A Failure of Capitalism

A Failure of Capitalism PDF Author: Richard A. Posner
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674051294
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 372

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Book Description
The financial and economic crisis that began in 2008 is the most alarming of our lifetime because of the warp-speed at which it is occurring. How could it have happened, especially after all that we've learned from the Great Depression? Why wasn't it anticipated so that remedial steps could be taken to avoid or mitigate it? What can be done to reverse a slide into a full-blown depression? Why have the responses to date of the government and the economics profession been so lackluster? Richard Posner presents a concise and non-technical examination of this mother of all financial disasters and of the, as yet, stumbling efforts to cope with it. No previous acquaintance on the part of the reader with macroeconomics or the theory of finance is presupposed. This is a book for intelligent generalists that will interest specialists as well. Among the facts and causes Posner identifies are: excess savings flowing in from Asia and the reckless lowering of interest rates by the Federal Reserve Board; the relation between executive compensation, short-term profit goals, and risky lending; the housing bubble fuelled by low interest rates, aggressive mortgage marketing, and loose regulations; the low savings rate of American people; and the highly leveraged balance sheets of large financial institutions. Posner analyzes the two basic remedial approaches to the crisis, which correspond to the two theories of the cause of the Great Depression: the monetarist--that the Federal Reserve Board allowed the money supply to shrink, thus failing to prevent a disastrous deflation--and the Keynesian--that the depression was the product of a credit binge in the 1920's, a stock-market crash, and the ensuing downward spiral in economic activity. Posner concludes that the pendulum swung too far and that our financial markets need to be more heavily regulated. Read Richard Posner's blog, and his latest article in The Atlantic.

A Failure of Capitalism

A Failure of Capitalism PDF Author: Richard A. Posner
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674051294
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 372

Get Book Here

Book Description
The financial and economic crisis that began in 2008 is the most alarming of our lifetime because of the warp-speed at which it is occurring. How could it have happened, especially after all that we've learned from the Great Depression? Why wasn't it anticipated so that remedial steps could be taken to avoid or mitigate it? What can be done to reverse a slide into a full-blown depression? Why have the responses to date of the government and the economics profession been so lackluster? Richard Posner presents a concise and non-technical examination of this mother of all financial disasters and of the, as yet, stumbling efforts to cope with it. No previous acquaintance on the part of the reader with macroeconomics or the theory of finance is presupposed. This is a book for intelligent generalists that will interest specialists as well. Among the facts and causes Posner identifies are: excess savings flowing in from Asia and the reckless lowering of interest rates by the Federal Reserve Board; the relation between executive compensation, short-term profit goals, and risky lending; the housing bubble fuelled by low interest rates, aggressive mortgage marketing, and loose regulations; the low savings rate of American people; and the highly leveraged balance sheets of large financial institutions. Posner analyzes the two basic remedial approaches to the crisis, which correspond to the two theories of the cause of the Great Depression: the monetarist--that the Federal Reserve Board allowed the money supply to shrink, thus failing to prevent a disastrous deflation--and the Keynesian--that the depression was the product of a credit binge in the 1920's, a stock-market crash, and the ensuing downward spiral in economic activity. Posner concludes that the pendulum swung too far and that our financial markets need to be more heavily regulated. Read Richard Posner's blog, and his latest article in The Atlantic.

Capitalism

Capitalism PDF Author: Anwar Shaikh
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199390657
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 1019

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Book Description
Orthodox economics operates within a hypothesized world of perfect competition in which perfect consumers and firms act to bring about supposedly optimal outcomes. The discrepancies between this model and the reality it claims to address are then attributed to particular imperfections in reality itself. Most heterodox economists seize on this fact and insist that the world is characterized by imperfect competition. But this only ties them to the notion of perfect competition, which remains as their point of departure and base of comparison. There is no imperfection without perfection. In Capitalism, Anwar Shaikh takes a different approach. He demonstrates that most of the central propositions of economic analysis can be derived without any reference to standard devices such as hyperrationality, optimization, perfect competition, perfect information, representative agents, or so-called rational expectations. This perspective allows him to look afresh at virtually all the elements of economic analysis: the laws of demand and supply, the determination of wage and profit rates, technological change, relative prices, interest rates, bond and equity prices, exchange rates, terms and balance of trade, growth, unemployment, inflation, and long booms culminating in recurrent general crises. In every case, Shaikh's innovative theory is applied to modern empirical patterns and contrasted with neoclassical, Keynesian, and Post-Keynesian approaches to the same issues. Shaikh's object of analysis is the economics of capitalism, and he explores the subject in this expansive light. This is how the classical economists, as well as Keynes and Kalecki, approached the issue. Anyone interested in capitalism and economics in general can gain a wealth of knowledge from this ground-breaking text.

