The simple yet complex reality that we have to face is that capitalism actually survives and thrives on economic crises; that crises act as circuit breakers in capitalism's otherwise headlong rush to self-destruction; and that expansion is the chief means of resolving them. Paradoxically, therefore, it can be said that whatever its intensity and wherever it occurs at a local or global level, a crisis functions as a stimulus driving capital accumulation and expansion. The cumulative effect is that today there are few avenues of human activity and social life, including education and associated information services, that are beyond subservience to the absurd and irrational whirlpool of capitalism's dynamics.