"Live" cartoon on the roots of the financial crisis

 

CUNY professor David Harvey gave a presentation in April 2010 to the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce (only in Britain could they name something that, right?) called "The Crises of Capitalism", which the RSA then had animated. The result is sort of a "live" cartoon in which Harvey's words are both literally and figuratively animated as he speaks:

 

 

In the video, Harvey says that "any sensible person would join an anti-capitalist organization" (like CounterCorp!) and that those who are "seriously involved in the world have a duty to change our mode of thinking", which isn't exactly a radical notion — except maybe in 21st century America, where the corporate, political, and even academic establishment still respond to any deviation from economic orthodoxy with an intolerance bordering on the Catholic Church's inquisition of Galileo almost exactly 400 years ago.

 

And for those who think the U.S. doesn't suffer from that kind of rigid institutional control of publicly acceptable thought, just try to imagine this cartoon being set to music and shown to children on Schoolhouse Rock ...