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Written by: Kamran Mofid

Published: 26 April 2018

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Dear Signatories to our Call to Action of 2011 and all other concerned observers,

We, the undersigned, co-authored - A Call to Action- and sought your kind support. We were delighted and honoured for your endorsements.  As the current global crises have clearly shown, the whole world is waking up to the value of co-creation and the harnessing of knowledge and wisdom from diverse sources, disciplines, vision, insight, experience and expertise.

We would very much wish to invite you, once again, to revisit A Call to Action 2011 document, so that, we may reignite the spirit in which it was written, relevant and important to what is to follow.

Call for Papers  to Mark  the 10th Anniversary of the 2008 Global Financial Crisis

(For publication in The GCGI Journal )

This year marks the 10th anniversary of the 2008 global financial crisis, the most significant financial and economic upheaval since the Great Depression.

It is worth reiterating, however, briefly, the scale of the crisis. ‘The crisis required a write-down of over $2 trillion from financial institutions alone, while the lost growth resulting from the crisis and ensuing recession has been estimated at over $10 trillion (over one-sixth of global GDP in 2008). The year 2009 became the first on record where global GDP contracted in real terms. The process of responding to the crisis, the subsequent deep recession and the impacts on governance of the global financial system – and the eurozone in particular – took the better part of the decade to implement before there was a reliable return to growth across the US and Europe.

‘Many of the direct effects of the crisis still remain active concerns: debt levels across advanced economies, while declining, are still far above where they were before the crisis. (Currently gross debt across advanced economies stands at 106% of GDP as of 2016, compared to 72% in 2007.) Although unemployment in Mediterranean Europe has begun to decline, it still remains incredibly high – over 15% in Spain and 20% in Greece, for example.’

As for political consequences of the crisis, it is suffice to note that, the ensuing austerity measures adopted by many countries, led to the rise of populism, right wing extremism, which in turn has dramatically affected the socio-economic fabric of societies, resulting in Brexit, election of Trump and the rise of extremism across Europe. (For a more comprehensive account of the crisis see a recent comment at CHATHAM HOUSE )

In short, it is safe to assume that, the 2008 economic crisis, which often is appraised only as a “financial crisis”, has in fact, acquired a manifold character involving the socio-economic structures at a worldwide level. To us at Globalisation For the Common Good Initiative (GCGI), it represents an important milestone to take stock of where we were then and where we are now. The problems of rising income inequality, the atrophy of social safety nets, encroaching climate change, and ecological degradation were upon us then and have only intensified since 2008. In addition to these crises, the institutional and structural features that launched the Financial Collapse have not been significantly reformed and repaired, even as reactionary forces have garnered steam in many countries and quarters of the world.

Continuing and deepening the spirit of our Call to Action of 2011, we are calling for a broad array of papers addressing the different aspects of crises. What are the new and worsening problems we face today? How have we not made more progress? Why are we as the people of the globe in an even more desperate situation in many respects? Are there any threads of hope to weave into a sustainable strategy for progress, for social justice, for ecology, and for a firmer financial foundation for the globe?

We are calling on a wide spectrum of scholars, researchers, observers, practitioners, students, storytellers  from various disciplines to join us for putting together a series of studies, papers, essays and other form of creative work to mark the tenth anniversary of the international financial that took the world by storm. We want to take this opportunity to put together a body of works that can help us all to see where this storm is taking us. While we would like to put a series of themes for this gathering of ideas and creative works, we welcome other inputs and thematic ideas that can correctly deal with the vision of this call for papers. Here are some of the working themes we have and let us keep the door open for more creative ideas and additional inputs:

1. Demographic changes and rise of racial politics,
2. The dominance of neoliberalism with its inability and unwillingness to engage with life’s bigger picture: Who am I, where have I come from, where am I going to, what is the purpose of this journey we call life,...
3. Ever increasing rise of greed as a strong force giving greater control in governance through strength of plutocracy,
4. Rise in incidents of global corruption, money laundering, offshore tax avoidance, with corresponding rise in cynicism and cronyism, leading to a drastic decline in public trust in political and economic institutions,
5. Return of cold war without ideological content and drawing boundaries among nations without identifiable dividing economic and social reasons,
6. Rise of business-like run educational system as a mere tool of serving labour market as opposed to being a transformative force to create better life on earth,
7. Institutionalisation of poverty and inequality,
8. The ongoing and inevitable emergence of the next international financial crisis,
9. Void of spirituality as a guiding force in dealing with one another,
10. Ignoring environment and mother earth and believing that everything should centers on wellbeing of human beings alone,
11. The role of education and universities in the fermentation of crises,
12. Inflated financial markets, low investment trends and changes in the patterns of production and employment,
13. Environmental unsustainability of the current way of production and consumption,
14. Increasing unemployment, mainly among the youth, in the context of the adoption of disruptive technological innovations,
15. Growing risks in the worldwide geopolitical contexts with a resurgence of massive migrations, xenophobia and armed conflicts,
16. Fraud in mortgages,
17. Credit agencies' mistakes,
18. Regulatory and supervisory failures,
19. Accounting, disclosure, and audit failures,
20. Flawed expectations about house prices,
21. Excessively loose monetary policy.

Submission of Papers

Papers of up to 3000 words should be submitted to Prof. Steve, Editor-in-Chief, GCGI Journal (ISSN 2377-2794) and copied to Professors Damooei and Mofid (see the email addresses respectively below).

The deadline to receive papers is: 1 August 2018

Publication date: October 2018  

GCGI Journal

The unique aim of GCGIJ, the journal of the GCGI, in working towards building a better world consistent with the values of social justice, peace and ecology, is to help close the gap between theory and practice, and between theorists and practitioners. The GCGIJ will publish scholarly essays that integrate rigorous thinking about basic principles and theories of the common good and globalization, into discussions of practical issues related to policy developments, social pressures and change, global institutional arrangements and structures, the conduct of important international actors, and other cultural, ecological, economic and systemic patterns and trends: Journal Submission Guidelines

Prof. Jamshid Damooei, PhD (ECON), Professor & Chair, Department of Economics, Finance & Accounting, California Lutheran University, USA and a GCGI Senior Ambassador. Email: damooei@callutheran.edu

Prof. Kamran Mofid, PhD (ECON), Founder, Globalisation for the Common Good Initiative (GCGI). Email: k.mofid@gcgi.info

Prof. Steve Szeghi, PhD (ECON), Department of Economics, Wilmington College, Ohio, USA and a GCGI Senior Ambassador. Email: starsteve90@yahoo.com