Umair Haque is Director of the Havas Media Lab. I thaink that he has writen a sound viewpoint in the Harvard Business Review blog.

The real roots of the crisis aren’t about liquidity requirements, reserve ratios, or monetary transmission mechanisms. No amount of regulation or rule-making can fix it. And mere « growth » in GDP, as we’re discovering, isn’t a cure for it.

What really caused the crisis was the fact that we didn’t care. Bankers didn’t care about the loans they issued. Boards didn’t care about bankers. Shareholders didn’t care about boards. Markets didn’t care about shareholders. Communities didn’t care about markets. Society didn’t care about communities. No one cared much about society.

The fundamental question, then, is this: why not? My answer’s simple — and probably even simplistic. But it will serve well enough to make a point. We didn’t care because we were chasing stuff. The real crisis is a crisis of nihilism: the belief that apart from stuff, nothing else matters economically. In the name of stuff, we sacrificed what mattered: people, community, comity, trust, education, skill, quality, happiness — and tomorrow itself.

Full Paper : http://blogs.hbr.org/haque/2010/02/the_real_roots_of_the_crisis.html

Benoit Arnaud Culture, Economie Culture, Entreprise, Wall Street