I remember, 6 years ago, being immersed in a book called 'The Commanding Heights: The Battle for the World Economy' by Daniel Yergin and Joseph Stanislaw.
The book considers the shift of assets from central governments to private enterprise in Europe, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East, and analyzes how such changes as deregulation and privatization will affect economic power in the world. It predicted a new model (although it didn't say what that model way) to replace the bankrupt Communist model and the future discredited Capitalist model, or at least our current version of Capitalism.
A very convincing read at the time, I was sympathetic to its predictions. I am not sitting here amazed the predictions are now being realised I am only amazed that its predictions of the fate of the current Capitalism would be realised so quickly and so dramatically.
With the world dependent on banks to generate capital to fuel the capitalist production and consumption, which underpin the capitalist model and the economic mechanisms put in place to support the capital markets, came speculative market practices and the new pariahs of the marketplace, derivatives and short selling.
Marx wrote of the alienation of the human species from the objects of capitalism - materialism, wealth, greed... and philosophied that the human species would only realise its true progress through abandonment of those values.
Many risk hungry bankers, driven by materialism, wealth, greed or just plain arrogance, have made their millions and are now asking for money from you and me to pay for their mistakes.
It doesn't matter how you look at the mess, our current Capitalism didnt work for the ordinary men and women who work just to get by - and Communism didn't work either... what next? A friend of mine says Anarchy should be the next model of choice but I say that's what we've had that already in the markets for the past
two decades and that didn't work either... any ideas?
Tuesday 7 October 2008
Is Capitalism Broke?
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