Business as Usual

Business as Usual PDF Author: Paul Mattick
Publisher: Reaktion Books
ISBN: 1861899823
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 129

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Book Description
The recent global economic downturn has affected nearly everyone in every corner of the globe. Its vast reach and lingering effects have made it difficult to pinpoint its exact cause, and while some economists point to the risks inherent in the modern financial system, others blame long-term imbalances in the world economy. Into this debate steps Paul Mattick, who, in Business as Usual, explains the global economic downturn in relation to the development of the world economy since World War II, but also as a fundamental example of the cycle of crisis and recovery that has characterized capitalism since the early nineteenth century. Mattick explains that today’s recession is not the result of a singular financial event but instead is a manifestation of long-term processes within the world economy. Mattick argues that the economic downturn can best be understood within the context of business cycles, which are unavoidable in a free-market economy. He uses this explanation as a springboard for exploring the nature of our capitalist society and its prospects for the future. Although Business as Usual engages with many economic theories, both mainstream and left-wing, Mattick’s accessible writing opens the subject up in order for non-specialists to understand the current economic climate not as the effect of a financial crisis, but as a manifestation of a truth about the social and economic system in which we live. As a result the book is ideal for anyone who wants to gain a succinct and jargon-free understanding of recent economic events, and, just as important, the overall dynamics of the capitalist system itself.

The 99 Percent Economy

The 99 Percent Economy PDF Author: Paul S. Adler
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0190931884
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
The social, economic, and political challenges we face have reached the point of crisis: economic irrationality contributes to workplace disempowerment, social disintegration, political alienation, and environmental degradation. Despair is not an option.The 99 Percent Economy provides a stirring alternative: Democratic Socialism. Paul S. Adler, a leading business and management expert, argues that to overcome these crises we need to assert control over economic affairs through social ownership and democratic management of companies as well as thenational economy. He draws on a surprising source of inspiration: the strategic management techniques of large corporations. He shows how leading companies have designed and implemented strategies that involve and empower workers, enhance engagement and motivation, increase innovation, and areenvironmentally and socially sustainable. The principles are scalable - because they work in large corporations with thousands of people, they can work at local, regional, and national scales.Standing in the way? Private ownership of society's productive resources, the foundation of capitalism's ruthless competition and focus on individual gain at the cost of society, the environment, and future generations. Adler shows how socialize public ownership will merge individual and socialgoals through the democratic involvement of all people in deciding what the future will be-both political and economic, both local and global. The needs of people and the planet will guide decisions about investment and production, rather than the pursuit of profit. Public planning forums at theenterprise, regional, and national levels will democratically decide goals, instead of being the prerogative of CEOs doing the bidding of investors.Democratic socialism is not a leap into the entirely unknown, Adler shows. Capitalist industry has built the foundations for democratic socialism.

The Political Economy of Global Capitalism and Crisis

The Political Economy of Global Capitalism and Crisis PDF Author: Bill Dunn
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317751280
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 203

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Book Description
The book provides a theoretically and historically informed analysis of the global economic crisis. It makes original contributions to theories of value, of crisis and of the state and uses these to develop a rich empirical study of the changing character of capitalism in the twentieth century and beyond. It defends, uses and develops Marxist theory while arguing particularly against jumping too quickly from abstract concepts to a concrete understanding of the crisis. Instead, it uses what Marx described in his notebooks as an ‘obvious’ analytical ordering to progress from a general analysis of economy and society to a discussion of recent economic transformations and the specifics of the crisis and its aftermath.Dunn argues that appropriately reconceived, a critical Marxism can incorporate and enrich rather than rejecting insights from other traditions. He disputes general characterisations of capitalism to the crisis and theories which see finance and the contemporary financial crises as largely detached from other aspects of the economy and society. Providing a thoroughly socialised and historically based account, this book will be vital reading for students and scholars of political economy, international political economy, Marxism, sociology, geography and development studies.

