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Meltdown: The End of the Age of Greed Paperback – November 8, 2010

by Paul Mason (Author)

4.3 25 ratings

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Meltdown is the gripping account of the financial collapse that destroyed the West’s investment banks, brought the global economy to its knees, and undermined three decades of neoliberal orthodoxy. Covering the development of the crisis from the economic front line, BBC Newsnight journalist Paul Mason explores the roots of the US and UK’s financial hubris, documenting the real-world causes and consequences from the Ford factory, to Wall Street, to the City of London. In this fully updated new edition, he recounts how the credit crunch became a full-blown financial crisis, and explores its impact on capitalist ideology and politics in our new age of austerity.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“A page-turning account ... Mason is refreshingly clear-eyed—and angry.”—Will Hutton, The Guardian

“Excellent.”—Evening Standard

“What people need is a reliable guide to the financial crisis ... Meltdown is the book they are looking for.”—John Gray, The New Statesman

“A lucid and sharply polemical account.”—Oliver Kamm, The Times [London]

About the Author

Paul Mason is the economics editor of the BBC’s flagship current affairsprogram Newsnight and appears frequently on BBC World News America.He has covered globalization and social justice stories from locations aroundthe world, including Latin America, Africa and China. His book Live Working,Die Fighting was longlisted for the Guardian First Book Award.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Verso; New Updated Edition (November 8, 2010)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 288 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1844676536
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1844676538
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.31 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.07 x 0.87 x 7.8 inches

Customer Reviews:
4.3 25 ratings

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nordlys
Meltdown
Reviewed in the United States on April 10, 2012
Verified Purchase
Amazing writer, fantastic book, but then all his books are just amazing. Serious writing about the entire world falling apart, and so well written anybody can understand the happenings internationally.
Great amazon book seller.

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Sue O'Connell
Four Stars
Reviewed in the United States on February 24, 2016
Verified Purchase
Closely argued.

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DAVID BRYSON
CAPITALISM AS OPPOSED TO WHAT?
Reviewed in the United States on March 24, 2011
Paul Mason is the economics editor of the BBC's flagship Newsnight programme. He explicitly says that this is a journalist's account of the current, and still ongoing, world financial crisis, and that makes for readability and impact. It is also the work of a competent and thoughtful economist, and that gives this book intellectual respectability. It is only near the end that Mason says in so many words that any 'pure' economic analysis or modelling is hopelessly deficient, and that economics without a political dimension is an illusion, but you will have gathered that without much difficulty long before. However the theme is primarily economics and not politics, and Mason's decided opinion that free-market economics is a busted flush is argued from the economic standpoint first. This conclusion will come into conflict with the political value-sets of many, particularly in America, but Mason proceeds - properly - via the track of arguments first and conclusions after. I could not say as much for the doctrine of Senator Phil Gramm, who may be quoting a voice that he has heard from heaven when he intones `...we have learned that government is not the answer. We have learned that freedom and competition are the answers.'

Trainwrecks can be exciting if well described, and the global economic supercrash is chronicled vividly but with sobriety and without preaching or sensationalism. As in his TV appearances, Mason's plain-man style goes along with a formidable communicative talent. The complexities of the economic reasoning, and in particular the opaque terminology, are set out here as clearly as you are likely to find anywhere. He is conspicuously fair-minded too, and he concedes that a `neoliberal' free-market regime of the kind to which he is vehemently opposed can work for a while, especially when it has the benefit of an upturn in the economic cycle. However Mason cites one particularly interesting slant on the question from Alan Greenspan himself. This sage came to a belated recognition that periodic cyclic crashes were inherent in the neoliberal model, something he had long denied. However he goes on to say, if I have understood him correctly, that we just have to put up with that for the sake of keeping the neoliberal model. This reasoning seems unpersuasive to either me or Mason, and perhaps the same voice from heaven has proclaimed the conclusion to Greenspan that inspired Senator Gramm.

