonuses and continued to live like kings at our expense. But that’s in the past, millions may still be suffering but its happened now.
In my opinion progress is not determined by how far we fall, rather it is measured by how long it takes us to get back up, what we learn and how we adapt to prevent a recurrence of whatever caused us to fall. We may be getting up but have we learned or adapted? The system that allowed the banks to screw us in 2008 has not changed. The weak nature of Obama’s financial reform bill and the non-existence of a British equivalent exposes a fear among politicians. A fear of challenging the nature of 21st century capitalism. What they should be scared of are the international consequences of maintaining the status quo. Because if a profitable crime goes unpunished in a world were corporate greed is politically encouraged then it will happen again and we will be condemned.
