The global economic crisis will be the topic of a week-long series of lectures at Rhodes University from the 14th to the 18th of September.

The occasion is Rhodes’ sixth annual Teach-In . The Teach-In is a five-day event which aims to bring to the attention of the University, its students and the wider Grahamstown and Eastern Cape communities a particular issue of interest and concern in public policy.

This year’s teach-in will be hosted by the Department of Political and International Studies in partnership with the Department of Economics and the Centre for Economic Journalism.?

The choice of topic, given the impact of the global crisis, is self-evident. The aim of the Teach-in is to stimulate debate and contribute to building local knowledge about the possibilities for sustainable and equitable economic growth and social development in turbulent global times, and to think through the broader implications of the current crisis for our understandings of politics and society. The participants will explore the implications of the changing nature of the debate for South Africa and Africa but, most of all, how it will touch the lives of young people.

In the wake of an unprecedented financial crisis in Western Countries which has had a ripple effect across the globe, bankers, governments, analysts, economists and the media have been interrogated about not seeing it coming. The Financial Times has framed this as a discussion about the "future of capitalism". "Free-market fundamentalism" can no longer be held out as the only, one-size-fits-all economic model. There is wide-ranging debate about what model can or should take its place.

Director of the Centre for Economics Journalism in Africa at Rhodes University Reg Rumney believes

“As Warren Buffet says, when the tide goes out you can see who’s been swimming naked. Perhaps we couldn’t have predicted the size and severity of the crisis, but surely financial journalists should indulge in a little self-examination about our role in creating the conditions for it to happen. So perhaps should economists, executives, and regulators stop to think a bit about how the bubble built up in the first place.”

South Africa’s financial system has been largely unscathed but, like other developing nations, it has taken collateral damage to its economy. Whatever emerges on the policy level, each country, and South Africa is no exception, must make its own decisions on what lessons to take away from the crisis and how to adapt policy for changing times.

Governments in the West are mounting massive financial interventions in their economies, with unknown but potentially serious long-term consequences. That the battle has switched from fighting inflation to trying to stave off deflation, has occasioned some new thinking about the role of fiscal and monetary policy in economic stability.

While a hunt for the “culprits” may be fruitless, the deteriorating economic situation has thrown a spotlight on practices ignored in the era of prosperity, namely excessive executive remuneration, seemingly untied to company performance, and widening economic and social inequality.

Most ironic has been the effect on Africa, which has not benefited from full integration in the global economy in investment and trade, but is feeling the effects of a global crisis in decreased exports of commodities and the prospect of decreased official development. African growth in 2009 is expected to be half the level previously projected.

What are the implications of this global crisis for economic policy, and does this change from country to country? What model of economic growth and development will now become fashionable? How can individual countries resist international pressures and chart development paths as appropriate to their specific contexts?

The crisis presents the opportunity for economists, social theorists and policymakers to vigorously debate the ideas that currently dominate the field and present alternative economic development paths. Moreover, it is necessary to think beyond economic questions and to examine issues such as our political ideas, our forms of social organisation and our moral imperatives.

The first public lecture in the series will be delivered on Monday by Monhla Hlahla – Managing Director of the Airports Company of South Africa.

Other speakers include: Jeremy Cronin, Deputy Minister of Transport and Deputy Secretary of the South African Communist Party; Professor Johan Fedderke, Director – Economic Research Southern Africa, University of Cape Town; Greg Farrell of the South African Reserve Bank; and Professor Francis Wilson – Founder of the Southern African Labour and Development Research Unit.

Members of the media and interested members of the public are invited to attend the Teach-In which starts during the first week of fourth term.

Dates: 14 to 18 September 2008.

Times: 12.30 to 2.00pm on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday.

1.10 to 2.40pm on Wednesday.

Venue: Barratt Lecture Theatre, Rhodes University, Grahamstown.