Economist Suggests Islamic Finance as Solution to Economic Crisis

As the dust settles from the 2008 elections, pressing questions remain about the state of the world economy. “This is the major crisis that Western capitalism is facing since 1929,” said economist Loretta Napoleoni during a lecture sponsored by UNM’s International Studies Institute. Napoleoni’s talk on “The Global Financial Crisis” was the keynote of ISI’s lecture series, “Global Instability: Causes, Consequences and Cures.”

She traced the current crisis to a shift from “a nation state to a market state” – that is, from a focus on the welfare of citizens to growth of business. “Now, what is happening today, the credit crunch, is actually linked to the fact that this state did not regulate finance for fifteen years.”