liberal capitalism

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Capitalism, Alone: The Future of the System That Rules the World by Branko Milanovic

affirmative action, Asian financial crisis, assortative mating, barriers to entry, basic income, Berlin Wall, bilateral investment treaty, Black Swan, Branko Milanovic, capital controls, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, carried interest, colonial rule, corporate governance, creative destruction, crony capitalism, deindustrialization, dematerialisation, Deng Xiaoping, discovery of the americas, European colonialism, Fall of the Berlin Wall, financial deregulation, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, full employment, ghettoisation, gig economy, Gini coefficient, global supply chain, global value chain, Great Leap Forward, high net worth, household responsibility system, income inequality, income per capita, invention of the wheel, invisible hand, job automation, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, Joseph Schumpeter, labor-force participation, laissez-faire capitalism, land reform, liberal capitalism, low skilled workers, Lyft, means of production, new economy, offshore financial centre, Paul Samuelson, plutocrats, post-materialism, purchasing power parity, remote working, rent-seeking, ride hailing / ride sharing, Robert Solow, Silicon Valley, single-payer health, special economic zone, Tax Reform Act of 1986, The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thorstein Veblen, uber lyft, universal basic income, Vilfredo Pareto, Washington Consensus, women in the workforce, working-age population, Xiaogang Anhui farmers

Relative to liberal capitalism, political capitalism has a greater tendency to generate bad policies and bad social outcomes that cannot be reversed because those in power do not have an incentive to change course. It can also, quite easily, engender popular dissatisfaction due to its systemic corruption. Both of these “scourges” are less important in liberal capitalism. Political capitalism therefore needs to sell itself on the grounds of providing better societal management, higher rates of growth, and more efficient administration (including administration of justice). Unlike liberal capitalism, which can take a more relaxed attitude toward temporary problems, political capitalism, if it is to succeed, must be permanently on its toes.

The objective is to reduce the ability of the rich to control the political process and form a durable upper class. Or convergence of liberal and political capitalisms? An altogether different evolution of liberal capitalism would be a movement toward a plutocratic and ultimately political capitalism. This scenario is also possible—and the stronger the plutocratic features in today’s liberal capitalism become, the more likely such an evolution is. It would be an evolution to a large extent compatible with the interests of the new elite that is being formed under liberal capitalism. It would enable the elite to be much more autonomous from the rest of society. In fact, as shown in Chapter 2, the preservation of the elite requires its control of the political domain, what I called “tying up the knot on wealth and power.”

In fact, as shown in Chapter 2, the preservation of the elite requires its control of the political domain, what I called “tying up the knot on wealth and power.” The more economic and political power in liberal capitalism become united, the more liberal capitalism becomes plutocratic and comes to resemble political capitalism. In the latter, political control is the way to acquire economic benefits; in plutocratic, formerly liberal, capitalism, economic power is used to conquer politics. The end point of the two systems becomes the same: unification and persistence of the elites. Elites may also believe that they are able to run society more effectively by using the technocratic toolkit of political capitalism.


pages: 356 words: 106,161

The Glass Half-Empty: Debunking the Myth of Progress in the Twenty-First Century by Rodrigo Aguilera

"Friedman doctrine" OR "shareholder theory", "World Economic Forum" Davos, activist fund / activist shareholder / activist investor, Alan Greenspan, Anthropocene, availability heuristic, barriers to entry, basic income, benefit corporation, Berlin Wall, Bernie Madoff, Bernie Sanders, bitcoin, Boris Johnson, Branko Milanovic, Bretton Woods, Brexit referendum, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, capitalist realism, carbon footprint, Carmen Reinhart, centre right, clean water, cognitive bias, collapse of Lehman Brothers, Colonization of Mars, computer age, Corn Laws, corporate governance, corporate raider, creative destruction, cryptocurrency, cuban missile crisis, David Graeber, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, death from overwork, decarbonisation, deindustrialization, Deng Xiaoping, Doha Development Round, don't be evil, Donald Trump, Doomsday Clock, Dunning–Kruger effect, Elon Musk, European colonialism, fake news, Fall of the Berlin Wall, first-past-the-post, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, fundamental attribution error, gig economy, Gini coefficient, Glass-Steagall Act, Great Leap Forward, green new deal, Hans Rosling, housing crisis, income inequality, income per capita, index fund, intangible asset, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), invisible hand, Jean Tirole, Jeff Bezos, Jeremy Corbyn, Jevons paradox, job automation, job satisfaction, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, joint-stock company, Joseph Schumpeter, karōshi / gwarosa / guolaosi, Kenneth Rogoff, Kickstarter, lake wobegon effect, land value tax, Landlord’s Game, late capitalism, liberal capitalism, long peace, loss aversion, low interest rates, Mark Zuckerberg, market fundamentalism, means of production, meta-analysis, military-industrial complex, Mont Pelerin Society, moral hazard, moral panic, neoliberal agenda, Network effects, North Sea oil, Northern Rock, offshore financial centre, opioid epidemic / opioid crisis, Overton Window, Pareto efficiency, passive investing, Peter Thiel, plutocrats, principal–agent problem, profit motive, public intellectual, purchasing power parity, race to the bottom, rent-seeking, risk tolerance, road to serfdom, Robert Shiller, Robert Solow, savings glut, Scientific racism, secular stagnation, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley ideology, Slavoj Žižek, Social Justice Warrior, Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits, sovereign wealth fund, Stanislav Petrov, Steven Pinker, structural adjustment programs, surveillance capitalism, tail risk, tech bro, TED Talk, The Spirit Level, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, too big to fail, trade liberalization, transatlantic slave trade, trolley problem, unbiased observer, universal basic income, Vilfredo Pareto, Washington Consensus, Winter of Discontent, Y2K, young professional, zero-sum game

For starters, the existential economic debate of our day should no longer be how to reform capitalism but whether and even how we should replace it. Chapters Five and Six will have hopefully convinced the open-minded reader that liberal capitalism’s problems are not the result of deviant behavior by a few economic agents in an environment that would otherwise produce desired outcomes. Rather, it is the very structure of liberal capitalism that denies these outcomes. Readers will also have hopefully appreciated the attempt to show not so much liberal capitalism’s failures but its many contradictions that have led to those failures. That liberalism’s demand for freedom and democracy in the public sphere has not corresponded with a similar demand in the private sphere and in fact, has eroded it.

The second part of the book (Chapters Four–Six) focuses on the crisis of liberalism in the twenty-first century, as evidenced by the resurgence of far-right authoritarian populism as well as the delegitimization of liberal capitalism in the wake of the 2008–2009 global financial crisis. Chapter Four deals specifically with the threats to liberal democracy from far-right populist movements in the West and abroad. Unlike previous challenges to liberal democracy, this threat now manifests itself from within, due to discontentment over the growing oligarchization and lack of choice among liberal political elites. Chapter Five is a critique of liberal capitalism that focuses on markets and the corporation, the latter of which in many respects represents the antithesis of liberal and democratic values.

It is a shame that his later, more radical ideas have been left obscured by his earlier work but they should make for uneasy reading to those who assume that even Rawls’s seemingly benign, social democratic version of liberalism has any future in the twenty-first century. The recognition that liberal capitalism has not produced just outcomes therefore begs the question as to whether the processes that led to these outcomes were fair in the first place. If these processes are inseparable from liberal capitalism itself then we should be less concerned about “saving” capitalism but about preparing for what will succeed it. And making sure that any new orthodoxy is not one that appeases the anti-democratic urges of far-right demagogues, but rather, offers the ultimate remedy against them: economically prosperous and just societies that prioritize the needs of society over the greed of a few.


pages: 393 words: 91,257

The Coming of Neo-Feudalism: A Warning to the Global Middle Class by Joel Kotkin

"RICO laws" OR "Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations", "World Economic Forum" Davos, Admiral Zheng, Alvin Toffler, Andy Kessler, autonomous vehicles, basic income, Bernie Sanders, Big Tech, bread and circuses, Brexit referendum, call centre, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, carbon credits, carbon footprint, Cass Sunstein, clean water, company town, content marketing, Cornelius Vanderbilt, creative destruction, data science, deindustrialization, demographic transition, deplatforming, don't be evil, Donald Trump, driverless car, edge city, Elon Musk, European colonialism, Evgeny Morozov, financial independence, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, Future Shock, gentrification, gig economy, Gini coefficient, Google bus, Great Leap Forward, green new deal, guest worker program, Hans Rosling, Herbert Marcuse, housing crisis, income inequality, informal economy, Jane Jacobs, Jaron Lanier, Jeff Bezos, Jeremy Corbyn, job automation, job polarisation, job satisfaction, Joseph Schumpeter, land reform, liberal capitalism, life extension, low skilled workers, Lyft, Marc Benioff, Mark Zuckerberg, market fundamentalism, Martin Wolf, mass immigration, megacity, Michael Shellenberger, Nate Silver, new economy, New Urbanism, Northpointe / Correctional Offender Management Profiling for Alternative Sanctions, Occupy movement, Parag Khanna, Peter Thiel, plutocrats, post-industrial society, post-work, postindustrial economy, postnationalism / post nation state, precariat, profit motive, public intellectual, RAND corporation, Ray Kurzweil, rent control, Richard Florida, road to serfdom, Robert Gordon, Salesforce, Sam Altman, San Francisco homelessness, Satyajit Das, sharing economy, Sidewalk Labs, Silicon Valley, smart cities, Social Justice Warrior, Steve Jobs, Stewart Brand, superstar cities, technological determinism, Ted Nordhaus, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, The future is already here, The Future of Employment, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, Thomas L Friedman, too big to fail, trade route, Travis Kalanick, Uber and Lyft, uber lyft, universal basic income, unpaid internship, upwardly mobile, Virgin Galactic, We are the 99%, Wolfgang Streeck, women in the workforce, work culture , working-age population, Y Combinator

But during the twentieth century, especially after the Second World War, life became measurably better even for most of the working class, and the middle orders continued to grow in prosperity and numbers. Some government action came into play—for example, subsidizing homeownership, building new infrastructure, and permitting labor unions. Linking such policies to the engines of economic growth promoted a mass movement to affluence, the premier achievement of liberal capitalism. Although liberal capitalism has generated many social, political, and environmental challenges, it has freed hundreds of millions from the widespread servility, entrenched cruelty, and capricious regimes that have dominated most of history. The material conditions of life have improved dramatically, not only in Europe and America but throughout much of the world.

In Europe as well as Japan, and even in the once relatively fecund United States, fertility rates are nearing historic lows, even though young women state a wish to have more children.29 This demographic stagnation, another throwback to the Middle Ages, has various explanations, including women’s high levels of participation in the workforce and a desire for more leisure time. Other reasons are economic, including a shortage of affordable family housing. Liberal capitalism in its heyday built large stretches of affordable housing for the upwardly mobile middle and working classes, but the new feudalism is creating a world where fewer and fewer people can afford to own homes.30 A trend of diminishing expectations has weakened support for liberal capitalism even in solidly democratic countries, particularly among younger people.31 Far more than older generations, they are losing faith in democracy, not only in the United States but also in Sweden, Australia, Great Britain, the Netherlands, and New Zealand.