It is the sheer monstrosity of the recent crash that confirms Mason's view that not only should things not go on like this, but that they are not going to. This obviously takes him from value-judgment into the more hazardous realm of prediction. He does not categorise the events as being merely bad judgment and improper application of a policy that is basically valid. The neoliberal regime is intrinsically unsound, he says, but I am not clear how the change that he thinks imminent is going to come about. The whole rottenness at the core, according to Mason, is a matter of inbuilt conflicts of interest, and the much-touted virtue of openness and transparency is a sham. However he himself obviously has to recognise the plain fact that despite swords fallen on, heads rolled in the sand and so forth, the institutional networks are still operating that like the conflicted interests too well to see everything changed without a fight. Perhaps if I were offered the kind of win-win deal that the investment banks have been given I would be tempted to think the same way; but although politics is ultimately powerless against economic forces, if the economic forces are misdiagnosed, as Mason thinks has happened, politics can put a stop to such abuses for a while. Not only does he envisage a future of heavily government-regulated banking and money-markets, he even senses that labour, resited to low-wage countries certainly but still around for all that, will be back using its collective global strength in wage-bargaining.

Throughout the book there is frequent use of the term `capitalism', and I am curious about how to interpret Mason's use of it. He certainly does not advocate any command economy, barter-based foreign exchanges or any more fanciful alternative. He proposes - indeed predicts - the replacement of `free markets' with strict supervision at governmental and indeed international level. This is only replacing one form of capitalism with another, and if (as I myself suspect) there is no real alternative to capitalism in some shape or form, should he not just be talking about `economics' instead? Mao thought that perhaps human nature could be changed, Deng Xiaoping understood economics and seems to have concluded that its laws were not subject to even revolutionary political changes.

Nor are they subject to turning clocks back, reclaiming this that or the next comic-book idealised past etc, as some current forces seem to imagine in America as they rail against the fading of the light while America's supposed traditional value-system becomes harder and harder to keep alive. Locking the gate and oiling the guns will not turn the tsunami back, says Mason. If we are looking to the past for inspiration, I am intrigued by the precedent of 1789 as I listen to the bankers arguing for the rightness of their bonuses and against the impropriety of opposing them. Basing an economy on debt and imaginary money may have played its last hand, but if someone is looking for a new and profitable business venture there may be a market for lamp-posts and tumbrils.

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Top reviews from other countries

S. Moore
A brilliant and easy to understand explanation of the global financial crisis
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 15, 2011
Verified Purchase
This book explains in simple terms (most of the time) how the Financial crisis happened, why it happened and names the people responsible for both making it happen and for allowing it to happen. Having read the book it beggars belief that these people actually got away with, but seeing as the politicians and the capitalist elite (the bankers) are practically one in the same thing, I suppose it should be no surprise.
The history and the people involved also comes as a surprise.
Paul Mason's book is a book that every school kid should be made to read as an example of human stupidity and greed in the hope that the next generation will avoid the same mistakes.
I can't recomend this book enough.

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Amazon Customer
Interesting
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 30, 2019
Verified Purchase
Interesting

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DAVID BRYSON
CAPITALISM AS OPPOSED TO WHAT?
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 24, 2011
Verified Purchase
Paul Mason is the economics editor of the BBC's flagship Newsnight programme. He explicitly says that this is a journalist's account of the current, and still ongoing, world financial crisis, and that makes for readability and impact. It is also the work of a competent and thoughtful economist, and that gives this book intellectual respectability. It is only near the end that Mason says in so many words that any 'pure' economic analysis or modelling is hopelessly deficient, and that economics without a political dimension is an illusion, but you will have gathered that without much difficulty long before. However the theme is primarily economics and not politics, and Mason's decided opinion that free-market economics is a busted flush is argued from the economic standpoint first. This conclusion will come into conflict with the political value-sets of many, particularly in America, but Mason proceeds - properly - via the track of arguments first and conclusions after. I could not say as much for the doctrine of Senator Phil Gramm, who may be quoting a voice that he has heard from heaven when he intones `...we have learned that government is not the answer. We have learned that freedom and competition are the answers.'

Trainwrecks can be exciting if well described, and the global economic supercrash is chronicled vividly but with sobriety and without preaching or sensationalism. As in his TV appearances, Mason's plain-man style goes along with a formidable communicative talent. The complexities of the economic reasoning, and in particular the opaque terminology, are set out here as clearly as you are likely to find anywhere. He is conspicuously fair-minded too, and he concedes that a `neoliberal' free-market regime of the kind to which he is vehemently opposed can work for a while, especially when it has the benefit of an upturn in the economic cycle. However Mason cites one particularly interesting slant on the question from Alan Greenspan himself. This sage came to a belated recognition that periodic cyclic crashes were inherent in the neoliberal model, something he had long denied. However he goes on to say, if I have understood him correctly, that we just have to put up with that for the sake of keeping the neoliberal model. This reasoning seems unpersuasive to either me or Mason, and perhaps the same voice from heaven has proclaimed the conclusion to Greenspan that inspired Senator Gramm.

