Profiting without producing: the financial crisis as an opportunity to create a world solidarity economy

Increasingly centered on and subordinated to the financial sector, the global economy, based on the myth of "infinite" growth and resource exploitation, has come up against serious limits. New forms of development which put people at the center, rather than profit, urgently need addressing.

Underneath a veneer of "prosperity" the majority of the world's population lives in conditions of permanent insecurity or crisis. This paper focuses on the key manifestations of the global financial crisis, briefly examines its immediate causes as well as its deeper systemic factors, then advances a key proposal: things can be done differently if we choose to see the crisis as an opportunity for profound socio-economic, political and cultural change, and decide to act accordingly.