Still clueless. Caught in the bubble and out of touch. “For every one positive article about capitalism, there are 11 negative ones,” said Nathan Rosenberg, founding partner of Insigniam, a management consulting firm. “CEOs should seize their job. Capitalism has created more elevation of [the] human condition than any religion or government ever has. We don’t tell our story. We don’t talk about the benefits. We have to get out and tell our story.”... FortuneDoes Capitalism Have a PR...
Read More »Joseph Stiglitz — The Economy We Need
After 40 years of market fundamentalism, America and like-minded European countries are failing the vast majority of their citizens. At this point, only a new social contract – guaranteeing citizens health care, education, retirement security, affordable housing, and decent work for decent pay – can save capitalism and liberal democracy. Three years ago, US President Donald Trump’s election and the United Kingdom’s Brexit referendum confirmed what those of us who have long studied income...
Read More »Paul Cockshott — What then is the escape from capitalism?
What then is the escape from capitalism? What would be the essential features of a socialist economy, one the would be really achievable? Exactly the right question. It's not just about there but getting from here to there. The former is utopian, the latter involves being realistic. This is not primarily a theoretical question but a practical one.Marx concluded that capitalism is based on a monetary production economy, and that monetary production economies tend toward capitalism, as China...
Read More »Michael Roberts — Progressive capitalism–an oxymoron
What is Stiglitz’s solution? “Things don’t have to be that way. There is an alternative: progressive capitalism. Progressive capitalism is not an oxymoron; we can indeed channel the power of the market to serve society.” You see, it is not capitalism that is the problem but vested interests, especially among monopolists and bankers. The answer is to return to the days of managed capitalism that Stiglitz believes existed in the golden age of the 1950s and 1960s.How are we to return to the...
Read More »James K. Galbraith — Capitalism’s Great Reckoning
As the maladies of modern capitalism have multiplied, fundamental questions about the future of the world’s dominant economic model have become impossible to ignore. But in the absence of viable alternatives, the question is how to reform a system that is increasingly at odds with democracy. James K. Galbraith looks at three recent books on the crisis in capitalism:Joseph E. Stiglitz, People, Power, and Profits: Progressive Capitalism for an Age of Discontent, W.W. Norton, New York; Allen...
Read More »Robert Paul Wolff — “The Future of Socialism” (article)
I (Tom Hickey) recommend reading this paper now that "socialism" is the new buzz word. You may recall Professor Wolff from The Poverty of Liberalism, In Defense of Anarchy, and A Critique of Pure Tolerance (with Herbert Marcuse and Barrington Moore, Jr.), which were popular at the time of the "countercultural revolution" in the Sixties and Seventies. He also published scholarly works on Emmanuel Kant and Karl Marx. He blogs at The Philosopher's Stone, which I follow and occasionally offer...
Read More »Ray Dalio on what is to be done
LinkedIn Why and How Capitalism Needs to Be Reformed (Part 1) Ray Dalio See also by Ray Dalio Productivity and Structural Reform-Why Countries Succeed & Fail, and What Should Be Done So Failing Countries Succeed
Read More »Jesse — Audacious Oligarchy: The Rules Are For the Little People
I cannot stress enough that this elitist attitude towards society is a learned mindset, that comes with a sense of extreme entitlement, and not some inherited tendency. As it succeeds it can become contagious among those who are morally weak and easily influenced. Some good quotes. Jesse's Café AméricanAudacious Oligarchy: The Rules Are For the Little People Jesse
Read More »Rob Larson — Capitalist Freedom Is a Farce
Milton Friedman was wrong. Capitalism doesn't foster freedom — it produces autocratic workplaces and tyrannical billionaires.... Another paradox of liberalism that arises from economic liberalism and affects social and political liberalism, too.JacobinCapitalist Freedom Is a Farce Rob Larson
Read More »Michael Roberts — MMT, Minsky, Marx and the money fetish
This is a good historical backgrounder and it should be read for that reason alone. But Michael Roberts also brings up other issues that follow upon this history that are relevant to the current debate, at least some of which that have been brought up previously in the comments here. Highly recommended. As Maria Ivanova has shown, there remains a blind belief that the crisis-prone nature of the latter can be managed by means of ‘money artistry’, that is, by the manipulation of money,...
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