The Future of Capitalism

The Future of Capitalism PDF Author: Paul Collier
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0062748661
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 369

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Book Description
Bill Gates's Five Books for Summer Reading 2019 From world-renowned economist Paul Collier, a candid diagnosis of the failures of capitalism and a pragmatic and realistic vision for how we can repair it. Deep new rifts are tearing apart the fabric of the United States and other Western societies: thriving cities versus rural counties, the highly skilled elite versus the less educated, wealthy versus developing countries. As these divides deepen, we have lost the sense of ethical obligation to others that was crucial to the rise of post-war social democracy. So far these rifts have been answered only by the revivalist ideologies of populism and socialism, leading to the seismic upheavals of Trump, Brexit, and the return of the far-right in Germany. We have heard many critiques of capitalism but no one has laid out a realistic way to fix it, until now. In a passionate and polemical book, celebrated economist Paul Collier outlines brilliantly original and ethical ways of healing these rifts—economic, social and cultural—with the cool head of pragmatism, rather than the fervor of ideological revivalism. He reveals how he has personally lived across these three divides, moving from working-class Sheffield to hyper-competitive Oxford, and working between Britain and Africa, and acknowledges some of the failings of his profession. Drawing on his own solutions as well as ideas from some of the world’s most distinguished social scientists, he shows us how to save capitalism from itself—and free ourselves from the intellectual baggage of the twentieth century.

The Enigma of Capital

The Enigma of Capital PDF Author: David Harvey
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199836841
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
Covers the basic workings of capitalism, how it came to dominate the world, and why it resulted in a financial crisis in 2008, arguing that a radical overhaul of the economic system is the only way to create a sustainable future.

Climate Change and the Crisis of Capitalism

Climate Change and the Crisis of Capitalism PDF Author: Mark Pelling
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136507671
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 213

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Book Description
Are established economic, social and political practices capable of dealing with the combined crises of climate change and the global economic system? Will falling back on the wisdoms that contributed to the crisis help us to find ways forward or simply reconfigure risk in another guise? This volume argues that the combination of global environmental change and global economic restructuring require a re-thinking of the priorities, processes and underlying values that shape contemporary development aspirations and policy. This volume brings together leading scholars to address these questions from several disciplinary perspectives: environmental sociology, human geography, international development, systems thinking, political sciences, philosophy, economics and policy/management science. The book is divided into four sections that examine contemporary development discourses and practices. It bridges geographical and disciplinary divides and includes chapters on innovative governance that confront unsustainable economic and environmental relations in both developing and developed contexts. It emphasises the ways in which dominant development paths have necessarily forced a separation of individuals from nature, but also from society and even from ‘self’. These three levels of alienation each form a thread that runs through the book. There are different levels and opportunities for a transition towards resilience, raising questions surrounding identity, governance and ecological management. This places resilience at the heart of the contemporary crisis of capitalism, and speaks to the relationship between the increasingly global forms of economic development and the difficulties in framing solutions to the environmental problems that carbon-based development brings in its wake.. Existing social science can help in not only identifying the challenges but also potential pathways for making change locally and in wider political, economic and cultural systems, but it must do so by identifying transitions out of carbon dependency and the kind of political challenges they imply for reflexive individuals and alternative community approaches to human security and wellbeing. Climate Change and the Crisis of Capitalism contains contributions from leading scholars to produce a rich and cohesive set of arguments, from a range of theoretical and empirical viewpoints. It analyses the problem of resilience under existing circumstances, but also goes beyond this to seek ways in which resilience can provide a better pathway and template for a more sustainable future. This volume will be of interest to both undergraduate and postgraduate students studying Human Geography, Environmental Policy, and Politics.

J.P. Morgan & Co. and the Crisis of Capitalism

J.P. Morgan & Co. and the Crisis of Capitalism PDF Author: Martin Horn
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 110849837X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 407

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Book Description
Examines how J.P. Morgan, then the world's leading bank, responded to the greatest crisis in the history of financial capitalism.

Capitalism's Crises

Capitalism's Crises PDF Author: Vishwas Satgar
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781868149254
Category : Capitalism
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
The contributors to this volume draw on a non-dogmatic Marxist approach to explain the systemic and conjunctural dynamics of crisis inherent in global capitalism. Their analysis asks what is historically specific to capitalism's crises while avoiding catastrophic or defeatist claims. At the same time the volume situates left agency within actual patterns of resistance and class struggle to clarify the potential for transformative change. The cycle of resistance strengthened by the World Socal Forum and transnational activism is now punctuated by the experience of the Arab Spring, the agency of anti-systemic movements, left think tanks, the Occupy Wall Street Movement, labour unions, left parties in Europe such as Syrizia and Podemos and peoples' budgeting in Kerala, India. On the down side, we are witnessing the waning of the Workers Party in Brazil and serious challenges for South Africa's once powerful labour movement and still formative social justice activism. All these developments are assessed in this volume. This is the second volume in the Democratic Marxism series. It elaborates on crucial themes introduced in the first volume, Marxism in the 21st Century: Crisis, Critique and Struggle (edited by Michelle Williams and Vishwas Satgar).