Likewise, some leading architects, including Britain’s Richard Rogers, seek a return to something like the medieval city with its public market squares, which they consider a more livable alternative to the modern suburban sprawl.30 Such backward-looking ideas have been offered as remedies for the weaknesses and failings of modern society. But they might also provide a rationale to discourage upward mobility for the many and to concentrate property in fewer hands. CHAPTER 3 The Rise and Decline of Liberal Capitalism Liberal capitalism weakened and dissolved the feudal order, allowing a robust middle class to rise. More efficient agricultural practices brought growth into the static economies that had mostly benefited rentiers and inheritors, gradually lifting small property owners such as the English yeomanry. Commercial growth empowered the innovative, aggressive, risk-taking entrepreneurs.


pages: 142 words: 45,733

Utopia or Bust: A Guide to the Present Crisis by Benjamin Kunkel

Alan Greenspan, Anthropocene, anti-communist, Bear Stearns, Bretton Woods, business cycle, capital controls, Carmen Reinhart, creative destruction, David Graeber, declining real wages, full employment, Hyman Minsky, income inequality, late capitalism, Lewis Mumford, liberal capitalism, liquidity trap, means of production, money: store of value / unit of account / medium of exchange, mortgage debt, Occupy movement, peak oil, price stability, profit motive, public intellectual, savings glut, Slavoj Žižek, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, transatlantic slave trade, vertical integration, War on Poverty, We are the 99%, women in the workforce, Works Progress Administration, zero-sum game

“I’m definitely thinking about it.” And that was how my article ended, which may or may not have influenced GQ’s editors to kill the piece and neglect to solicit future contributions from me. Most of my youth went by during the end of history, which has itself now come to an end. If no serious alternative to liberal capitalism can yet be made out, surely it’s also become difficult for anyone paying attention to view the present system as viable. The more substantial book I intend to be my next will sketch a different possible order. The aim is not unique; several important postcapitalist visions marked by what might be called a tough-minded utopianism (notably, in the US, After Capitalism by David Schweickart, and What Then Must We Do?

It was in the light of the feeling of a windless postmodern stasis that Jameson wanted to stick up for utopianism, especially in Archaeologies of the Future (2005), his appreciation of utopia as a subgenre of science fiction and an immortal human desire: “The very political weakness of utopia in previous generations—namely that it furnished nothing like an account of agency, nor did it have a coherent historical and practical-political picture of transition—now becomes a strength in a situation in which neither of these problems seems currently to offer candidates for a solution.” The dialectic, Adorno said, would renounce itself if it renounced the “idea of potentiality,” and it was just this dimension that Jameson meant to preserve amid the deadly consensus as to the unsurpassable virtues of liberal capitalism. In “The Valences of History,” the concluding essay of the new book, Jameson argues that when the fitful apprehension of history does enter the lives of individuals it is often through the feeling of belonging to a particular generation: “The experience of generationality is … a specific collective experience of the present: it marks the enlargement of my existential present into a collective and historical one.”

Since the 1970s—and especially since 1991—perhaps the greatest challenge for Marxism has been to keep alive the belief in the possibility of a superior future society. The belief was trampled almost to extinction by miscarried Third World revolutions, capitalist transformation in China, the capitulations of European socialist parties, Soviet collapse, and the ostensible triumph of liberal capitalism. The skepticism that replaced it was twofold. The would-be revolutionary left seemed to possess neither a serious strategy for the conquest of power nor a program to implement should power be won. In this context, the maximalism of the left at its high-water marks could only ebb into a kind of survivalist minimalism.


pages: 935 words: 197,338

The Power Law: Venture Capital and the Making of the New Future by Sebastian Mallaby

"Susan Fowler" uber, 23andMe, 90 percent rule, Adam Neumann (WeWork), adjacent possible, Airbnb, Apple II, barriers to entry, Ben Horowitz, Benchmark Capital, Big Tech, bike sharing, Black Lives Matter, Blitzscaling, Bob Noyce, book value, business process, charter city, Chuck Templeton: OpenTable:, Clayton Christensen, clean tech, cloud computing, cognitive bias, collapse of Lehman Brothers, Colonization of Mars, computer vision, coronavirus, corporate governance, COVID-19, cryptocurrency, deal flow, Didi Chuxing, digital map, discounted cash flows, disruptive innovation, Donald Trump, Douglas Engelbart, driverless car, Dutch auction, Dynabook, Elon Musk, Fairchild Semiconductor, fake news, family office, financial engineering, future of work, game design, George Gilder, Greyball, guns versus butter model, Hacker Ethic, Henry Singleton, hiring and firing, Hyperloop, income inequality, industrial cluster, intangible asset, iterative process, Jeff Bezos, John Markoff, junk bonds, Kickstarter, knowledge economy, lateral thinking, liberal capitalism, Louis Pasteur, low interest rates, Lyft, Marc Andreessen, Mark Zuckerberg, market bubble, Marshall McLuhan, Mary Meeker, Masayoshi Son, Max Levchin, Metcalfe’s law, Michael Milken, microdosing, military-industrial complex, Mitch Kapor, mortgage debt, move fast and break things, Network effects, oil shock, PalmPilot, pattern recognition, Paul Graham, paypal mafia, Peter Thiel, plant based meat, plutocrats, power law, pre–internet, price mechanism, price stability, proprietary trading, prudent man rule, quantitative easing, radical decentralization, Recombinant DNA, remote working, ride hailing / ride sharing, risk tolerance, risk/return, Robert Metcalfe, ROLM, rolodex, Ronald Coase, Salesforce, Sam Altman, Sand Hill Road, self-driving car, shareholder value, side project, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley startup, Skype, smart grid, SoftBank, software is eating the world, sovereign wealth fund, Startup school, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Steven Levy, super pumped, superconnector, survivorship bias, tech worker, Teledyne, the long tail, the new new thing, the strength of weak ties, TikTok, Travis Kalanick, two and twenty, Uber and Lyft, Uber for X, uber lyft, urban decay, UUNET, vertical integration, Vilfredo Pareto, Vision Fund, wealth creators, WeWork, William Shockley: the traitorous eight, Y Combinator, Zenefits

He had tried to stand up for the eight scientists, but had succeeded only partially. What he had done, however, was to demonstrate that liberation capital was about much more than keeping a team together in the place where its members happened to own houses. Liberation capital was about unlocking human talent. It was about sharpening incentives. It was about forging a new kind of applied science and a new commercial culture. Chapter Two Finance Without Finance If liberation capital launched the Traitorous Eight and Fairchild Semiconductor, the following decade brought two further advances that forged the modern venture-capital profession.

—Michael Moritz Spend as little as you can, because every dollar of the investor’s money you get will be taken out of your ass. —Paul Graham John, venture capital, that’s not a real job. It’s like being a real estate agent. —Intel’s Andy Grove, addressing John Doerr Contents Introduction Unreasonable People Chapter 1 Arthur Rock and Liberation Capital Chapter 2 Finance Without Finance Chapter 3 Sequoia, Kleiner Perkins, and Activist Capital Chapter 4 The Whispering of Apple Chapter 5 Cisco, 3Com, and the Valley Ascendant Chapter 6 Planners and Improvisers Chapter 7 Benchmark, SoftBank, and “Everyone Needs $100 Million” Chapter 8 Money for Google, Kind of for Nothing Chapter 9 Peter Thiel, Y Combinator, and the Valley’s Youth Revolt Chapter 10 To China, and Stir Chapter 11 Accel, Facebook, and the Decline of Kleiner Perkins Chapter 12 A Russian, a Tiger, and the Rise of Growth Equity Chapter 13 Sequoia’s Strength in Numbers Chapter 14 Unicorn Poker Conclusion Luck, Skill, and the Competition Among Nations Acknowledgments Appendix: Charts Notes Timeline Index Introduction Unreasonable People Not far from the headquarters of Silicon Valley’s venture-capital industry, which is clustered along Palo Alto’s Sand Hill Road, Patrick Brown strode out into his yard on the Stanford University campus.

To understand venture capitalists—to grasp how they think and why they matter—we must begin at the beginning. For, without this strange tribe of financiers, the orchards of the Santa Clara valley might never have been linked to silicon, and a staggering amount of wealth might never have been created. Chapter One Arthur Rock and Liberation Capital Success has many fathers, and Silicon Valley is no exception. Searching for the origins of this miraculously innovative region, some fasten on 1951, when Fred Terman, the engineering dean at Stanford, created the university’s famous research park. Others begin the story five years later, when William Shockley, the father of the semiconductor, abandoned the East Coast to launch a company on Terman’s campus, bringing silicon to the Valley for the first time.


pages: 424 words: 115,035

How Will Capitalism End? by Wolfgang Streeck

"there is no alternative" (TINA), accounting loophole / creative accounting, air traffic controllers' union, Airbnb, Alan Greenspan, basic income, behavioural economics, Ben Bernanke: helicopter money, billion-dollar mistake, Bretton Woods, business cycle, capital controls, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, Carmen Reinhart, central bank independence, centre right, Clayton Christensen, collective bargaining, conceptual framework, corporate governance, creative destruction, credit crunch, David Brooks, David Graeber, debt deflation, deglobalization, deindustrialization, disruptive innovation, en.wikipedia.org, eurozone crisis, failed state, financial deregulation, financial innovation, first-past-the-post, fixed income, full employment, Gini coefficient, global reserve currency, Google Glasses, haute cuisine, income inequality, information asymmetry, invisible hand, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, junk bonds, Kenneth Rogoff, labour market flexibility, labour mobility, late capitalism, liberal capitalism, low interest rates, market bubble, means of production, military-industrial complex, moral hazard, North Sea oil, offshore financial centre, open borders, pension reform, plutocrats, Plutonomy: Buying Luxury, Explaining Global Imbalances, post-industrial society, private sector deleveraging, profit maximization, profit motive, quantitative easing, reserve currency, rising living standards, Robert Gordon, savings glut, secular stagnation, shareholder value, sharing economy, sovereign wealth fund, tacit knowledge, technological determinism, The Future of Employment, The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thorstein Veblen, too big to fail, transaction costs, Uber for X, upwardly mobile, Vilfredo Pareto, winner-take-all economy, Wolfgang Streeck

The fact that capitalism has, until now, managed to outlive all predictions of its impending death, need not mean that it will forever be able to do so; there is no inductive proof here, and we cannot rule out the possibility that, next time, whatever cavalry capitalism may require for its rescue may fail to show up. A short recapitulation of the history of modern capitalism serves to illustrate this point.10 Liberal capitalism in the nineteenth century was confronted by a revolutionary labour movement that needed to be politically tamed by a complex combination of repression and co-optation, including democratic power sharing and social reform. In the early twentieth century, capitalism was commandeered to serve national interests in international wars, thereby converting it into a public utility under the planning regimes of a new war economy, as private property and the invisible hand of the market seemed insufficient for the provision of the collective capacities countries needed to prevail in international hostilities.

In the early twentieth century, capitalism was commandeered to serve national interests in international wars, thereby converting it into a public utility under the planning regimes of a new war economy, as private property and the invisible hand of the market seemed insufficient for the provision of the collective capacities countries needed to prevail in international hostilities. After the First World War, restoration of a liberal-capitalist economy failed to produce a viable social order and had to give way in large parts of the industrial world to either Communism or Fascism, while in the core countries of what was to become ‘the West’ liberal capitalism was gradually succeeded, in the aftermath of the Great Depression, by Keynesian, state-administered capitalism. Out of this grew the democratic welfare-state capitalism of the three post-war decades, with hindsight the only period in which economic growth and social and political stability, achieved through democracy, coexisted under capitalism, at least in the OECD world where capitalism came to be awarded the epithet, ‘advanced’.

