Informational Capitalism and the Financial Crisis of 2008

In order to get the party started on this blog, I wanted to give you a couple of resources that will enable you to place the plot of the film Margin Call in the larger consequence of the Financial Crisis of 2008 (and the subsequent so-called "Great Recession" which is still ongoing for many people in many countries).

The history of modern capitalism is frequently punctuated by financial crises where the capital markets crash, implode and/or collapse due to the consequences of their own actions. Please note that financial crises are never something that happens to the markets from the outside; rather, they are the direct result of how the markets are organized and how market actors--collectively as individuals and individually as persons--behave.  In today's class, we will talk about the imaginaries of informational capital/ism and how we can see them manifested in choices that characters in film make.

All of that will make a lot more sense to you if you have some background understanding of what the Financial Crisis of 2008 was all about.  A good place to start is this very simple, very short YouTube video that clearly explains the "credit crisis" that set off the larger financial crisis and started the Great Recession. :




For those of you who want to delve more deeply into the issue, the CBC and the PBS show Frontline produced excellent documentaries about the Crisis and its economic and political aftermath.

The CBC's documentary Meltdown can be found here:




and the PBS Frontline series on "Money, Power and Wall Street" can be found here: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/money-power-wall-street/