Future of Capitalism

Astronuc

The Financial Times has started a new series - The Future of Capitalism - which should provoke a lively discussion.
http://www.ft.com/indepth/capitalism-future

There is also another independent discussion on "Rethinking the Wealth of Nations".

misgfool

This is all very interesting, but what is your view/vision/opinion?

Astronuc

I've been meaning to dig up Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations" and read it so that I know what he wrote, as opposed to what people these days claim he wrote or meant.

I'm waiting for the 'impressive' leadership in the US and various nations and/or markets.


There has definitely been a blow to some peoples' perceptions of 'free market' ideology, or perhaps it's just more awareness that a 'free market' simply does not exist. What has happened in US and global economies during the last 6 months was expected.

Economies of the western or industrialized nations may drift somewhat toward the left politically, but I waiting to see.

I've been making notes on "Rethinking the Wealth of Nations", but that's taking time. I plan to attend a lecture by MIT Professor and Economist Daron Acemoglu on the subject next month when he visits a local university.

JakeA

>>>or perhaps it's just more awareness that a 'free market' simply does not exist.<<<

I think this is the case. We don't have a free market system. We have a corporate welfare system, at least in the US. Is there any doubt considering what's taken place in the last few years in the US?

I don't think capitalism is dead. I think from the US perspective, we need to either become more like European social democracies or else go to a truly free market system. The special interest driven madness we have in the US is definitely not sustainable. Print money and give it to big banks and huge multi-national conglomerates? Yeah, that's working really well.

misgfool

Democracy doesn't work (too) well with capitalism. It's the parties with money who get to power and create the corporatism all over again, which eventually leads to crashes like this. If you want to break this cycle, something has to change. The link between private/public money and politicians has to be severed, so that they can make independent decisions. In Asia this works somehow, but the corruption is at atrocious levels.

Astronuc

It's the appalling lack of ethics/morality that has undermined the markets/economies, moreso than government intervention. Of course, corruption of the government and political process undermine democracy.

True, what we have in the West is better than a totalitarian state like the former Soviet Union and Warsaw pact nations, or Peoples' Republic of China under Mao, or Deng, but I think we can and must do better.

mheslep

By who?

mheslep

Where in Asia does 'this', no link between capitalism and democracy, happen?

JakeA

>>>The link between private/public money and politicians has to be severed, so that they can make independent decisions.<<<

I think there are ways of doing this. We need to start demanding that politicians are accessible to their constituents, not lobbyists. We need to start asking political candidates to take accessibility pledges where they agree to interact with public message board sites and attend public meetings in their districts at least once a month. We should absolutely demand this of elected officials. If they don't agree, vote them out. They should be meeting openly with the public, not privately in their offices with lobbyists.

>>>True, what we have in the West is better than a totalitarian state like the former Soviet Union and Warsaw pact nations, or Peoples' Republic of China under Mao, or Deng, but I think we can and must do better.<<<

I'm much more cynical about this. I've talked to people who lived in the former USSR, and they have way less animosity towards their government than people do right now in the US. Remember, people who post on the internet are not the entire country. Certain segments of the country face a veritable Gulag, with the US maintaining the highest incarceration rates for any nation in history.

We have material wealth, yes at least for the present. But that's not the only way of measuring the success of a nation. Don't get me started on this. I was arguing with a friend of mine how in certain ways Afghanistan under the Taliban was less oppressive than we have now in our techno driven police state. I don't want to live under Taliban rule, but I was using it as an example of certain types of freedoms and liberties that Americans overlook when deciding that we're absolutely free.

Evo

Hi Jake, please use the quote button at the bottom right of the post(s) you wish to quote, thanks.

Astronuc

By those paying attention.

mheslep

That's pretty slippery, which would be fine over on PWA, but not here. You made a point blank statement that what happened in US and global economies during the last 6 months was expected.

pentazoid

Future of capitalism? This country isn't practicing capitalism if corporations are receiving large subsidies from the federal government and if corporations are asking Congress to bail them out everytime business goes bad. What we are practicing is corporatism. I think we should start practicing capitalism more and let the businesses fail so they will have the incentive to reformulated their failed business model or developed a new business model instead of just asking for a handout. Look at Hong Kong for example: It is one of the wealthiest nations on the planet and it also happens to have one of the freeist capitalistic economies on the planet. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Hong_Kong

DaleSpam

I agree pentazoid. Failing businesses are not just failing because of some cosmic lottery ticket, they fail because they adopt bad business practices.

russ_watters

There is no such thing as a "corporate welfare system", that's just a buzzword that people like to throw around for political reasons. People describe any law that benefits a corporation as "corporate welfare", but usually, those laws are just about not taxing a corporation for certain things. Except for certain very specific industries, the government doesn't actually hand corporations any money. And most of those are to benefit individuals, such as with farm subsidies.

The various bailouts of the past year, for example - none of them are just handing corporations free money. Some are loans and some are purchases of company equity. What an odd thing to say! We should do one of two things, both complete oppopsites? IMO, the extremes have been shown not to work, so we should be looking for something in the middle. Money isn't given to banks either - it is sold to banks. The second part I already addressed.

pentazoid

Well I think we should have an economy where there aren't that many regulations and not many papers to fill out and it would be easy to open up a business . Our economy should be modeled after Hong Kong's economy. Obviously , an even mixed economy is the product of an economy with a 12.3 trillion dollar deficit like we have currently. What do you mean the federal government only hands out subsidies to farms? According to Cato Institute, in 2006 alone the federal government spent 92 billion dollars handing subsidies to corporations like IBM, Motorola, Xerox, General electric and many other corporations.
Taxpayers are forced to pay the bailout of a failing business and I think that is wrong even if taxpayers are paid back, it is still stealing.

misgfool

There is no democracy. So no link.