Paul Stubbs
4 Questions on the Crisis
 
1. How is it possible that the crisis has been defined as a financial or, at best, an economic crisis when it clearly has social dimensions to it?

The so-called financial crisis follows on from related fuel and food crises. Cumulatively, they have affected, and continue to affect, real people and, therefore, can be said to have social impacts. In addition, levels of trust in key social institutions are a crucial factor in terms of how the crisis unfolds in different places at different times. Perhaps even more importantly, however, the nature of the crisis blurs any simple division between the 'economic', 'political' and 'social' spheres. Resolution of the crisis may well need a redefinition of fundamental values, a kind of new social contract, at all levels including individual nation states.