The most important liaison between the two was, of course, Friedrich von Hayek, who for a few years occupied a chair at Freiburg, the academic home of the German ordoliberal school.9 Michel Foucault’s analysis of the rise of neoliberalism rightly focuses on Germany rather than Anglo-America.10 In anchoring ordoliberalism in the German state tradition and the politics of post-war and post-Nazi Germany, Foucault might have gone back further to Schmitt and Heller, where he would have found the basic figure of thought that informed and informs liberal ideas of the economic role of state authority under capitalism – the idea, in the words of the title of a 1980s book on Margaret Thatcher, of the need of a ‘free economy’ for a ‘strong state’.11 The unique qualification of ordoliberalism for building a bridge from the authoritarian liberalism of interwar Germany, as conceived by Schmitt and analysed by Heller, to the neoliberalism that began to dismantle the post-war political economy in the 1980s can be seen when comparing it to the economic common sense of the 1950s and 1960s. The Frankfurt School of ‘Critical Theory’, for example, was convinced that the capitalist economy had become inseparably merged into the state, which in the process had turned into the dominant institutional complex in contemporary society.12 After ‘the end of laissez-faire’, the place of liberal capitalism was supposed to have been taken by three competing economic systems, communism, fascism and New Deal democracy. All of them were seen as deeply politicized, democratically or not, with markets having given way to large, bureaucratically organized corporate monopolies closely affiliated with the bureaucracies of the state.


pages: 495 words: 138,188

The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time by Karl Polanyi

agricultural Revolution, Berlin Wall, borderless world, business cycle, central bank independence, Corn Laws, currency manipulation / currency intervention, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, Fall of the Berlin Wall, full employment, inflation targeting, joint-stock company, Kula ring, land reform, land tenure, liberal capitalism, manufacturing employment, new economy, Panopticon Jeremy Bentham, price mechanism, profit motive, Republic of Letters, road to serfdom, Ronald Reagan, scientific management, the market place, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, trade liberalization, trade route, trickle-down economics, Washington Consensus, Wolfgang Streeck, working poor, Works Progress Administration

By the accepted yardsticks of economic welfare—real wages and population figures—the Inferno of early capitalism, they maintained, never existed; the working classes, far from being exploited, were economically the gainers and to argue the need for social protection against a system that benefited all was obviously impossible. Critics of liberal capitalism were baffled. For some seventy years, scholars and Royal Commissions alike had denounced the horrors of the Industrial Revolution, and a galaxy of poets, thinkers, and writers had branded its cruelties. It was deemed an established fact that the masses were being sweated and starved by the callous exploiters of their helplessness; that enclosures had deprived the country folk of their homes and plots, and thrown them on the labor market created by the Poor Law Reform and that the authenticated tragedies of the small children who were sometimes worked to death in mines and factories offered ghastly proof of the destitution of the masses.

Twelve years later it was still in eclipse, with all signs against a real comeback. Without any tragic loss of welfare or of freedom the country, by suspending the gold standard, had taken a decisive step toward a transformation. During World War II this was accompanied by changes in the methods of liberal capitalism. However, these latter were not meant to be permanent and did not, therefore, remove the country from the danger zone. In all important European countries a similar mechanism was active and with very much the same effect. In Austria in 1923, in Belgium and France in 1926, in Germany in 1931, Labour Parties were made to quit office “to save the currency.”

The deflationist’s ideal came to be a “free economy under a strong government”; but while the phrase on government meant what it said, namely, emergency powers and suspension of public liberties, “free economy” meant in practice the opposite of what it said, namely, governmentally adjusted prices and wages (though the adjustment was made with the express purpose of restoring the freedom of the exchanges and free internal markets). Primacy of exchanges involved no less a sacrifice than that of free markets and free governments—the two pillars of liberal capitalism. Geneva thus represented a change in aim, but no change in method: while the inflationary governments condemned by Geneva subordinated the stability of the currency to stability of incomes and employment, the deflationary governments put in power by Geneva used no fewer interventions in order to subordinate the stability of incomes and employment to the stability of the currency.


pages: 90 words: 27,452

No More Work: Why Full Employment Is a Bad Idea by James Livingston

Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Bear Stearns, business cycle, collective bargaining, delayed gratification, do what you love, emotional labour, full employment, future of work, Herbert Marcuse, Internet of things, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, labor-force participation, late capitalism, Lewis Mumford, liberal capitalism, obamacare, post-work, Project for a New American Century, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Robert Gordon, Ronald Reagan, scientific management, Silicon Valley, surplus humans, TED Talk, The Future of Employment, Tyler Cowen, union organizing, warehouse automation, working poor

Instead, they’re in a stronger position to bargain for better wages and working conditions on their own account. Here is how Edsall, the New York Times columnist, summarized the progressive political morality of full employment in December 2013: The economics of survival have forced millions of men, women, and children to rely on “pity-charity liberal capitalism” [Edsall is here quoting Konczal]. The state has now become the resource of last resort, consigning just the people progressives would like to turn into a powerful force for reform to a condition of subjugation—living out their lives on government subsidies like Medicaid, the Earned Income Tax Credit, and now Obamacare.1 The only alternative to this vaguely, benignly fascistic version of liberalism, according to Edsall and Konczal, is a “bold” public policy commitment to full employment, presumably because more jobs mean less dependence on the state for income supplements, aka transfer payments, entitlements, and government subsidies.

If you didn’t know any better, you’d think a Tea Party enthusiast wrote this paragraph after finishing Atlas Shrugged, particularly in view of the reference to Obamacare as a government subsidy that will subjugate the poor, to be sure, but also create a permanent constituency for the Democrats, the party of “pity-charity liberal capitalism.” From this standpoint, there’s no middle ground between work, on the one hand, and dependence on the other—between having a job and being subjugated by the state (or the party). But let’s grant the advocates of full employment their most basic assumption, that a “bold public policy commitment” to job creation through public spending is only a temporary expedient that can be dismantled once a normal rate of growth returns, post recession.

The recession has been officially over for six years, as corporate profits and stock market prices have soared, but employment has never recovered—there’s been no net gain in jobs. Where do the jobs come from hereafter? If government spending is the permanent answer, the people employed as a result will be no less dependent on the state (or the party) than those now consigned to a “condition of subjugation” by the new ward heelers of “pity-charity liberal capitalism.” What follows? In these historical terms, the practical question can’t be how to put people back to work, but how to detach income from employment. II The contemporary advocates of workers’ cooperatives and trade unions are no less Protestant (or Hegelian, or Marxist) in their insistence that work is the essence of human nature—and so must be protected against the degradation of wage labor, on the one hand, or protected by contractual agreements (collective bargaining), on the other.


pages: 572 words: 134,335

The Making of an Atlantic Ruling Class by Kees Van der Pijl

anti-communist, banking crisis, Berlin Wall, book value, Boycotts of Israel, Bretton Woods, British Empire, business cycle, capital controls, collective bargaining, colonial rule, cuban missile crisis, deindustrialization, deskilling, diversified portfolio, European colonialism, floating exchange rates, full employment, imperial preference, Joseph Schumpeter, liberal capitalism, mass immigration, means of production, military-industrial complex, North Sea oil, plutocrats, profit maximization, RAND corporation, scientific management, strikebreaker, Suez crisis 1956, trade liberalization, trade route, union organizing, uranium enrichment, urban renewal, War on Poverty

Thus the Council on Foreign Relations commissioned research to determine the minimal size of the informal empire necessary for the survival of US private capitalism in terms of raw material supplies, domestic employment and export outlets. This informal empire, called the ‘Grand Area’, was accepted as the sphere-of-interest reserved for liberal capitalism in the event of necessary accommodation with German and Soviet power. The Grand Area was envisioned as including the Western Hemisphere, the British Isles, the Commonwealth and Empire, the Dutch East Indies, China and Japan.52 (As we shall see, this concept dovetailed neatly with the ‘Atlantic Union’ idea propagated in the same period by Clarence Streit on behalf of the British imperialists organized in the Round Table Society.)

‘These liberals will rapidly accept the leadership of the President if he undertakes a liberal diplomatic offensive, because they will find in that offensive an invaluable support for their internal domestic troubles’.18 Hitherto, the European liberal bourgeoisie had been able both to contain domestic working-class pressures and to maintain a degree of autonomy vis-à-vis the United States,19 but the Russian Revolution threw them into the arms of Wilson and the universalist policy he had been cultivating for several years. The Crusade for Democracy The revolution would not have been confined to Russia had it not been for the entry of the United States in the crucial final stage of the war and the tremendous power thus thrown into battle on the side of liberal capitalism by the internationalist fraction of the American bourgeoisie led by Wilson. By his handling of the crisis of European imperialism and the revolutionary challenge that arose from it, Wilson set a historical example of how to bring unity of purpose to the liberal capitalist world and isolate its opponents.

In present-day France, the fate of the Left government launched on the basis of an (emaciated) programme of nationalizations illustrates better than anything the fundamental dislocation of state monopolism by a new liberalism, and hence, represents a critical moment in the crisis of the theory of state-monopoly capitalism, its reformist assumptions, and the Communist parties clinging to its tenets. The crystallization of a state-monopoly tendency in the Atlantic bourgeoisie during the interwar years arose from the survival needs of large-scale industry confronted with the havoc wrought by an anarchic liberal capitalism, whose operating principles were no longer adequate to the development of the productive forces. After the Armistice in 1918, state intervention had been dismantled along with the apparatuses of the war economies as such. The defeat of the working class and the confinement of its revolution to Soviet Russia allowed the bourgeoisie to opt for a rehabilitation of pre-war patterns of class and economic relations, and to retreat from the danger-zone of state control.


pages: 386 words: 112,064

Rich White Men: What It Takes to Uproot the Old Boys' Club and Transform America by Garrett Neiman

"World Economic Forum" Davos, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Albert Einstein, basic income, Bernie Sanders, BIPOC, Black Lives Matter, Branko Milanovic, British Empire, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, carried interest, clean water, confounding variable, coronavirus, COVID-19, critical race theory, dark triade / dark tetrad, data science, Donald Trump, drone strike, effective altruism, Elon Musk, gender pay gap, George Floyd, glass ceiling, green new deal, high net worth, Home mortgage interest deduction, Howard Zinn, impact investing, imposter syndrome, impulse control, income inequality, Jeff Bezos, Jeffrey Epstein, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, knowledge worker, Larry Ellison, liberal capitalism, Lyft, Mahatma Gandhi, mandatory minimum, Mark Zuckerberg, mass incarceration, means of production, meritocracy, meta-analysis, Michael Milken, microaggression, mortgage tax deduction, move fast and break things, Nelson Mandela, new economy, obamacare, occupational segregation, offshore financial centre, Paul Buchheit, Peter Thiel, plutocrats, Ralph Waldo Emerson, randomized controlled trial, rent-seeking, Ronald Reagan, Rutger Bregman, Sheryl Sandberg, Silicon Valley, Snapchat, sovereign wealth fund, Steve Jobs, subprime mortgage crisis, TED Talk, The Bell Curve by Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray, Travis Kalanick, trickle-down economics, uber lyft, universal basic income, Upton Sinclair, War on Poverty, white flight, William MacAskill, winner-take-all economy, women in the workforce, work culture , working poor

Groundswell Fund. https://groundswellfund.org/. Institute for Policy Studies. https://ips-dc.org/. Just Economy Institute. justeconomyinstitute.org/. JustFund. https://justfund.us/. Justice Funders. https://justicefunders.org/. Kataly Foundation. https://www.katalyfoundation.org/. Liberated Capital. https://decolonizingwealth.com/liberated-capital/. Liberation Ventures. https://www.liberationventures.org/. ManKind Project. https://mankindproject.org/. Mayors for a Guaranteed Income. https://www.mayorsforagi.org/. Media 2070. https://mediareparations.org/. Movement for Black Lives. https://m4bl.org. Movement Voter Project. https://movement.vote/.

A growing number of organizations are offering support and community for donors who aspire to have a different type of relationship with intergenerational wealth. In earlier chapters, I mentioned my involvements with Liberation Ventures and Resource Generation. Other efforts that inspire me include Emergent Fund, Grantmakers for Girls of Color, Groundswell Fund, Justice Funders, Liberated Capital, NDN Collective, Patriotic Millionaires, Solidaire Network, Third Wave Fund, and many others. Within institutions, some organizations are launching “reverse mentoring” programs, which call for junior employees to mentor executive team members on various topics of strategic and cultural relevance.

