Tag Archives: capitalism

The key element that distinguishes capitalist societies from previous forms of social organization is not the existence of markets or money but rather capital investment, the act through which basic elements of society and life—including natural resources, technological discoveries, cultural productions, urban spaces, educational institutions, human beings, and the nation-state—are transformed (or “capitalized”) into income-generating assets valued and allocated in accordance with their...

The financial crisis has led many to question the legitimacy of capitalism. The verdict, 10 years on, has not been favourable. In an opinion poll by YouGov, three-quarters of German adults, two-thirds of Britons and over half of Americans believe that, “the poor get poorer and the rich get richer in capitalist economies”. Their sense of injustice is not only a reaction to bank bailouts, years of austerity and corporate scandals. The challenge is fundamental. There is a growing awareness in...

Bernie appears to have had an impact. To obtain this information, the research and data firm YouGov surveyed 23,000 people aged 16 and over. Two of the survey’s findings included that 59 percent of total Americans would rather live in a capitalist country, with 34 percent preferring a socialist nation.When focusing on millennials, the survey revealed 44 percent of those surveyed would rather live in a socialist nation, compared to 42 percent who would prefer a capitalist country. The...

Earlier this year, a Stigler Center paper by Luigi Zingales [Faculty Director of the Stigler Center and one of the editors of this blog] argued that market concentration can lead to a vicious circle, in which companies use market power to gain political power that in turn allows them to gain more market power, and vice versa. Zingales called this the “Medici vicious circle”: “Money is used to gain political power and political power is then used to make more money.”A new UN report shows...

US capitalism is again careening down blind alleys. Earlier it had crashed into the Great Depression from 1929 to 1933 before lurching into the New Deal. After 1945 it concentrated on rolling back the New Deal until it turned sharply to neoliberalism and “globalism” in the 1970s. That provided the comforting illusion of a few decades of “prosperous normalcy.” When the second major crash in 75 years hit in 2008, it exposed the debt-dependent reality of those decades. It also sent capitalism...

And American imperialism is scared. U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross has described the plan as an “attack” on “American genius.” In an excellent new book, The US vs China: Asia’s new cold war?, Jude Woodward, a regular visitor and lecturer in China, shows the desperate measures that the US is taking to try to isolate China, block its economic progress and surround it militarily. But she also shows this policy is failing. China is not accepting control by foreign multi-nationals; it is...

First, we have to understand, the U.S. trade deficit has risen and U.S. manufacturing output has fallen not because of the “blind forces” of international trade. For decades now, U.S. corporations have decided to increase their profits by a combination of shifting production to other countries and automating many of the production processes that remain in the United States. And they’ve left the American working-class behind. Second, there’s no guarantee that increasing manufacturing output...

Maldistribution. Symptom or cause? A market ideology that causes widespread misery has no future. The Automatic EarthIs Capitalism Dead or Merely Dying? Raúl Ilargi Meijer The transition from the age of hunting-gathering to the agricultural age wrought a drastic social, political l and economic transformation, as did the transition from the agricultural age to the industrial age. So it can be safely assumed that the transition from the industrial age to the information age will also...

Socialism a century ago seemed to be the wave of the future. There were various schools of socialism, but the common ideal was to guarantee support for basic needs, and for state ownership to free society from landlords, predatory banking and monopolies. In the West these hopes are now much further away than they seemed in 1917. Land and natural resources, basic infrastructure monopolies, health care and pensions have been increasingly privatized and financialized. Instead of Germany and...

What Ed Harrison call "crony capitalism" is a feature of neoliberalism as government capture that favors special interests. "Crony capitalism" is an egregious example of the underlying assumption that capital formation should be favored over other factors in the interest of growth, based on the further assumption of trickle down. This results in upward distribution and growing inequality of income and wealth, which eventually leads to social dysfunctionality.Credit Writedowns Crony...