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This is not a blog which opines on current events. It rather uses incidents, books (old and new), links and papers to muse about our social endeavours.
So old posts are as good as new! And lots of useful links!

The Bucegi mountains - the range I see from the front balcony of my mountain house - are almost 120 kms from Bucharest and cannot normally be seen from the capital but some extraordinary weather conditions allowed this pic to be taken from the top of the Intercontinental Hotel in late Feb 2020

Tuesday, October 15, 2019

Capitalism – what is it? Can it change for the better?

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

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!



Why Globalisation Works; Martin Wolf (2004)


most of the discipline
Economic history


Never Let a Good Crisis go to waste; Philip Mirowski  (2013)

Economic historians by definition have a strong sense of political and other institutions
Political economy
The Lugano Report: On Preserving Capitalism in the Twenty-first Century” – Susan George (1999).

Susan Strange
- The Retreat of the State (1994)
- States and Markets (1988)
- Casino Capitalism ; (1986)


The discipline still rediscovering itself but, again, by definition, has a strong sense of the importance of institutions
Political
Science

Paul Hirst eg Revisiting Associative Democracy; ed Westall (2011).


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)
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)
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).                            

they pride themselves on their technocracy
Journalism


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
Laudato-Si – Pope Francis’ Encyclical (2015). Accessible in its entirety here



Questions of Business Life; Higginson (2002)
A more ecumenical bunch!
Psychology

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