Banks going bankrupt, insolvencies and rising unemployment... The financial crisis that originated in the US and encircled the entire world in a short period of time has brought about some discussions in addition to problems. Could this be the end of capitalism?

It was not easy to foresee that the small troubles encountered in housing loans provided for the lower income group in the US three years ago would lead to a global financial crisis. The fact that FED, the US Federal Reserve, resorted to regular increase in interest rates in the past two years has reinforced recession in the real estate sector on the one hand and the failure to pay back the loans has brought the investment banks and mortgage sector to the brink of a crisis on the other hand. While the recession was reflected on other sectors in the US, it has brought international financial institutions like Bearn Stearns, Merrill Lynch and Lehman Brothers to the verge of bankruptcy.

The leaps made by FED to rescue the companies in this process has ignited the spark for a discussion on the spirit of capitalism in the US, too. The 700-billion-dollar plan executed by the US government to rescue the financial sector was qualified as the ''end of capitalism'' by those who were in favor of the transformation of the global system.

There are some who believe that the remedy is an intervention by the state. The number of those who say that the government should have a strong and clear role in setting the rules of the game, structuring the markets and regulating them is on the rise. The measures that have been taken so far are of a nature to justify those who defend this opinion.

There are some who defend that capitalism will overcome these problems "within itself". According to these people, the most important feature of capitalism that distinguishes it from the other ''-isms'' is its ability to solve within its own dynamics the problems or crises it has created by itself.

The fact that the 1930 economic crisis was solved through Keynesian policies that fore grounded state-supported growth and employment model is shown as an example to this ability. It is remarked that a way will be found out of this crisis, too.

Some people argue that the crisis does not stem from capitalism. They assert that the crisis stemmed from poor state policies that encouraged extreme risk taking by those who received loans and organizations that provided loans. Hence, the correct response to crisis is the elimination of those policies; capitalism will be functioning totally well in the aftermath.

There is another dimension to this crisis. A unipolar world started to be talked about after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The US had become the center of the world. However, the winds that have been flowing from the east in recent times have been harbingers of a multi-polar world. Brazil, Russia, India and China, shortly termed as BRIC, have emerged as new candidate super powers. The last crisis that has been experienced shows that the capital will escape the US and shift to the east, the impact of those countries will be bigger.
Let us go back to the beginning. Does the global crisis really mean the "end of capitalism"? How will the global order be shaped in the aftermath of the crisis? There are many questions; opinions vary. However, there is one thing that is certain. This fluctuation or turmoil is now creating a new world order in an irrevocable way; that is to say, the rules of the game are being redefined.