It is the sheer monstrosity of the recent crash that confirms Mason's view that not only should things not go on like this, but that they are not going to. This obviously takes him from value-judgment into the more hazardous realm of prediction. He does not categorise the events as being merely bad judgment and improper application of a policy that is basically valid. The neoliberal regime is intrinsically unsound, he says, but I am not clear how the change that he thinks imminent is going to come about. The whole rottenness at the core, according to Mason, is a matter of inbuilt conflicts of interest, and the much-touted virtue of openness and transparency is a sham. However he himself obviously has to recognise the plain fact that despite swords fallen on, heads rolled in the sand and so forth, the institutional networks are still operating that like the conflicted interests too well to see everything changed without a fight. Perhaps if I were offered the kind of win-win deal that the investment banks have been given I would be tempted to think the same way; but although politics is ultimately powerless against economic forces, if the economic forces are misdiagnosed, as Mason thinks has happened, politics can put a stop to such abuses for a while. Not only does he envisage a future of heavily government-regulated banking and money-markets, he even senses that labour, resited to low-wage countries certainly but still around for all that, will be back using its collective global strength in wage-bargaining.

Throughout the book there is frequent use of the term `capitalism', and I am curious about how to interpret Mason's use of it. He certainly does not advocate any command economy, barter-based foreign exchanges or any more fanciful alternative. He proposes - indeed predicts - the replacement of `free markets' with strict supervision at governmental and indeed international level. This is only replacing one form of capitalism with another, and if (as I myself suspect) there is no real alternative to capitalism in some shape or form, should he not just be talking about `economics' instead? Mao thought that perhaps human nature could be changed, Deng Xiaoping understood economics and seems to have concluded that its laws were not subject to even revolutionary political changes.

Nor are they subject to turning clocks back, reclaiming this that or the next comic-book idealised past etc, as some current forces seem to imagine in America as they rail against the fading of the light while America's supposed traditional value-system becomes harder and harder to keep alive. Locking the gate and oiling the guns will not turn the tsunami back, says Mason. If we are looking to the past for inspiration, I am intrigued by the precedent of 1789 as I listen to the bankers arguing for the rightness of their bonuses and against the impropriety of opposing them. Basing an economy on debt and imaginary money may have played its last hand, but if someone is looking for a new and profitable business venture there may be a market for lamp-posts and tumbrils.

Read more
Report
Mr. D. Cunningham
A really good read
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 14, 2012
Verified Purchase
This is wonderfully informative and is written in a very accessible style. Here is a Northern lad, telling this complicated financial and human tale in a way that opens it up and lays it out really clearly. If you want to know more about the background to the massive pickle that we find ourselves trapped in, read this. You'll be a whole lot wiser at the end of it.

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irene melia
Read EVERYTHING he has written. You will gain deep understanding of why we are in this mess. And so very readable he is.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 18, 2014
Verified Purchase
If you want a clear well researched accessible true account of why the world is in the state it is in buy all Paul Mason's books - I have. You will find a man of integrity, grit, whose deep understanding, experience, intelligence and knowledge is harnessed for the common good. Immensely readable as are all his texts. It is a pity he is not Prime Minister - then we would be sure that he would put OUR money where his mouth is. One thing is for sure, we can't afford the rich any more. Those who have been allowed and enabled to place themselves in the unholy position of draining the earth's resources into their pockets which are then tightly closed. It is a myth that these people are wealth creators and gifted. They are wealth takers and do not create possibility or work or futures other than their own. The pockets need to be gently opened to allow our wealth to flow back into the world economies and we need policies in place to never again enable them to raid the till when they think nobody is looking. The historical, ethical truth backed up by absolute indisputable facts is the source of Paul Mason's literature. We need truth givers and good people - he is both. We could do with a bit of that in politics.

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