The global financial crisis: ten years on and corporations, markets and morals

Abstract

Ten years after the onset of the Global Financial Crisis this analysis assesses how the crisis exacerbated systemic levels of distrust. In examining the causes, it seeks to anchor finance to the societies in which they operate. It articulates and justifies a new theory of the corporation that balances rights, duties and responsibilities within a framework that has global application. It seeks to answer an existential question: how to rebuild trust in distrusting times. Trust can be defined as having firm belief in the reliability, truth or ability of someone or something. The foundation of trust in the western liberal state, however, is disintegrating. So too is warranted faith in two critical components of institutional trustworthiness: competence and honesty. What, then, as Lenin famously admonished, is to be done?