Is a financial crisis is real or is it just a shared illusion that only has real consequences because people change their behaviour? The underlying idea, that is common especially among the left, is that money and finance are not real and there never needed to be a financial crisis if everyone juts kept working. If the system works today and tomorrow we all do the same, it will continue to work.
Can people just continue to do what they do and ignore the money?
The answer is yes, but that is game theoretically unstable. As time progresses the entire economy becomes increasingly toxic. The debt ratio increases and financial risks becomes unbearable. When some people benefit, others loose (at least in financial speculation). If you find yourself on the loosing side, for example guaranteeing increasingly toxic credits adding more risk every day you will not just continue.
The second problem is that everyone can bet against the economy. If the economy is already very shaky then you are in fact encouraged to deliver the killing blow. Its like playing jenga, but when it becomes to dangerous you can switch and bet on the tower crashing. Guess what, with these rules the tower will never become very large.
So in short, before a crisis some people find out that they are more vulnerable than they thought and try to protect themselves. At the same time others take a bet against the system. People wont simply accept they are on the loosing side and have to pay for the profits of others.
Finance is real
Nothing is for free, when cheap money is circulated to support businesses that would not be profitable otherwise, somebody always has to pay or take that risk. If that is the public, it can go on for a long time, but when that risk is taken by a private investor the game is over very soon.
Initially the risk is always with the public. But when debts become so large that even the public will not be able to cover the looses then private investors become liable. Typically this starts with the ones that also have large public debts (housing...).
A financial crisis is nothing but returning to sanity from an overhyped market than cannot deliver on what was promised. It is a way to find who ends up paying the bill. It is the last method to settle the open positions.
The next crash is coming
We have seen ten years of cheap money at no interest rates. Large parts of our economy are addicted to that drug and cannot live without it anymore. Many investors have turned to stocks because that seemed to be the only way to make a profit on your money. As a consequence the entire stock market is overheated and having stocks is not more secure than bonds.
In 2008 is was hard to make a good bet against the financial system. You cannot bet on the completely collapse of of the economy from within the economy. In 2018 we have crypto, a mathematically guaranteed exit from the system. Bitcoin and the corresponding equity drain is the ultimate bet against the financial system.