What were lessons of falling wall?

Nov 12 2009 by Peter Jackson, The Journal

WHAT were you doing when the Berlin Wall came down? It does not seem that long ago, so it’s a bit of shock to realise we have just hit the 20th anniversary.

Maybe it has crept up on us because the Germans have been unwilling to make a big thing about the date of November 9, it also marking Kristallnacht, the Nazis’ pogrom against the Jews in 1938.

But the fall of the Berlin Wall was perhaps the greatest event of the post-war era, certainly before 9/11, taking ‘greatest’, I hasten to add, in the sense of most significant or with the greatest implications.

For, apart from marking the effective end of the Soviet bloc, it was also taken to signal the triumph of capitalism as an economic/political system.

That, it seems, could be changing. In the wake of the credit crunch, a poll for the BBC World Service has found widespread dissatisfaction with free-market capitalism, with only just over one in 10 of those questioned across 27 countries saying that it was working well.

Most thought regulation and reform of the capitalist system were necessary.

Only in two countries, the US, not surprisingly, and Pakistan – very surprisingly – did more than one in five think capitalism was working just fine, thank you.

One problem with this survey that strikes me is that in the current climate, it is hardly surprising that a majority do not think capitalism is working well.

It would be interesting to see whether there was any consensus or enthusiasm for any alternative system on the grounds that it might work better.

Apparently majorities in almost every country want governments to be more active in regulating business: again, not surprising at the moment.

But there is a difference between laying down rules saying a business cannot take certain socially- undesirable risks, and prescribing how many widgets a plant in Potsdam must produce for a tractor factory in Leipzig.

Similarly, it is worth remembering something else in the week that Lloyds Banking Group has announced 5,000 job losses. Namely that there is a difference between a government establishing a sensible framework of regulation to prevent banks taking undue risk and government stepping into the market to impose an ill-advised and ultimately disastrous merger, such as occurred with Lloyds and HBOS.

:: Peter Jackson is a freelance journalist and former Journal business editor p.jackson77@btinternet.com