Reflections: why old social theory might still be useful

Abstract: In the following, I first identify some of the breadth of concern raised within academe subsequent to the global financial crisis (GFC) and then move to identify what some mainstream financial press outlets have done recently to foster debate about the systemic nature of concerns increasingly manifest since 2007. In certain Marxist-oriented social science circles, the current crisis was well prepared but, unfortunately, hardly visible in business education. We need a sociological understanding of the market to augment the limited understanding of orthodox economics. To understand how the GFC came to be the contributions of the virtually forgotten social theory are retrieved as pointers to understanding how the profound social and organizational changes leading up to and creating the GFC occurred. The implications of this literature for the curriculum of the business school should be profound, it is argued.