The world crisis

Versions of the papers contained in this Special Report were presented at the "New World, New Capitalism" conference held in Paris in January 2009, organized and hosted by the French government. French President Nicholas Sarkozy set the tone for the meeting as he called on Old Europe to lead the discussions on the new world economy as a "narrative of the future", and to re-found capitalism because "if we don't do it, others will do it in our place". It is likely that the "others" he had in mind were those having meetings and working groups in Washington DC and New York; in fact, it was striking that the "American" view of capitalism presented in Paris remained clearly opposed to regulation and state intervention.