But I do observe that the same social-economic forces are in deep collision again, agitating the same irrationalities and extreme reactions that arose from the last great upheaval of industrial revolution. Strong stuff, this, in the service of Greider's bold argument that the logic of global capitalism is leading to a world-historical financial disaster. Yes, modern communication technologies have unleashed global finance. Just as clearly, capitalist financial markets are unstable. But financial crashes are as old as tulip mania in Holland in the 1630s or as young as the Japanese crash of the 1990s.
Global finance does undercut governmental regulation.
The Cayman Islands, population 35,000, are the fifth largest nation in the world in terms of booking bank loans, because businesses in Taiwan and elsewhere use them to avoid local government regulations that would prevent the businesses from investing in mainland China. But many would argue that technological deregulation is a good thing, since it stops governments from doing what they shouldn't be doing anyway. National governments are played off against one another in bidding wars to attract industry, much as Alabama, bidding against other states, was led to pay an outlandish subsidy for its Mercedes automobile factory. Free-market ideological blinders in favor of deregulated, privatized markets do exist. But there are pendulums in such fads, and the conventional wisdom will rather quickly return to a more balanced view.