In 2019, Georgetown University announced it would raise $400,000 a year to benefit the descendants of the 272 enslaved people who were sold to raise money to help keep the college afloat nearly two centuries ago.33 In 2020, the Los Angeles Times denounced its own racist reporting in a sensationalized 1981 series that demonized Black men living in high-poverty communities, and apologized for harm the project caused.34 In 2022, Harvard University pledged $100 million to make amends for its historical reliance on slavery.35 Within philanthropy, several efforts—including Justice Funders, Kataly Foundation, Liberated Capital, Liberation Ventures, Omidyar Network, NDN Collective, New Media Ventures, Resource Generation, and Solidaire—have embedded aspects of a reparative frame into their grant making. Over time, I hope more institutions elevate repair as a core priority, as part of a wider commitment to equity. Elected leaders are also working to advance societal repair.


pages: 210 words: 65,833

This Is Not Normal: The Collapse of Liberal Britain by William Davies

Airbnb, basic income, Bernie Sanders, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, Black Lives Matter, Boris Johnson, Cambridge Analytica, central bank independence, centre right, Chelsea Manning, coronavirus, corporate governance, COVID-19, credit crunch, data science, deindustrialization, disinformation, Dominic Cummings, Donald Trump, double entry bookkeeping, Edward Snowden, fake news, family office, Filter Bubble, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, ghettoisation, gig economy, global pandemic, global village, illegal immigration, Internet of things, Jeremy Corbyn, late capitalism, Leo Hollis, liberal capitalism, loadsamoney, London Interbank Offered Rate, mass immigration, moral hazard, Neil Kinnock, Northern Rock, old-boy network, post-truth, postnationalism / post nation state, precariat, prediction markets, quantitative easing, recommendation engine, Robert Mercer, Ronald Reagan, sentiment analysis, sharing economy, Silicon Valley, Slavoj Žižek, statistical model, Steve Bannon, Steven Pinker, surveillance capitalism, technoutopianism, The Chicago School, Thorstein Veblen, transaction costs, universal basic income, W. E. B. Du Bois, web of trust, WikiLeaks, Yochai Benkler

Postmodernity, by contrast, involved a collapse of historical progress into a perpetual present, a constant rehashing and recombining of existing styles and ideas, which put an end to any hope (or fear) that the future might be radically different. The economic corollary of this was the entrenching of a neoliberal order in which liberal capitalism was treated as the final stage of human history: the only plausible plans were business plans, the only source of innovation was entrepreneurship. This vision still held on to some notion of progress, but it was now tightly bound to improvements in economic efficiency and consumer experiences.

Amid the stress of the pandemic, there were glimpses of alternative futures – less beholden to tradition, work, consumption and long-distance travel. One survey showed that the vast majority of people did not want to return to ‘normal’ patterns of life, once the crisis had finally passed.2 The key pillars of liberal capitalism were questionable and questioned like never before, not just in terms of their past (which could now be publicly explored in relation to colonialism and slavery), but in terms of their future, which seemed less certain than they had for decades. The breaking of normality also represents liberation.

The left has highlighted the fact that the bourgeois public sphere only admits property-owners as equals; and yet it has also exploited the freedoms of the public sphere to advance its arguments and interests, and is hostile to political efforts to constrain such liberties. Critical theorists in the Frankfurt School tradition have often sought to walk this dialectical path, of harnessing the methodologies and intellectual freedoms of bourgeois society to challenge, unmask and weaken the power of liberal capitalism. In the context of neoliberalism, and especially in the wake of September 11, the left has found itself defending the norms and institutions of liberalism, often with little acknowledgement from the liberal establishment itself. As neoliberal reforms have sought to elevate financial mechanisms and metrics above legal ones, the defence of rights and due process has frequently become an anti-capitalist one.


pages: 236 words: 77,546

The Cult of Smart: How Our Broken Education System Perpetuates Social Injustice by Fredrik Deboer

accounting loophole / creative accounting, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, anti-communist, assortative mating, basic income, Bernie Sanders, collective bargaining, deindustrialization, desegregation, Donald Trump, fiat currency, Flynn Effect, full employment, gentrification, Great Leap Forward, helicopter parent, income inequality, knowledge economy, labor-force participation, liberal capitalism, longitudinal study, meta-analysis, new economy, New Urbanism, obamacare, Own Your Own Home, phenotype, positional goods, profit motive, RAND corporation, randomized controlled trial, Richard Florida, school choice, Scientific racism, selection bias, Silicon Valley, single-payer health, Steven Pinker, survivorship bias, trade route, twin studies, universal basic income, upwardly mobile, winner-take-all economy, young professional, zero-sum game

But if we are willing to think clearly and follow the facts where they lead, a better world is possible—most of all for those at the bottom of the performance spectrum. SEVEN Before the Veil of Ignorance To build a vision for a better future, it’s necessary to unpack a lot of our current philosophical baggage. Because beneath the placid surface of liberal capitalism lie inherent contradictions that threaten to break the entire thing apart. The liberal ideal of equality of opportunity has become a commonplace, an assumed part of contemporary intellectual and political life, albeit one always subject to basic questions about what exactly society owes to every citizen in terms of their ability to secure the good life.

Nor does equality of human rules lead to genuine equality of opportunity in a world where different individuals have different kinds of potential. Once we recognize that, all manner of better systems become possible. Equality and Mobility Complicating the discussion of equality of opportunity, many people think of social mobility as the real metric of a healthy and free economy, within the constraints of liberal capitalism. What we want to see, according to many progressives, is a world where people are free to move up (or, less commonly noted, down) in society’s hierarchies, with the poor child rising out of poverty into success, a common American trope. As with equality of opportunity, I find the yen for mobility stems from deep confusion about what precisely we want our social systems to accomplish.

Why should we celebrate the downward mobility into hardship and poverty for some that is necessary for upward mobility into middle-class security for others? As a leftist, I understand the appeal of tearing down those at the top, on an emotional and symbolic level. But if we’re simply replacing them with a new set of winners lording it over the rest of us, we’re running in place. According to the logic of liberal capitalism, downward mobility is an absolutely necessary aspect of broader equality of opportunity. Richard Reeves lays out the case with admirable frankness: Dear upper-middle class reader … If you really want a fairer and more socially mobile society, there is no avoiding an uncomfortable, attendant fact.


pages: 353 words: 81,436

Buying Time: The Delayed Crisis of Democratic Capitalism by Wolfgang Streeck

"there is no alternative" (TINA), "World Economic Forum" Davos, activist fund / activist shareholder / activist investor, air traffic controllers' union, Alan Greenspan, banking crisis, basic income, Bretton Woods, business cycle, capital controls, Carmen Reinhart, central bank independence, collective bargaining, corporate governance, creative destruction, currency risk, David Graeber, deindustrialization, Deng Xiaoping, Eugene Fama: efficient market hypothesis, financial deregulation, financial engineering, financial repression, fixed income, full employment, Garrett Hardin, Gini coefficient, Growth in a Time of Debt, income inequality, Joseph Schumpeter, Kenneth Rogoff, Kickstarter, knowledge economy, labour market flexibility, labour mobility, late capitalism, liberal capitalism, low interest rates, means of production, moral hazard, Myron Scholes, Occupy movement, open borders, open economy, Plutonomy: Buying Luxury, Explaining Global Imbalances, profit maximization, risk tolerance, shareholder value, too big to fail, Tragedy of the Commons, union organizing, winner-take-all economy, Wolfgang Streeck

This is not contradicted by the fact that Adorno introduced ‘late capitalism’ into social theory as a ‘Frankfurt School’ concept, using it in the title he chose for the German Sociological Congress in 1968 and in his opening report ‘Late Capitalism or Industrial Society?’ (T. Adorno, ‘Late Capitalism or Industrial Society?’, in Volker Merja et al., Modern German Sociology, New York: Columbia University Press, 1987). Adorno distinguished ‘late capitalism’ from what he called ‘liberal capitalism’, which, following Pollock, he regarded as a historically prior form of capitalism now superseded by state intervention and organization. Late capitalism was thus essentially identical with what others had been calling ‘organized capitalism’. The possibility of a looming crisis of organized (late) capitalism, or of a return to its liberal past in the shape of a neoliberal future, does not appear anywhere in Adorno’s writings. 23 D.

Canedo, The Rise of the Deregulation Movement in Modern America, 1957–1980, New York: Columbia University, 2008. 50 In different perspectives and from different normative positions, Weber, Schumpeter and Keynes all predicted a peaceful, or not so peaceful, end to free-market capitalism in the second half of the twentieth century. It is also worth recalling that, in The Great Transformation (1944), Karl Polanyi took it for granted that liberal capitalism was history and would not return. ‘Within the nations we are witnessing a development under which the economic system ceases to lay down the law to society and the primacy of society over that system is ensured’ (K. Polanyi, The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time, Boston: Beacon Press, p. 251). 51 For a selection from the abundant literature on the subject, see H.

See precarious labour labour productivity. See productivity labour surplus ‘late capitalism’, 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4n22 law, 2.1, 3.1, 3.2n49, 3.3, 3.4; medieval, 2.2n27. See also courts ‘legitimation crisis’, 1.1, 1.2, 1.3 passim, 1.4, 1.5n61, 1.6, 1.7 passim, 2.1, 4.1, 4.2 lenders as constituency. See Marktvolk ‘liberal capitalism’, 1.1, 1.2n50 loans, private. See private debt loans, public. See public debt loans, ‘subprime’ mortgage. See ‘subprime mortgages’ Lombardo, Raffaele London, England, 1.1, 2.1n56 Maastricht Treaty, 3.1, 3.2 Maier, Charles S. market internationalization. See globalization market justice, 2.1 passim, 3.1, 4.1 passim; EU, 3.2, 4.2 markets, capital.


pages: 501 words: 134,867

A Line in the Tar Sands: Struggles for Environmental Justice by Tony Weis, Joshua Kahn Russell

addicted to oil, Bakken shale, bilateral investment treaty, call centre, carbon footprint, clean water, colonial exploitation, conceptual framework, corporate social responsibility, decarbonisation, Deep Water Horizon, en.wikipedia.org, energy security, energy transition, Exxon Valdez, failed state, gentrification, global village, green new deal, guest worker program, happiness index / gross national happiness, high-speed rail, hydraulic fracturing, immigration reform, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), investor state dispute settlement, invisible hand, Jevons paradox, liberal capitalism, LNG terminal, market fundamentalism, means of production, megaproject, military-industrial complex, Naomi Klein, new economy, Occupy movement, off-the-grid, oil shale / tar sands, peak oil, profit maximization, public intellectual, race to the bottom, smart grid, special economic zone, WikiLeaks, working poor

One side of the limitations of the dominant ENGO approach is the failure of mainstream environmentalism to challenge neo-liberal capitalism. Neo-liberalism is a type of capitalism with extensive government support, in the form of deregulation, privatization, and reducing government intervention, while expanding the role of markets in economic life. The logic of neo-liberalism holds that the free market will respond to the environmental and social needs of the public by creating new technologies or services. Both Rodriguez and McMichael contend that what they describe as the “NGO industrial complex” reinforces neo-liberal capitalism, as ENGOs fill a market role of assuaging public guilt for social or environmental destruction without challenging the root issue of capitalism.9 Simply put, many ENGOs profit from selling stories of environmental destruction and token reforms to the public.

Its Achilles heel, however, lies in claims to be engaging in a rational conversation, despite lacking evidence, in order to defend the unsustainable proposition of endless growth. Reactionary Environmentalism in the Tar Sands Reactionary environmentalism is, in essence, an extreme right-wing philosophy tied to the political economic ideology of neo-liberal capitalism. It goes under various guises, such as “ecological modernization,” “market ecology,” and “green neo-liberalism,” with the fundamental premise being a “business-as-usual” approach to environmental problems that largely places the onus on technological innovation and corporate self-management.4 In this messianic vision of enlightened corporations operating benignly within ever-freer markets, the best thing for the environment—it is claimed—is to turn everything into a commodity, from the water we drink to the air we breathe, as this supposedly yields uncoerced behavioural reform and promotes investment in innovation and efficiency.

