If
character traits are getting more inward and selfish, what does this mean for our
ability to create a better future?
The recent series I did on Paul
Collier’s “Future of Capitalism” makes me realise that I have never offered
a serious post on “Capitalism – what is
it and can it change its spots?”. This is how I had left things -
By the turn of the millennium the message seemed to be
that Capitalism takes various forms; is constantly changing; and will
always be with us. But increasingly, people were wondering whether it was not
out of control.
And a few years back, something changed. It wasn’t the
global crisis in itself but rather the combination of two things – first the
suggestion that the entire engine of the system (profitability) was
reaching vanishing point; and, second, a sudden realisation that
robotization was a serious threat to even middle-class jobs. Now the book titles
talk of the new phenomenon of “post-capitalism”
Curious that I omitted global warming the growing appreciation of whose
reality makes it a third factor. I have therefore developed a table which identifies
what I consider are the most accessible books about the nature of this
system “without a proper name”. In my day we knew the system as “the mixed
economy” but that phrase fell out of favour in the 1980s in the face of the
onslaught of privatisation.
“Neoliberalism” wasn’t a very good substitute since very few people
knew what this meant – indeed it clearly registered as a term of abuse…..And
any use of the term “capitalism” was banned in all but the most militant
circles…..
You almost felt the sense of relief when the phrase “post-capitalism”
came along – a system whose name didn’t embarrass us!!!!
The table looks at almost a
dozen very different specialisms (inc journalism, religion and policy
analysts/think tankers).
I have to confess that I get very impatient with the incredible specialism in the
so-called “social sciences” which has developed these past few decades with the
expansion of universities. Two things in particular annoy me - first
the lack of communications between these so-called “experts” is nothing short
of criminal. Most of them received free education and yet, starved of the
slightest contact with those developing similar thoughts in separate fields
(let alone with real life), offer us, with few exceptions, boring, barren
thoughts
And I get impatient, secondly, with the amnesia of these
micro-specialists…their worship of the new…just look at the recommended reading
they inflict on their poor students……very little before 2000….And my own lists
are the same……And note what the author of one of the clearest books on
capitalism said in 2008
“No social
scientist over the past half century has added anything that is fundamentally
new to our understanding of the capitalist economic system”
Geoff Ingham in “Capitalism” (2008)
I
have selected the books which appear in the table according to whether they
portray a world of “perfect competition” in which, according to the theory, no
one has any power or, at the other extreme, a world of large companies
and groups exercising power (legal and illegal).
We are prone these days to use ideological labels too easily – so I
want to avoid that by using less obvious labels.
-
“Mixed”
therefore covers those who clearly argue for what used to be called “the mixed
economy” and are quite clear that they wish a better, more balanced capitalism;
-
The “critical-realist”
label covers those who go further in their critical approach, extending their
analysis to the role exercised by dubious and illegitimate power players who
try to buy democracy and whose activities threaten the planet’s very survival.
Needless to say, the allocation to one particular column is arbitrary
and could be disputed – as can the choice of illustrative authors and books! I shall try to say something about my choice in a subsequent post...
Key Texts about the future of
capitalism – by academic discipline and “approach”
Academic
Discipline
|
1. Critical-Realist
|
2. Mixed approach
|
3. “market” proponents
|
Economics
|
Conceptualising Capitalism – institutions, evolution,
future; Geoff Hodgson (2015)
Debt and Neo-Feudalism; Michael Hudson (2012)
Credo – economic beliefs in a world of crisis; Brian Davey (2015). Davey is not a career or conventional economist!
|
The Future of Capitalism – facing new anxieties; Paul Collier (2018)
Shifts and Shocks – what we’ve learned, and still
have to, from the financial crisis; Martin Wolf (2014) – with accompanying power point presentation
|
Why Globalisation Works; Martin Wolf (2004)
most of the discipline
|
Economic history
|
Capitalism and its Economics – a critical History; Douglas Dowd (2000)
Never Let a Good Crisis go to waste; Philip Mirowski
(2013)
|
Crashed – how a decade of financial crises changed
the world Adam Tooze (2018)
|
Economic historians by definition have
a strong sense of political and other institutions
|
Political economy
|
Susan
Strange
- The Retreat of the State (1994)
- States and Markets (1988)
|
|
The discipline still rediscovering
itself but, again, by definition, has a strong sense of the importance of
institutions
|
Political
Science
|
Crisis without End - the unravelling of western
prosperity: A Gamble (2014)
Democracy Incorporated – managed democracy and the
spectre of inverted totalitarianism; Sheldon Wolin (2008)
|
The Great Disruption – human nature and the
reconstitution of social order; Francis Fukuyama (1999)
Mammon’s Kingdom – an essay on Britain, Now; David Marquand (2015)
|
Only a few brave pol scientists
trespass into the economic field – although it is becoming more fashionable
|
Policy analysis/Think Tanks
|
“The Locust and the Bee – predators and
creators in capitalism’s future”; G Mulgan (2015)
|
An Intro to Capitalism (IEA 2018)
|
|
Sociology
|
Wolfgang Streeck.
End of capitalism? Michael Mann (2013)
Capitalism;
Geoff Ingham (2008)
|
The sociological voice is still
inspired by C Wright Mills, Veblen, Weber and Durkheim
|
|
Geography
|
David
Harvey
- Seventeen Contradictions and the End
of Capitalism (2014)
- The Enigma of Capital (2010)
- A Brief History of Neo-Liberalism (2005).
|
Danny
Dorling
- Injustice (2014)
|
The geographers are a bolshie lot -
with a strong sense of geo-politics
|
Environment
|
Come On! Capitalism, short-termism, population and
the destruction of the planet; (Club of Rome 2018).
|
Why we can’t agree about Climate Change; Mike Hulme (2009)
Natural Capitalism – the next industrial revolution; Paul Hawken (1999)
|
they pride themselves on their
technocracy
|
Journalism
|
Post Capitalism – a guide to our Future; Paul Mason (2015) ….
|
How Good Can we be – ending the mercenary society Will Hutton (2015)
Capitalism 3.0 Peter
Barnes (2006)
|
They don’t enjoy the tenure of the
academics (altho Hutton is a college Director)
|
Management and man’t studies
|
“The Dictionary of Alternatives –
utopianism and organisation”; M Parker (2007)
|
Rebalancing Society; Henry Mintzberg (2014)
Peter Senge
Charles Handy
|
Most mant writers are apologists –
apart from the critical mant theorists
|
Religious studies
|
|
The Crisis of global capitalism – Pope Benedict XVI’s
social encyclical and the future of political economy; ed A Pabst (2011)
Questions of Business Life; Higginson (2002)
|
A more ecumenical bunch!
|
Psychology
|
What about me – the struggle for identity in a market based society?; Paul Verhaeghe (2014)
|
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