Mexico's symptoms signal a wider malaise

As in the 1400s, disease and climate change weaken an economy’s immune system

The deepening crisis led, inevitably, to a search for scapegoats. Those deemed responsible for the toxic waste were identified and 16 were rounded up and taken to be beaten and harangued in the public square.

No, this is not what lies in store for those who presided over the decline and fall of the global banking industry but the fate of millers and bakers in Paris found guilty during the Great Famine of the early 14th century of adulterating flour with animal droppings. The French could stage a good demo even then.

The Parisian protests were not an isolated incident; they took place during the long disintegration of the early medieval economy, which started in the second half of the 13th century and culminated in the Black Death in the middle of the 14th century.

The crisis had its genesis in economic and financial instability. Europe’s economy, as the 13th century drew to an end, was marked by rising population, falling productivity, rising public deficits and widening inequality. There were wild swings in prices as governments debased the coinage and then decided to be virtuous once more.

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