Noted British historian Niall Ferguson has an article in the December issue of Vanity Fair that tries to explain the current economic crisis by putting it into historical context. It’s a good way to get some perspective on the whole thing and doesn’t bog down in trying to explain all the financial technobabble*. If you read the “phony economy” piece from Harper’s that I linked to yesterday, this is a good expansion on that idea, as Ferguson looks at the historical origins of the finance sector as the driving force of American capitalism. I don’t know that I agree that the “American Dream” of single-family home ownership only dates back to the 1930s; I would argue that every pioneer who hitched up a wagon team and headed west across North America was looking for his own land and a home, and that the central notion of the land not belonging to the nobility but to whomever could make that land productive is as old as America itself. Nevertheless, the institutionalization of home ownership is indeed a unique American idea, and the impact it has had on our current economic state of affairs is undeniable.
*If you’d like a comprehensible explanation of the technobabble, I recommend these two “This American Life” programs: “Giant Pool Of Money” from May of this year, and “Another Frightening Show About The Economy” from October.
