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Economics commentator Noah Smith opposes the term polycrisis, arguing that it overestimates the interconnectivity and severity of contemporary crises. He further posits that there are buffers in place in most systems and that people come together at times of crises, preventing them from escalating or compounding. “I don’t see a polycrisis; I see an emerging […]
Against Polycrisis Read More »
Samanth Subramanian contests the utility of the term “polycrisis” and the novelty of the present situation it is used to capture. Where Adam Tooze argues that the present situation is unique for its lack of single causes and single fixes, Subramanian proposes that many historical episodes featured this condition, including the financial crises of the
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Stephen M. Walt considers a number of global shocks that have all happened in close temporal proximity to one another and are “overwhelming our collective ability to respond”: the breakup of the Soviet empire, China’s rise, 9/11 and the global war on terror, the 2008 financial meltdown, the Arab Spring, the global refugee crisis, the
How Many Shocks Can the World Take? Read More »
The author defines megathreats as “severe problems that could cause vast damage and misery and cannot be solved quickly or easily” (p. 4). “We are facing megathreats unlike anything we have faced before… [and] they overlap and reinforce one another” (p. 5). Roubini explores ten megathreats: debt accumulation and debt traps; easy money and financial crises;
Megathreats: Ten Dangerous Trends that Imperil Our Future and How to Survive Them Read More »
The Polycrisis is a newsletter and a series of essays and panels exploring intersecting crises with a particular emphasis on the political economy of climate change and global North/South dynamics.
Christopher Hobson often discusses the polycrisis in his blog posts, emphasizing the need to “honestly recognise and reckon with the complexity of the present moment.” “Polycrisis: In this Valley of Dying Stars” (18 August 2022) “Seeing Polycrisis: Facing Fractals” (26 August 2022) “Polycrisis and Metamorphosis: When Change Outpaces Comprehension” (2 September 2022) “Picking up Polycrisis:
Imperfect Notes on an Imperfect World Read More »
The authors propose that hitherto unrecognized, complex teleconnections and self-reinforcing feedbacks among global systems are accelerating, amplifying, and synchronizing crises. The ultimate result of such unrecognized processes could be a global polycrisis—a single, macro-crisis of interconnected, runaway failures of Earth’s vital natural and social systems that irreversibly degrades humanity’s prospects. The authors therefore call for
A Call for an International Research Program on the Risk of a Global Polycrisis Read More »
Adam Tooze frequently discusses various aspects of the polycrisis in his blog posts. Notable entries include: “Defining polycrisis – from crisis pictures to the crisis matrix” (24 June 2022) “Calibrating the polycrisis – with the help of the International Bank of Settlements” (26 June 2022) “Polycrisis – Thinking on the Tightrope” (29 October 2022) “Haiti
Ian Bremmer argues that the world faces three major crises—pandemics, climate change, and disruptive technologies (AI, lethal autonomous weapons, cyberwarfare, and biotechnology)—but our ability to respond effectively is hampered by broken American politics and the worsening rivalry between the United States and China. The three crises, however, present an opportunity and the necessary impetus for
The Power of Crisis: How Three Threats – And Our Response – Will Change the World Read More »
Adam Tooze examines the impacts of the covid-19 pandemic on finance and business, highlighting just how unprepared and vulnerable economic systems were to the crisis. He highlights the ways in which institutional failures, political interests, economic policies, and geopolitics interacted with the pandemic to shape its impacts. Characterizing the situation as a polycrisis, he applies
Shutdown: How Covid Shook the World’s Economy Read More »