The trope of “ethical oil” rests in large measure on Alberta’s place in an affluent, Western, democratic, capitalist nation, which ensures that transnational corporations (including many of the same players who have been implicated in crimes elsewhere) are welcome to purchase their extraction “rights” and can be entrusted to be responsible, law-abiding corporate citizens. Former premier Ralph Klein helped convert Alberta into a “capitalist paradise,”18 and this political and regulatory environment of neo-liberal capitalism is the crux of Levant’s claim that “the oil sands are cleaner than any other competing jurisdiction.”19 After all, the companies are just doing what they are allowed to do by law! Levant attempts to build his case further through a hodgepodge of relativist claims, and some patently absurd ones.


pages: 298 words: 89,287

Who Are We—And Should It Matter in the 21st Century? by Gary Younge

affirmative action, Berlin Wall, British Empire, call centre, David Brooks, equal pay for equal work, F. W. de Klerk, failed state, feminist movement, financial independence, gentrification, glass ceiling, global village, illegal immigration, inflation targeting, invisible hand, It's morning again in America, liberal capitalism, low interest rates, mass immigration, Mikhail Gorbachev, moral panic, phenotype, Ronald Reagan, Rosa Parks, Skype, Steven Levy, upwardly mobile, W. E. B. Du Bois, Wolfgang Streeck, World Values Survey

People used to say that the Fifth Republic became Americanized while remaining anti-American; today we are Americanizing ourselves while at the same time inventing an exaggerated cultural identity in order to distinguish ourselves from others.” But the real issue is not America (a place) but neo-liberal capitalism (a system). The nature of the globalized threat and the localized scapegoat is a tale of democracy eroded, sovereignty diminished, insecurity inflicted and alienation enhanced. The fact that all this should be so clearly illustrated so close to a supranational center such as Brussels is no coincidence.

The simultaneous arrival of “others” who are unknown with the disappearance of much that is known is not difficult either to exploit or manipulate. And in the absence of a substantive response of their own, mainstream parties generally condemn the messengers and coopt the message. Even as almost every European nation has liberated capital to roam freely around the globe, they have severely restricted immigration from outside the EU. Like arsenic in the water supply of their political cultures, the bigotry of these nationalist parties has infected most areas of domestic policy-making, from policing to the warped efforts at integration recounted earlier.

Minnow, Martha Mitchell, Mary Moore, Roy Morales, Evo Morgan, Robin Morris, Benny Muhammad, Fard Mulchinock, William Mulgan, Geoff Multiculturalism Multiracial Americans of Southern California Murdoch, Rupert Myant, Chris Myard, Jacques NAACP Nagourney, Adam Narmada Bachao Andolan National identity globalization and the nation state See also Racial identity Nationalism Native Americans Neo-liberalism neo-liberal capitalism neo-liberal globalization (see Globalization) Netanyahu, Benjamin Nixon, Richard Nobles, Jennifer Norris, Pippa Norris, Steven North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) Ntshoko, Hombi Obama, Barack race, gender and– racial authenticity of Obama, Michelle O’Connell, Michael O’Connor, Mary O’Connor, Orla O’Connor, Sandra Day The Office (US version) O’Gara, Anthony O’Grady, Geraldine– O’Keeffe, Dennis Olmert, Ehud O’Loingsigh, Niall One Parent Exchange Network Orgreave O’Sullivan, Alice “Other” (the) O’Toole, Fintan Palestinians Paris Parks, Rosa Patriotism Payne, Charles Pelé (Edison Arantes do Nascimento) Penn, Mark Peterson, Julie Petri, Tom Pofalla, Ronald Political correctness Political identity democracy and the “enemy within” identity politics race, gender and the Left and the personal and the political the Right and Powell, Colin Powell, Enoch Project Race Quebec Race Relations Act (UK) Racial authenticity See also Authenticity; National identity Racial “diversity” Racial identity colored identity gender and genetics and mixed race Racism apartheid (see Apartheid) the judiciary and New Haven, Connecticut sexism and Voting Rights Act (US, 1965) See also Anti-racism; Discrimination; Holocaust Ransom, Janice Rather, Dan Reagan, Ronald Redding, Savana Reid, Harry Rell, Jodi Renan, Ernest Republican Party (US) Resnik, Judith Reuband, Karl-Heinz Rhodes, Ted Ricci, Frank Rice, Condoleezza, Richardson, Bill Robinson, Jackie Robinson, Mary Rock, Chris Rodney, Walter Roma Roman Catholic Church Romney, Mitt Rose, Flemming Rose of Tralee competition Royal Ulster Constabulary Ruane, Medb Rushdie, Salman Rustin, Bayard Rwanda Rwililiza, Innocent San Juan San people Sanjek, Roger Sapir, André Saracino, Daniel Sarkozy, Nicolas Savu, Maria Scalia, Antonin Schleifer, Rebecca Schmitter, Philippe Schulweis, Harold Scoica, Obama Sorin Ilie Seaga, Edward Secada, Jon Segregation apartheid (see Apartheid) Self-definition Semenya, Caster Sen, Amartya Senna, Danzy September, Reggie Serbians Sessions, Jeff Sexism Seymour, Amy Shatz, Adam Sheinin, Yosef Sherman, Rabbi Avraham Short, Clare Shuster, David Sifford, Charlie Smith, Iain Duncan Smith, Tommy Sobers, Gary Soccer.


pages: 280 words: 74,559

Fully Automated Luxury Communism by Aaron Bastani

"Peter Beck" AND "Rocket Lab", Alan Greenspan, Anthropocene, autonomous vehicles, banking crisis, basic income, Berlin Wall, Bernie Sanders, Boston Dynamics, Bretton Woods, Brexit referendum, capital controls, capitalist realism, cashless society, central bank independence, collapse of Lehman Brothers, computer age, computer vision, CRISPR, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, decarbonisation, deep learning, dematerialisation, DIY culture, Donald Trump, double helix, driverless car, electricity market, Elon Musk, energy transition, Erik Brynjolfsson, fake news, financial independence, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, future of work, Future Shock, G4S, general purpose technology, Geoffrey Hinton, Gregor Mendel, housing crisis, income inequality, industrial robot, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Internet of things, Isaac Newton, James Watt: steam engine, Jeff Bezos, Jeremy Corbyn, Jevons paradox, job automation, John Markoff, John Maynard Keynes: technological unemployment, Joseph Schumpeter, Kevin Kelly, Kuiper Belt, land reform, Leo Hollis, liberal capitalism, low earth orbit, low interest rates, low skilled workers, M-Pesa, market fundamentalism, means of production, mobile money, more computing power than Apollo, new economy, off grid, pattern recognition, Peter H. Diamandis: Planetary Resources, post scarcity, post-work, price mechanism, price stability, private spaceflight, Productivity paradox, profit motive, race to the bottom, rewilding, RFID, rising living standards, Robert Solow, scientific management, Second Machine Age, self-driving car, sensor fusion, shareholder value, Silicon Valley, Simon Kuznets, Slavoj Žižek, SoftBank, stem cell, Stewart Brand, synthetic biology, technological determinism, technoutopianism, the built environment, the scientific method, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus, transatlantic slave trade, Travis Kalanick, universal basic income, V2 rocket, Watson beat the top human players on Jeopardy!, We are as Gods, Whole Earth Catalog, working-age population

In this flat, crowded and connected world everything would be subject to ever-accelerating change. Everything, that is, except the rules of the game. Indeed, many no longer even considered them to be rules but rather reality itself, with alternative political systems viewed as either futile or incomprehensible. Here, liberal capitalism went from a contingent project to a reality principle. Welcome to the world of capitalist realism – where the map is the territory and nothing really matters. Capitalist Realism Capitalist realism is best summed up with a single sentence: ‘It is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.’* For Mark Fisher – the British theorist who coined the term – that catchphrase captures the very essence of our era, with capitalism not only viewed as the exclusively ‘viable political and economic system’ but also one where it is ‘impossible even to imagine a coherent alternative’.

Thus even standard-bearers for the establishment might concede that living standards are getting worse, or that society is going backwards by many measures, but at least, they will respond, we aren’t in 1990s Rwanda and aren’t medieval serfs. Such a position signifies the death of the very idea of the future, with enlightenment and progress – formerly ideological pillars of liberal capitalism – exchanged for a vision of the good society where decline is marginally slower than it might otherwise be. Others, who may agree about the scale and even urgent necessity of change, will contend that such a radical path should only be pursued by a narrow technocratic elite. Such an impulse is understandable if not excusable; or the suspicion that democracy unleashes ‘the mob’ is as old as the idea itself.


pages: 82 words: 24,150

The Corona Crash: How the Pandemic Will Change Capitalism by Grace Blakeley

Anthropocene, asset-backed security, basic income, Big Tech, bond market vigilante , Bretton Woods, business cycle, capital controls, carbon tax, central bank independence, coronavirus, corporate governance, COVID-19, creative destruction, credit crunch, crony capitalism, debt deflation, decarbonisation, degrowth, deindustrialization, don't be evil, financial deregulation, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, full employment, gig economy, global pandemic, global value chain, green new deal, Greenspan put, income inequality, informal economy, inverted yield curve, invisible hand, Jeff Bezos, liberal capitalism, light touch regulation, lockdown, low interest rates, Martin Wolf, Modern Monetary Theory, moral hazard, move fast and break things, Network effects, North Sea oil, Northern Rock, offshore financial centre, pensions crisis, Philip Mirowski, post-war consensus, price mechanism, quantitative easing, regulatory arbitrage, rent control, reshoring, Rishi Sunak, savings glut, secular stagnation, shareholder value, social distancing, structural adjustment programs, too big to fail, universal basic income, unorthodox policies, Washington Consensus, yield curve

Proponents of both perspectives rely upon the liberal notion that the political and the economic are somehow separate – that free markets exist as a self-regulating sphere, subject to greater or lesser levels of intervention from a central state.23 The rigid ideological separation between politics and economics – states and markets – helps to legitimise liberal capitalism. State activity is framed as ‘intervention’ in a self-contained, self-regulating market system. More often than not, such interventions – it is argued – throw the system off course. A state that provides a strong social safety net threatens to erode the desperate reserve army of labour that capital relies upon to generate profits and discipline workers, so those on the right argue that unions and minimum wage laws disrupt the operation of the free market.


pages: 372 words: 92,477

The Fourth Revolution: The Global Race to Reinvent the State by John Micklethwait, Adrian Wooldridge

"World Economic Forum" Davos, Admiral Zheng, affirmative action, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Asian financial crisis, assortative mating, banking crisis, barriers to entry, battle of ideas, Berlin Wall, Bernie Madoff, bike sharing, Boris Johnson, Bretton Woods, British Empire, cashless society, central bank independence, Chelsea Manning, circulation of elites, classic study, Clayton Christensen, Corn Laws, corporate governance, credit crunch, crony capitalism, Deng Xiaoping, Detroit bankruptcy, disintermediation, Disneyland with the Death Penalty, driverless car, Edward Snowden, Etonian, failed state, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, full employment, Gunnar Myrdal, income inequality, James Carville said: "I would like to be reincarnated as the bond market. You can intimidate everybody.", junk bonds, Khan Academy, Kickstarter, knowledge economy, Kodak vs Instagram, labor-force participation, laissez-faire capitalism, land reform, Les Trente Glorieuses, liberal capitalism, Martin Wolf, means of production, Michael Milken, minimum wage unemployment, mittelstand, mobile money, Mont Pelerin Society, Nelson Mandela, night-watchman state, Norman Macrae, obamacare, oil shale / tar sands, old age dependency ratio, open economy, Parag Khanna, Peace of Westphalia, pension reform, pensions crisis, personalized medicine, Peter Thiel, plutocrats, popular capitalism, profit maximization, public intellectual, rent control, rent-seeking, ride hailing / ride sharing, road to serfdom, Ronald Coase, Ronald Reagan, school choice, school vouchers, Shenzhen special economic zone , Silicon Valley, Skype, special economic zone, TED Talk, the long tail, three-martini lunch, too big to fail, total factor productivity, vertical integration, War on Poverty, Washington Consensus, Winter of Discontent, working-age population, zero-sum game

South Korea loosened up. Today the picture looks very different. So far the twenty-first century has been a rotten one for the Western model. First America’s war on terror, particularly its invasion of Iraq, did immense damage to democracy’s image, then the credit crunch savaged the idea that liberal capitalism was the only answer, and finally the euro crisis and the shutdown of Washington in 2013 confirmed Asian suspicions that Western government is dysfunctional. To a growing number of people Lee’s ideas provided precisely what Fukuyama had thought was ­impossible—“a viable systematic alternative.”18 Western intellectuals engaged in an agonized reconsideration of both democracy and capitalism.

