The Writing on the Wall
The 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, has become particularly poignant because of the current economic slowdown in much of the rich countries, particularly in that apparent bastion of capitalism, the US. Over the past two years, the foundation of global finance has been shaken, not because of any Marxian foresight, but because of the failure on the part of the capitalist world to appreciate the relationship between property ownership and valuation of that property. In this article, " The Writing on the Wall ", published in the Financial Express , on 10 November 2009, I try to draw fresh lessons from the fall of the Berlin Wall, in the context of the current financial crisis. On November 9, 1989, the Berlin Wall that divided East and West Germany, both physically and ideologically, finally fell. It was a political earthquake, which signalled the end of communism. Communism was characterised by its contempt for private property, by the complete control o...