Remembrance Day brought me to reflect upon the scars left across Europe after by the world wars. Reading “Captain Corelli’s Mandolin” a while back I had an insight to the political and ideological struggles during WWII and the vacuums left as these came head to head. Fascism and democratic capitalism coming to blows as communism fought for its place leaving Europe to re-find itself.

The last 150 years or so has seen a great time of –isms. Pre-packaged ideologies for people to latch onto, believe in and fight for. As we see a global economic recession loom we see one –ism, capitalism meet its greatest challenge yet.

It has definitely been clear for some time that global capitalism in it’s current form has had huge holes in. Not that it is necessarily unsustainable but that has not made global society any fairer. People long for justice, equality and a fair game and in theory, capitalism seems to offer that. Perhaps there are just no ideologies or frameworks that are actually just as soon as they are touched by people.

I used to be a bit of a fan of socialism as capitalism continues to concentrate power and wealth into small pockets. Socialism would say that the power and wealth are shared but there are no examples of this really happening in a way that leads to greater freedom and that increases overall quality of life– the opposite seems to have persisted.

As Sarkozy calls for a “new form of capitalism” perhaps it really is time to explore these –isms, discover a “new way”. I do not want to get carried away though, it will not eliminate the world’s problems but we must be able to find ways of living that engage with tackling poverty and inequality and that have economic and environmental sustainability running through the core.