Western countries almost invariably introduced the mass franchise only after they had already introduced sophisticated political regimes with powerful legal systems and entrenched constitutional rights—and they did so in cultures that cherished notions of individual rights. Even then they were plagued by serious problems. Half of Europe surrendered to authoritarianism in the 1920s and 1930s. From that perspective it is not surprising that democracy wilted so quickly in Russia and Egypt. The link between liberal democracy and liberal capitalism is also far from automatic, a problem economists have been much quicker to recognize than politicians. James Buchanan and other “public choice” theorists worried that democratic politicians would always pander to their electorates—and thus build up deficits and underinvest in ­infrastructure—a worry that has been proven spectacularly accurate.


pages: 410 words: 106,931

Age of Anger: A History of the Present by Pankaj Mishra

anti-communist, Asian financial crisis, Ayatollah Khomeini, Berlin Wall, Boeing 747, Brexit referendum, British Empire, classic study, colonial rule, continuation of politics by other means, creative destruction, Donald Trump, Edward Snowden, Evgeny Morozov, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Fellow of the Royal Society, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, George Santayana, global village, Great Leap Forward, Gunnar Myrdal, informal economy, invisible hand, liberal capitalism, Mahatma Gandhi, Marshall McLuhan, Martin Wolf, mass immigration, Nelson Mandela, Oklahoma City bombing, Peter Thiel, Philip Mirowski, planetary scale, plutocrats, power law, precariat, public intellectual, Republic of Letters, Scientific racism, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley billionaire, smart cities, Snapchat, stem cell, technological solutionism, the scientific method, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Timothy McVeigh, trade route, traveling salesman, urban planning, Vilfredo Pareto, wage slave, women in the workforce, zero-sum game

Meanwhile, selfie-seeking young murderers everywhere confound the leaden stalkers of ‘extremist ideology’, retaliating to bombs from the air with choreographed slaughter on the ground. How did we get trapped in this danse macabre? Many readers of this book will remember the hopeful period that followed the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. With the collapse of Soviet Communism, the universal triumph of liberal capitalism and democracy seemed assured. Free markets and human rights appeared to be the right formula for the billions trying to overcome degrading poverty and political oppression; the words ‘globalization’ and ‘internet’ inspired, in that age of innocence, more hope than anxiety as they entered common speech.

Nietzsche’s writings provided a kind of pivot into a new set of questions and range of possibilities, which had not been present a century earlier when Rousseau first offered his political cure – a coherent and united community of patriotic citizens – to the discontents of modernity. He seemed to be turning away from sterile reason to life-sustaining myth, from moral notions of good and evil, truth and falsehood, to aesthetic values of creativity, vitality and heroism. As a detractor of both liberal capitalism and its socialist alternative, Nietzsche seemed to be offering, with his will to power, an unprecedented scope for human beings to reshape the world: to create, in effect, one’s own objects of desire, values, ideology and myths. To his youthful followers across the world, he provided the intellectual framework for several quintessentially modern and pressing projects: the radical trans-valuation of inherited values, the revolt against authority and its shibboleths, the creation of new forms of superabundant life, and politics in the grand mode.


pages: 576 words: 105,655

Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea by Mark Blyth

"there is no alternative" (TINA), accounting loophole / creative accounting, Alan Greenspan, balance sheet recession, bank run, banking crisis, Bear Stearns, Black Swan, book value, Bretton Woods, business cycle, buy and hold, capital controls, Carmen Reinhart, Celtic Tiger, central bank independence, centre right, collateralized debt obligation, correlation does not imply causation, creative destruction, credit crunch, Credit Default Swap, credit default swaps / collateralized debt obligations, currency peg, debt deflation, deindustrialization, disintermediation, diversification, en.wikipedia.org, ending welfare as we know it, Eugene Fama: efficient market hypothesis, eurozone crisis, financial engineering, financial repression, fixed income, floating exchange rates, Fractional reserve banking, full employment, German hyperinflation, Gini coefficient, global reserve currency, Greenspan put, Growth in a Time of Debt, high-speed rail, Hyman Minsky, income inequality, information asymmetry, interest rate swap, invisible hand, Irish property bubble, Joseph Schumpeter, Kenneth Rogoff, liberal capitalism, liquidationism / Banker’s doctrine / the Treasury view, Long Term Capital Management, low interest rates, market bubble, market clearing, Martin Wolf, Minsky moment, money market fund, moral hazard, mortgage debt, mortgage tax deduction, Occupy movement, offshore financial centre, paradox of thrift, Philip Mirowski, Phillips curve, Post-Keynesian economics, price stability, quantitative easing, rent-seeking, reserve currency, road to serfdom, Robert Solow, savings glut, short selling, structural adjustment programs, tail risk, The Great Moderation, The Myth of the Rational Market, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Tobin tax, too big to fail, Two Sigma, unorthodox policies, value at risk, Washington Consensus, zero-sum game

114 Giavazzi and Pagano conjectured that “in both cases, cuts in spending and tax increases were accompanied by a shift in the balance of political power, and by complementary monetary and exchange rate policies; after an initial devaluation, both countries pegged … to the German mark, inducing a sharp monetary deflation, and liberalized capital flows.”115 This did not, however, sound very expectations related. New policies and developments external to the budget brought about a major fall in interest rates that increased income (a wealth effect—less debt to pay back) more than the contraction in spending hurt the economy. To get over this problem, Giavazzi and Pagano teased out econometrically the part of the postcontraction boom that can’t be attributed to the wealth effect.

The classic exposition of this thesis remains Barrington Moore’s Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy (Boston: Beacon Press, 1966) and Alexander Gerschenkron, Economic Backwardness in Historical Perspective (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Belknap Press, 1962). 6. Woo Cummings, ed., The Developmental State (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press 1999); but also Wolfgang Streek and Yamamura, The Origins of Non-Liberal Capitalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2002). 7. Gerschenkron, Economic Backwardness; and Leonard Seabrooke, The Social Sources of Financial Power (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2006). 8. The world’s first welfare state was founded in Germany, in the nineteenth century, by Otto von Bismark. 9.


Hacking Capitalism by Söderberg, Johan; Söderberg, Johan;

Abraham Maslow, air gap, Alvin Toffler, AOL-Time Warner, barriers to entry, Charles Babbage, collective bargaining, commoditize, computer age, corporate governance, creative destruction, Debian, deindustrialization, delayed gratification, Dennis Ritchie, deskilling, digital capitalism, digital divide, Donald Davies, Eben Moglen, Erik Brynjolfsson, Firefox, Free Software Foundation, frictionless, full employment, Garrett Hardin, Hacker Conference 1984, Hacker Ethic, Herbert Marcuse, Howard Rheingold, IBM and the Holocaust, informal economy, interchangeable parts, invention of radio, invention of the telephone, Jacquard loom, James Watt: steam engine, jimmy wales, John Markoff, John von Neumann, Joseph Schumpeter, Joseph-Marie Jacquard, Ken Thompson, knowledge economy, knowledge worker, labour market flexibility, late capitalism, Lewis Mumford, liberal capitalism, Marshall McLuhan, means of production, Mitch Kapor, mutually assured destruction, new economy, Norbert Wiener, On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures, packet switching, patent troll, peer-to-peer, peer-to-peer model, planned obsolescence, post scarcity, post-Fordism, post-industrial society, price mechanism, Productivity paradox, profit motive, RFID, Richard Florida, Richard Stallman, Ronald Coase, safety bicycle, Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, SETI@home, Silicon Valley, Slavoj Žižek, software patent, Steven Levy, Stewart Brand, subscription business, tech worker, technological determinism, technoutopianism, the Cathedral and the Bazaar, The Nature of the Firm, the scientific method, The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen, Thomas Davenport, Thorstein Veblen, tragedy of the anticommons, Tragedy of the Commons, transaction costs, Whole Earth Catalog, Yochai Benkler

The DVD-Jon debacle is a showcase of the consequences when information can be accessed from any point in a network spanning the whole globe. The commodity form of information is threatened by pirate sharing from every place irrespectively of the distance in real space. Subsequently, law enforcement needs to be equally spread out. Omnipresence of markets is typically taken as a proof of the triumph of liberal capitalism and the ‘end of history’. Alternatively, it can be argued that the necessity of markets to be omnipresent is what constitutes the vulnerability of market economy at this point in time. The presence of a single void in the global fabric of law enforcement is sufficient to cause destabilisation to the intellectual property regime everywhere.

Before the notion surfaced about a high-tech gift economy on the Internet, it was commonly believed that the gift economy had been marginalised in modern society to the point of near extinction. Igor Kopytoff recounted a short list of goods that never enters into commodity circulation, not even in neo-liberal capitalism. Norms and law are mobilised to exempt these unique objects. Atomic bombs, crown jewelleries, body parts, child pornography, and endangered species, are rare examples where legal markets have been withdrawn. Even with an official decree not to trade in a certain kind of goods, however, the pull from generalised exchange is always-already present.


Ellul, Jacques-The Technological Society-Vintage Books (1964) by Unknown

Bretton Woods, conceptual framework, do-ocracy, double entry bookkeeping, flying shuttle, Frederick Winslow Taylor, full employment, James Hargreaves, James Watt: steam engine, John Maynard Keynes: technological unemployment, Lewis Mumford, liberal capitalism, Mars Society, means of production, Norbert Wiener, price mechanism, profit motive, rising living standards, road to serfdom, spinning jenny, technological determinism, Thorstein Veblen, urban planning, Vilfredo Pareto

At the present moment, what system is most efficient? I insist on the phrase at the present moment. It means nothing to explain that liberal capitalism was extraordinarily effi­ cient a century ago. The statement is true and we do not wish to deny it. But what of the present moment? If we accept the idea that different human systems of action ought to correspond to different social, political, and economic circumstances, can we uphold the thesis that the past efficiency of liberal capitalism is a pledge of present efficiency? Let us remember that from the point of view of efficiency the Russian and German planned economies were successes.

All human functions are mobilized in the “productionconsumption” complex. This restoration of unity is, in a certain sense, a step forward, for it holds that production and consumption are perfectly adapted to each other and that two correlative and interdependent functions may no longer be separated, as in liberal capitalism. But what in one sense restores unity represents in an­ other a circumscribing of the whole human being. To be in tech­ nical equilibrium, man cannot live by any but the technical reality, and he cannot escape from the social aspect of things which tech­ nique designs for him. And the more his needs are accounted for, the more he is integrated into the technical matrix.


pages: 550 words: 124,073

Democracy and Prosperity: Reinventing Capitalism Through a Turbulent Century by Torben Iversen, David Soskice

Andrei Shleifer, assortative mating, augmented reality, barriers to entry, Big Tech, Bretton Woods, business cycle, capital controls, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, central bank independence, centre right, clean tech, cloud computing, collateralized debt obligation, collective bargaining, colonial rule, confounding variable, corporate governance, Credit Default Swap, credit default swaps / collateralized debt obligations, deindustrialization, deskilling, Donald Trump, first-past-the-post, full employment, general purpose technology, gentrification, Gini coefficient, hiring and firing, implied volatility, income inequality, industrial cluster, inflation targeting, invisible hand, knowledge economy, labor-force participation, liberal capitalism, low skilled workers, low-wage service sector, means of production, middle-income trap, mirror neurons, mittelstand, Network effects, New Economic Geography, new economy, New Urbanism, non-tariff barriers, Occupy movement, offshore financial centre, open borders, open economy, passive investing, precariat, race to the bottom, radical decentralization, rent-seeking, RFID, road to serfdom, Robert Bork, Robert Gordon, Silicon Valley, smart cities, speech recognition, tacit knowledge, The Future of Employment, The Great Moderation, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, the strength of weak ties, too big to fail, trade liberalization, union organizing, urban decay, vertical integration, Washington Consensus, winner-take-all economy, working-age population, World Values Survey, young professional, zero-sum game

The system of representation underwrites the economic system. The institutional patterns of both advanced capitalism and of (usually) democratic politics have varied across the advanced nations but with stability over time. In particular, coordinated capitalism has been associated with negotiated political systems and liberal capitalism with competitive political systems. There have been relatively stable differences within these broad varieties, as between the centralized British and decentralized American political system, and associated differences in their institutions of capitalism. Other notable relatively stable differences are between Sweden, Germany, and Japan.

