Capitalism last worked
well between 1945 and 1970 - when policy was guided by a form of social
democracy that had suffused through the main political parties (of Britain).
Its ethical origins had been in the cooperative movement of the 19th
century created to address the urgent anxieties of the time.
Its narrative of
solidarity became the foundation for a deepening web of reciprocal obligations
that addressed these anxieties.
But then the ethical
foundations of social democracy corroded – as its ethical leadership passed
from the cooperative movement to utilitarian technocrats and Rawlsian lawyers.
This ethics lacks resonance with people - and voters have gradually withdrawn
their support.
The text then continues with
what might seem a curious question – “Why did political parties not turn to
pragmatism?” to which I will return later….
The book is “The
Future of Capitalism – facing the new anxieties” by development economist
Paul Collier who shows within a few pages the advantages such economists have
over “normal” economists - he quotes extensively from the work of a social
psychologist whose “Righteous
Mind” I praised to the skies a couple of months ago and he is clearly
familiar with works of moral philosophy and politics…..Such “intellectual
trespassing” has been unheard of since the great days of Albert Hirschman!!
The author had been invited
in 2017 by the editor of TLS to write a review of several books – a review
which duly appeared as “How to
Save Capitalism” and inspired him to keep pursuing the issues which had
been raised in the books he had been given for review.
Paul Collier is best known
for his Bottom Billion – why the poorest countries
are failing and what can be done about it? (2007) which one
review put into excellent context in this way –
Before “The Bottom
Billion”, the prominent economists’ debate about foreign aid was largely
between Jeffrey Sachs’ passionate call for more assistance (“The End of
Poverty” and his new “Common Wealth”), countered by William Easterly’s
cautionary tales of aid gone wrong (“The Elusive Quest for Growth” and “The
White Man’s Burden”). Collier’s Bottom Billion enters the fray with a very
different kind of argument, calling for a variety of interventions, some of
which are not really aid at all. Sachs wants more aid and Easterly wants less,
but Collier wants different
And his disinclination to
follow “the conventional wisdom” shows in his latest book which takes aim at
both “left” and “right” ideologues – as well as technocrats, financiers,
fat-cats and lawyers
I'll continue the analysis in future posts......
There are three parts to the book – the first which looks at the “three
appalling cleavages” which now divide societies which Collier designates as “geographical,
educational and moral” which are not, for him,
“just
problems I study; they are the tragedies that have come to define my sense of
purpose in life, This is why I have written this book. I want to change this
situation”
Part II is entitled “Restoring Ethics” and starts by reminding us that
Adam Smith’s first book, prior to “The Wealth of Nations" was “The Theory
of Moral Sentiments” which explored the various moral obligations find have no
place in the economists’ rational calculator. He then argues that Jeremy
Bentham is responsible for the subsequent wrong path taken by economics and then
has short rather tantalising chapters on the “ethical state”, the “ethical firm”,
the “ethical family” and the “ethical world”. In that sense it’s thoroughly in
line with the thinking on the
very recent post about healthy families, organisations and societies - and indeed uses the same triple structure as
Robin Skynner and John Cleese’s famous book on “Life – and how to survive it”
(1990)
Part III is called “Restoring the Inclusive Society” and offers a range
of interesting suggestions
I'll continue the analysis in future posts......
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