The global financial and economic crisis, aggravated in the fall of 2008 in particular, has been described as a “once in a hundred years” crisis (Greenspan [2008]) or one of the “worst since the Great Depression” (Geithner [2008]). It is appropriate to analyze it as a “structural crisis” similar to the 1930s Great Depression that led to the total disintegration of the world capitalist economy. In this sense, it should be elucidated as a “global crisis” of the “global capitalist system” brought about by the structural characteristics inherent to the specific capital accumulation structure and the mechanism of the current phase of modern capitalism. The economic crisis in real world cannot be reduced to a pure theoretical model of the crisis theory. It must be comprehensively elucidated as a “global crisis,” including its historical dimension, in light of the Stages Theory originated by the Japanese Uno School, although it should be reformulated according to the two stages of the “Pax Britannica Stage” and the “Pax Americana Stage.” In accordance with this reformulation, the current global capitalism is defined as a capitalism in the “transfiguring phase” of the “Pax Americana Stage,” including significant processes of transition toward a new stage of capitalist development. The global financial and economic crisis in the late 2000s was the global “Great Crisis” that was brought about by causes deep-rooted in the capital accumulation system specific to the current phase of capitalist development