., 220 Kulturkampf, 94–95 Kurzweil, Raymond, 264 Labor and Monopoly Capitalism: The Degradation of Work in the Twentieth Century (Braverman), 186 labor market: active labor market programs (ALMPs) and, 126–27, 135, 284n1; analytic skills and, 186; apprentices and, 61, 64–65, 68, 71, 104, 110, 127, 179–80, 230; artificial intelligence (AI) and, 260–72; artisans and, 61, 63–65, 70, 79, 94–95, 98; assembly lines and, 104, 108; big-city agglomerations and, 194–200; capitalism and, 1, 6, 12, 31, 38, 46–47, 122, 125, 128, 152, 186, 229, 258; Catholicism and, 56, 61, 63, 68, 77, 83, 87, 92, 94–95; collective bargaining and, 67, 69, 73, 92, 103, 107, 137, 176, 179; comparative advantage and, 31, 49, 51, 128, 131, 268; competition and, 12 (see also competition); craft skills and, 32, 53, 61–71, 79, 82, 90–91, 96, 98, 101, 104, 172; democracy and, 64, 66, 96–98, 260, 266, 268, 273; deregulation and, 1, 96, 122, 183; dualism and, 282n25; education and, 12, 28, 31, 41, 53–54, 60, 70, 72, 83, 89–90, 96, 98, 104, 128, 165, 174, 177, 191, 223, 225, 229, 260; flexicurity and, 174; Fordism and, 103, 118, 122–28; globalization and, 162–63 (see also globalization); guild systems and, 59, 63–64, 69–70, 90–91, 93, 96, 98; immigrants and, 45, 88–89, 136, 160, 193–94, 206, 215–17, 223, 226–27, 234, 237, 249, 275, 283n13; journeymen and, 61, 65; knowledge economies and, 140, 152, 173–78, 183, 186–90, 223, 229; laziness and, 222, 237, 254; manual jobs and, 76, 78, 226, 238–40, 246, 255–56, 264–65; mobility and, 8, 13, 59 (see also mobility); monopolies and, 6, 24, 47, 54, 64, 68, 87, 99, 114, 155, 186; outsourcing and, 118, 193–94, 222; pensions and, 41, 92, 178–79; politics of future and, 272–77; populism and, 223, 229; relational skills and, 187; retirement and, 110, 151, 201; revisionist history and, 283n9; robots and, 18, 141, 143, 184, 193, 260–66, 273; rules for, 6, 10, 12, 28, 38; semiskilled labor and, 12 (see also semiskilled labor); September Compromise and, 66; skilled labor and, 2–3, 12 (see also skilled labor); strikes and, 73, 75, 108, 116; tacit knowledge and, 2, 39, 145, 263; trade and, 17, 155 (see also trade); training and, 7, 10, 14, 31, 44, 82, 89–90, 101, 104, 109, 111, 128, 131, 174, 176, 179, 181, 204, 223, 228–29, 232–33, 241–43, 252, 257, 275, 277, 280n10; undeserving poor and, 43, 142, 160, 216, 222, 227; unemployment and, 16, 282n22, 284n2, 285n8 (see also unemployment); unions and, 6 (see also unions); vocational learning and, 31, 44, 68, 82, 89, 92, 104, 109, 113, 127–28, 131, 174, 176, 179, 228–30, 233, 242–43, 251–52, 257; welfare and, 31, 46, 96, 118, 120, 122–23, 125, 128, 176, 223, 279n5; women and, 5, 174, 176 Labour Party, 68, 169, 171 Landesbanken, 176–77 landowners, 38, 57, 80–89, 95, 98, 158 Lange, David, 171 Lapavitsas, Costas, 150 Latin America, 29, 56, 257 laziness, 222, 237, 254 Lega, 248, 276 Lehmann Brothers, 210 Le Pen, Marine, 183 Lewis-Black, Michael S., 164, 167, 285n8 liberalism: capitalism and, 1–2, 32, 49, 60, 97, 100–1, 137, 143, 213–14, 228; democracy and, 56–62, 67–71, 79–90, 96–101, 282n3, 283n14; education and, 45, 60, 71, 79, 82–83, 89–90, 101, 104, 138, 143, 156, 175, 208, 212–14, 228–29, 232, 241, 243, 284n3, 286n11; embedded, 51, 97, 137–38, 143–56, 159–83, 214; financial crisis and, 207–13; Fordism and, 103–5, 115, 125, 127; globalization and, 1, 51, 142, 155, 162–63, 208, 213; knowledge economies and, 137–38, 141–56, 159, 161–83, 207–14, 228–29, 232, 241, 243, 250, 284n3, 286n11; majoritarianism and, 33, 49, 60, 71, 97, 100–3, 125, 213, 243; middle class and, 2, 60, 71–72, 90, 96–97, 100–1, 115, 286n11; neoliberalism and, 1–2, 286n11; populism and, 228–29, 232, 241, 243, 250; protoliberal countries and, 59–61, 68, 90, 97, 100–1, 228; public goods and, 79–90; regulated, 143, 149; trade, 51, 62, 142, 155, 163, 173, 213, 250, 284n3; United Kingdom and, 32 Liberal Market Economies (LMEs): Fordism and, 103, 112, 125, 127–29; knowledge economies and, 152, 169, 181, 198, 230, 232; populism and, 230, 232 libertarians, 45, 225, 234, 237, 240, 249 Lib-Lab political parties, 62–63 Lindblom, Charles, 5–6, 11, 19, 34, 280n9 Lindert, Peter H., 81, 220, 283n11 Lipset, Seymour Martin, 4, 37, 55, 71–72, 79, 113 Lizzeri, A., 79–80, 86 LO, 19, 66, 108 loans, 110, 148, 173, 209–11 Local Government Act, 86 Louca, Francisco, 5 low-skilled labor: capitalism and, 265–66; democracy and, 97–98, 265–66; Fordism and, 119–20, 126; knowledge economies and, 180, 194, 200, 212–13, 218, 223, 238, 249; populism and, 218, 223, 238, 249; robots and, 18; unions and, 19, 47, 50, 66, 70–71, 96, 98–99, 119, 127, 181 low-wage countries, 18–19, 28 Luddites, 226 Luebbert, Gregory, 62, 69, 282n3 Lutheran Church, 72 Maastricht Treaty, 122 McAfee, A., 260 machine-based technological change (MBTC), 262 Macron, Emmanuel, 183 majoritarianism: capitalism and, 22; cross-class parties and, 125; decommodification and, 9; democracy and, 60, 71, 91–93, 97–98, 100–1; Fordism and, 103, 112–13, 124–32; inequality and, 22; institutional patterns and, 33, 49, 132, 251; knowledge economies and, 213, 217, 243–44, 251; liberalism and, 33, 49, 60, 71, 97, 100–3, 125, 213, 243; populism and, 217, 243–44, 251; proportional representation (PR) systems and, 19, 44–45, 60, 93, 100–1, 124–26, 128, 132, 217, 251; taxes and, 24, 44, 113, 124; Westminster systems and, 19 Manning, Alan, 193 Manow, Philip, 44, 92–93, 95–96, 124 manual labor, 76, 78, 226, 238–40, 246, 255–56, 264–65 manufacturing: Asian, 5, 14, 241; capitalism and, 2, 14, 33, 142, 203; democracy and, 80; feeder towns and, 108–9, 224; Fordism and, 103, 108–9, 118; innovation and, 33; knowledge economies and, 142, 169, 182, 194, 197, 200–3, 224, 241; populism and, 200–3, 224, 241; research and, 15, 200; skilled labor and, 15, 33, 44–45, 109, 118, 194, 224 Marketcraft: How Governments Make Markets Work (Vogel), 11 Marks, Gary, 68 Martin, Cathie Joe, 63 Marxism, 11, 34, 46, 62, 279n4, 280n8, 280n9 materialism, 217, 234–35, 238 median income, 23, 25 Medicare, 24, 42 Melitz model, 211–12 Meltzer-Richard model, 3 Mezzogiorno, 93 microprocessors, 14, 140, 284n1 Microsoft, 155, 186, 262 middle class: capitalism and, 2–3, 20, 22, 41, 53, 97, 101, 162, 225, 227, 257–58, 273; democracy and, 3, 20, 22–23, 35, 44, 53–55, 60, 63, 71–74, 84–85, 90, 96–101, 115, 158, 163, 168, 257–58, 273–74; education and, 3, 20, 24, 41–43, 53–55, 60, 71, 84, 90, 98, 101, 128, 158, 168, 203, 222–25, 235, 238–40, 243–44, 249, 251, 257–58, 273–74, 286n11, 287n1; encapsulation and, 227, 243, 249; Fordism and, 43, 112, 115, 117, 123, 125, 128, 142, 160, 201, 219, 222–25, 238, 248; Gini coefficients and, 23; Great Gatsby Curve (GGC) and, 220, 221, 227–28, 247, 259, 275–76; growth and, 2–3, 97, 115, 163, 168, 226; hollowing out of, 160, 219, 222, 238; inequality and, 3, 20, 22–23, 41–43, 140, 222–23, 228, 273, 281; knowledge economies and, 24, 140, 142, 158, 163, 168, 201, 203, 218–28, 234–51; liberalism and, 2, 60, 71–72, 90, 96–97, 100–1, 115, 286n11; lower, 22, 35, 42, 63, 72, 90, 98, 124, 128, 142, 158, 201, 223, 235, 238, 244, 248, 251, 273; Medicare and, 42; middle-income trap puzzle and, 8, 26–30; neoliberalism and, 2; new, 3, 43, 218, 222, 224–27, 234, 238–41, 246, 247; old, 3, 43, 140, 142, 203, 219, 222–28, 234, 237–40, 243–44, 247, 249, 287n1; populism and, 218–28, 234–51; rebirth of cities and, 224–27; redistribution and, 3, 20, 35, 42, 60, 71, 90, 98, 100, 112, 115, 123–25, 140, 158, 168, 220, 222, 225, 234, 237, 241, 273–74; skilled labor and, 3, 20, 27, 30, 35, 41–44, 71, 85, 90, 96–101, 112, 115, 123, 125, 142, 158, 193, 222, 224, 235, 239–41, 249; Social Security and, 42; taxes and, 21, 42, 124, 158, 222, 225; technology and, 3, 21, 29–30, 41, 117, 139, 222, 226, 249; upper, 2, 41–44, 72, 125, 158, 168; voters and, 2–3, 20–22, 44, 90, 96–100, 125, 140, 158, 168, 273 military, 8, 28, 33, 73, 75, 86–87, 279n2, 281n18 Mittelstand, 68, 92, 95, 179, 191 Mitterrand, François, 182 mobility: capital, 8, 16, 30, 35, 50, 145, 280n11; democracy and, 59, 258, 275–76; economic geography and, 2, 8, 18, 20, 39–40; Fordism and, 16, 118, 124, 221; France and, 59; Great Gatsby Curve (GGC), 220–23, 227–28, 247, 259, 275–76; growth and, 13, 30, 247, 276; implicit social contract and, 221–22; income classes and, 220–22; intergenerational, 13, 21, 124, 219–22, 228, 230, 232, 241–42, 275–76; knowledge economies and, 145, 207, 214, 217–23, 227–32, 239–42, 247, 249; populism and, 217–32, 239–42, 247, 249; skilled labor and, 8, 13, 20–21, 39, 124, 217, 222, 228, 232, 239, 249; as strengthening state, 50–51; taxes and, 221 modernization, 19; democracy and, 55, 57, 66, 70, 79–83, 87, 89, 98; elitism and, 38, 57, 79–80, 83, 89, 98; Fordism and, 104, 109, 114; knowledge economies and, 174; protocorporatist countries and, 79, 83; Whigs and, 80 monarchies, 72–73, 81, 87 monopolies, 6, 24, 47, 54, 64, 68, 87, 99, 114, 155, 186 Morrison, Bruce, 80 mortgages, 151, 173, 209 Muldon, Rob “Piggy”, 171 multinational companies (MNCs): artificial intelligence (AI) and, 267–68, 271; democracy and, 267–68, 271; knowledge economies and, 7, 145, 147, 193, 200, 267–68, 271; technology and, 48 multinational enterprises (MNEs): changing roles of, 279n1; competition and, 154; economic