Casino capitalism

Not so long ago, bankers were pictured as mature dark-suited gentlemen with a reputation for sobriety and an instinct for caution. Now the world's financial community bears as little resemblance to this image as to the barter systems of earlier centuries. Today's money markets, nurtured by and feeding off the precipitous advance of communications technology, have expanded and accelerated into a round-the-world, round-the-clock frenzy of speculative activity, in which the buying and selling of commodities for use has been dwarfed by the playing of the markets in ever more sophisticated ways in pursuit of immediate financial gain.

This system, argues Professor Strange, is not only unstable; it is largely uncontrolled. Those who should be in charge of the situation rarely know enough of what is going on, and those operating in it are often betting in the dark. Yet none of us could escape the disastrous consequences were the precarious edifice to collapse. International organizations are powerless to keep the situation in check; only the determination of the American authorities to take control of the major financial institutions dealing in dollars could shield the world from the repercussions of casino capitalism.

This provocative book, revised to account for the stock-market crash of October 1987, is based on long observation and detailed analysis of the international financial scene. It should give pause for thought to all who have come to accept the current state of affairs with anything like equanimity.