Tag Archives: capitalism

Marxian economist Michael Roberts reviews Branco Milanovic's Global Inequality. And finds it wanting. It's the assumptions, stupid.In my view, the problem is the same as it is with almost economists with whom I am familiar. They don't read widely out of their field in relevant fields like sociology, political science, and history and anthropology. They look through an economic lens that is colored by their ill-informed assumptions regarding context. Used to mathematical modeling, they are...

I don't think that Branco Milanovic has this quite right. First, he conflates capitalism with a market economy. Markets are ancient and can hardly be represented as evidence of capitalism.  Secondly, he notes, correctly, that capitalism as vastly extended marketization by commodifying as much as it can, thereby capitalizing it. But this is not necessarily the expansion of capitalism. It is more properly viewed as the expansion of privatization, which he notes.  Recalling the enclosure...

Which is where financialization comes in. The defining event on the road to financialization in the 80s was not big bang: at the time, this was seen as merely the ending of a restrictive practice rather than the start of the creation of global investment banks. Instead, it was the credit liberalization of the early 80s, which made mortgages and consumer credit much easier to get. This did not merely increase the activity and hence profits of lenders: note the big rise in financial profits...

Commodification is of the essence of capital. It can be a force for good, as proponents of the price mechanism as the solution to all problems claim, or not, as Marx & Engels objected based on alienation. Chris Dillow comments.Stumbling and MumblingON COMMODIFICATIONChris Dillow | Investors Chronicle

In an interview with ProMarket, CUNY Graduate Center economist Branko Milanovic discussed the differences and similarities between US-style and China-style capitalism and explained why, without major reforms, liberal capitalism could lead to plutocracy. "Could lead" or "has led"? While I generally like Branko Milanovic's work, I think his analysis of "capitalism" is fundamentally misguided since it is based on a Western-biased view of economics and political theory.  So-called...

Are the faults of capitalism curable, or are they instead symptoms of a chronic disease? This is the question posed by Martin Wolf: What we increasingly seem to have…is an unstable rentier capitalism, weakened competition, feeble productivity growth, high inequality and, not coincidentally, an increasingly degraded democracy. There is much to admire in this piece. But I fear it understates the problem with capitalism.... Falling rate of profit?Stumbling and MumblingThe trouble with...

Should be "neoliberalism" instead of "liberalism."New StatesmanWhy is “millennial socialism” on the rise? Because liberalism is failing Lea Ypi

Inequality constricts growth by: Obstructing the supply of people and ideas into our economy and limiting opportunity for those not already at the top, which slows productivity growth over time Subverting the institutions that manage the market, making our political system ineffective and our labor markets dysfunctional Distorting demand through its effects on consumption and investment, which both drags down and destabilizes short- and long-term growth in economic output Capitalism...

More than a decade after the global financial crisis, macroeconomists have failed to absorb three crucial sets of lessons. Their models are still struggling – and mostly failing – to cope with disruptive change, and with the fact that both balance sheets and inequality matter.… Stating the obvious but it that most at the top don't get it yet. Project SyndicateWhat Economists Still Need to LearnMark Cliffe is Chief Economist and Head of Global Research of the ING Group. Also of interest...

In the same way that Capital in the Twenty-First Century transformed the way economists look at inequality, Piketty’s new book Capital and Ideology will transform the way political scientists look at their own field. ProMarket — The blog of the Stigler Center at the University of Chicago Booth School of BusinessThomas Piketty’s New Book Brings Political Economy Back to Its Sources Branko Milanovic | Visiting Presidential Professor at City University of New York Graduate Center and senior...