Ex-Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney blasts “radical,” “fundamentalist” capitalism

Well, this ought to cause a stir at this summer’s garden parties among Canada’s elites.

Mark Carney, former Bank of Canada Governor (now the Governor of the Bank of England) has come forward to condemn what he calls “unchecked market fundamentalism.”

He delivered the remarks last week at the Conference for Inclusive Capitalism, an annual gathering of global political and financial elites that featured keynotes by Carney along with Prince Charles and former U.S. President Bill Clinton.

“Just like any revolution eats its children,” Carney told the audience of global power brokers, “unchecked market fundamentalism can devour the social capital essential for the long-term dynamism of capitalism itself.”

“All ideologies are prone to extremes. Capitalism loses its sense of moderation when the belief in the power of the market enters the realm of faith.”

Carney went on to link the 2008 financial crisis and resulting Great Recession with the absolutist beliefs in low taxes, deregulated markets and limited government intervention in the economy. 

“In the decade prior to the crisis, such radicalism came to dominate economic ideas and became even a pattern of economic behaviour,” he said. “We moved from a market economy towards a market society.”

Watch this two-minute highlight reel of Carney’s remarks:

Here’s the video of Carney’s full speech, courtesy of the Bank of England (and h/t to HuffPost Canada for sharing the video).

Photo: wikimedia.org. Used under a Creative Commons BY-SA 2.0 licence.