geography and, 2–3, 40, 192, 279n1; globalization and, 2–3, 15, 18, 25, 28, 40, 139, 154, 192, 279n1; immobility of, 2; innovation and, 1, 40, 279n1; knowledge economies and, 2–3, 15, 40, 139, 154, 192; skill clusters and, 192–93; skilled labor and, 28; specialization and, 192–93 Municipal Corporations Act, 86 Mussolini, Benito, 77 Nannestad, Peter, 164 nanotechnology, 141, 184 nationalism, 216, 218, 227 National Reform League, 86 nation-states: advanced capitalist democracies (ACD) and, 9–11; capitalism and, 4–13, 30, 46–50, 77, 136, 139, 159, 161, 206, 249, 261, 267–68, 272, 279n4; democracy and, 4–5, 8, 13, 46, 136, 159, 161, 213, 215, 249, 261, 267–68, 272, 279; FDI globalization and, 40; knowledge economies and, 139, 159, 161, 206, 213, 215; skilled labor and, 8, 30, 48, 139, 261; strong role of, 9–11; symbiotic forces and, 5–9, 20, 32, 53–54, 130–31, 159, 206, 249–53, 259 Nazism, 75, 77, 99, 219, 279n2 neoliberalism, 1–2, 286n11 Netherlands: democracy and, 56, 57, 61, 62–63; Fordism and, 106, 121; Gini coefficients and, 25, 36; knowledge economies and, 147–48, 150, 154, 166, 230, 232, 233, 236, 242, 245; median income and, 25; populism and, 230, 232, 233, 236, 242, 245; protocorporatist countries and, 62–63; taxes and, 17; tertiary educational spending and, 231–32 New South Wales, 94–95 New Zealand: Acts of Parliament and, 88; democracy and, 38, 56–57, 61, 62, 87–89, 283n8; Douglas and, 171; Education Act and, 89; Fordism and, 106, 132; Gini coefficients and, 25, 36; knowledge economies and, 147–48, 150, 153, 166, 171, 221, 233, 236, 242; Lange and, 171; male suffrage and, 89; Muldoon and, 171; as outlier, 23; patents in, 27 Nolan, Mary, 65–66 Nord, Philip, 59 Norris, Pippa, 235, 246, 287n1 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), 155 Norway: democracy and, 56, 57, 61, 62, 282n3; Fordism and, 106, 130; Gini coefficients and, 25, 36; knowledge economies and, 147–48, 150, 154, 166, 221, 233, 236, 242, 245; median income and, 25; populism and, 221, 233, 236, 242, 245; taxes and, 17 October Revolution, 75–76 OECD countries, 25, 38; education and, 14; Fordism and, 107, 117, 125, 133; knowledge economies and, 153–54, 175, 196, 230–32, 233, 250, 286n13; populism and, 230–32, 233, 250; taxes and, 17, 280n13 Oesch, Daniel, 234 oil crisis, 120, 171, 181 ordinary least squares (OLS) regression, 132 Osborne, Michael A., 260 outliers, 23, 232, 241 outsourcing, 118, 193–94, 222 overlapping generation (OLG) logic, 7 Paldam, Martin, 164 Panduro, Frank, 203 Paris Commune, 86 parliamentarianism, 58 partisanship, 32, 47, 91, 112, 129, 164, 171, 174 party system: democracy and, 93, 101; Fordism and, 113, 123–24; knowledge economies and, 21, 44, 51, 51–52; voters and, 21 (see also voters) patents, 7, 12–15, 26, 27, 145, 201, 281n15, 285n6 pegging, 121 pensions, 41, 92, 178–79 Persico, N., 80, 86 physical skills, 193 Pierson, Paul, 282n22 Piketty, Thomas, 1, 16, 20, 22, 30, 41–42, 117, 137, 139, 141, 163, 261, 273, 280n11, 282n22 PISA scores, 196 plantations, 38, 84 police, 96, 173–75 political economy: broad concepts of markets and, 46; capitalism and, 2–9, 12, 17, 24, 34, 45–48, 97, 112, 129, 131, 137, 160, 167, 214, 227, 251, 275; democracy and, 59, 97; economic geography and, 2–3, 8, 48–49, 140; innovation and, 2, 7–8, 34, 183; knowledge economies and, 51, 164–68, 181, 220, 226, 235; literature on, 2, 4, 6–8, 48, 114, 164, 167, 281n19; populism and, 45; spatial anchors and, 48–49 Politics Against Markets (Esping-Andersen), 30 populism: Austria and, 230, 233, 245; Belgium and, 233, 245; centralization and, 231, 243, 252; competition and, 218, 222–23, 226, 236; conservatism and, 218–19; Coordinated Market Economies (CMEs) and, 232; cross-national variance and, 241–44; decentralization and, 217, 225, 234; democracy and, 13, 45, 129, 136, 215, 217, 226, 228, 248–51, 275; Denmark and, 221, 233, 245; economic geography and, 224; education and, 217, 219, 222–25, 228–47, 250–52, 287n1; electoral systems and, 217–18, 228, 251; elitism and, 216, 226, 235, 243–44, 248–51, 287n3; Fordism and, 113, 130, 216, 218–25, 237–40, 248–49; France and, 183, 221, 233, 236, 239, 242, 245, 248; Germany and, 181, 219, 221, 230, 232, 233, 236, 242, 245; globalization and, 234, 245; Great Gatsby Curve (GGC) and, 220–23, 227–28, 247, 259, 275–76; growth and, 218, 221, 226, 237, 247–48; immigrants and, 45, 216–17, 223, 226–27, 234, 237, 239, 249; importance of economic progress and, 247–48; industrialization and, 224; inequality and, 219–23, 228; Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and, 238, 249; Italy and, 221, 233, 236, 242, 245, 248; Japan and, 218, 221, 232, 233, 236, 239, 241, 242, 244; knowledge economies and, 136, 138, 140–42, 146, 161, 171, 175, 181–85, 195, 202, 205, 214–23, 226–28, 235–53, 254–56; labor market and, 223, 229; laziness and, 222, 237, 254; liberalism and, 228–29, 232, 241, 243, 250; Liberal Market Economies (LMEs) and, 230, 232; libertarians and, 45, 225, 234, 237, 240, 249; low-skilled labor and, 218, 223, 238, 249; majoritarianism and, 217, 243–44, 251; manufacturing and, 200–3, 224, 241; materialism and, 217, 234–35, 238; middle class and, 218–28, 234–51; mobility and, 217–23, 227–32, 239–42, 247, 249; nationalism and, 216, 218, 227; national variation and, 228–34; Netherlands and, 230, 232, 233, 236, 242, 245; new materialism and, 234–35; Norway and, 221, 233, 236, 242, 245; OECD countries and, 230–32, 233, 250; political alignment and, 219–27; political cleavage and, 146, 181, 183, 228, 236–39, 241; political economy and, 45; postmaterialism and, 234–35; proportional representation (PR) systems and, 217, 229, 251; public goods and, 225; rebirth of cities and, 224–27; redistribution and, 220, 222, 225, 234–37, 241; regression analysis and, 236, 239–40, 246, 254–55; Republicans and, 218, 244–45; research and, 234; Robin Hood Paradox and, 220; root cause of, 13; rural areas and, 218, 224, 238–41, 287n1; semiskilled labor and, 238–40; sexuality and, 216–18, 225, 237, 243, 249, 254; skilled labor and, 52, 217–35, 238–41, 246, 249–52, 255–56; social contract and, 221–27; socialism and, 218; social networks and, 217, 225, 246; South Korea and, 232, 233, 236, 239, 241, 242; Sweden and, 221, 233, 236, 242, 245; Switzerland and, 221, 233, 236, 242, 245; symbiotic forces and, 249–53; taxes and, 221–22, 225, 231; technology and, 222, 226, 232, 234, 238, 246, 249; trade and, 218, 250; Trump and, 215, 218–20, 237, 243–45, 248; undeserving poor and, 43, 142, 160, 216, 222, 227; unemployment and, 248–49, 255–56; unions and, 228, 251; United Kingdom and, 13, 218, 232, 233, 236, 242, 245, 250; United States and, 13, 130, 171, 195, 215, 218–23, 230, 232, 236, 241, 244, 275; unskilled workers and, 246, 255–56; upper class and, 222, 227, 237, 253; values and, 239–41; voters and, 217–19, 234–36, 244–47, 250, 256; wages and, 219, 222–23, 227, 229; welfare and, 45, 223, 234, 249, 287n1; women and, 238; working class and, 225, 231, 239, 251; World Values Survey (WVS) and, 235–36, 245 postmaterialism, 234–35 Poulantzas, Nicos, 6, 9, 11, 19, 39, 279n4 poverty, 3, 5, 18–19, 25, 43, 47, 109, 117, 142, 221, 237 Power, Anne, 200 privatization, 1, 18, 154, 173 production: artificial intelligence (AI) and, 263; assembly lines and, 104, 108; broad market notions and, 46; clusters and, 40, 49, 183, 270–71; democracy and, 54, 60, 64–66, 69, 72–73, 83, 93–94, 258, 262–63, 267–71; feeder towns and, 108–9, 224; Fordism and, 43, 103–4, 108–11, 115–17, 123, 127; globalization and, 5, 40, 51, 258; innovation and, 10, 40, 262, 271; knowledge economies and, 143, 152, 161, 180, 183, 224–25, 234–35, 247, 249; skilled labor and, 10, 18, 35, 43, 49–50, 60, 64–65, 69, 104–5, 115, 123, 127, 180, 183, 225, 249, 258, 262, 267, 271; specialization and, 51, 108, 161, 258, 267–71; Vernon’s life-cycle and, 18 productivity, 19, 34, 118–19, 247, 261, 272 proportional representation (PR) systems: Christian democratic parties and, 44; democracy and, 19, 34, 44–45, 60–61, 91, 93, 97, 100–1, 112–13, 125–28, 132, 134, 135, 212, 217, 229, 251; Fordism and, 112–13, 124–28; green parties and, 45; knowledge economies and, 132–34, 135, 212, 217, 229, 251; liberalism and, 97; majoritarianism and, 19, 101; multiparty, 34, 44; negotiation-based environment and, 93; populism and, 217, 229, 251; redistribution and, 91; Westminster system and, 19 protectionism, 28, 41, 169 Protestantism, 61, 68 protocorporatist countries: Austria, 59, 62–63, 77, 99; Belgium, 62–63; Catholicism and, 56, 61, 63, 68, 77, 83, 87, 92, 94–95; democracy and, 59–72, 74, 77, 79, 82–83, 89–92, 98–101, 228, 283n11; entrepreneurs and, 65; France and, 59, 62; Germany and, 62–63, 65, 68 71, 74, 77, 99, 238n11; industrialization and, 60–62, 65, 79, 89–90, 98, 101; Marx and, 62; modernization and, 79, 83; Netherlands, 62–63; skilled labor and, 60, 64–66, 79, 90, 98, 101; Ständestaat group and, 59–60, 65–66, 70, 90–91, 93; Switzerland, 62–63; working class and, 60–79 protoliberal countries, 59–61, 68, 90, 97, 100–1, 228 Prussia, 72, 93 public goods: democracy and, 54, 60, 79–90, 98, 258, 275; Fordism and, 113; innovation and, 35, 258; knowledge economies and, 52, 143–48, 152, 157, 167, 225; liberalism and, 79–90; populism and, 225; role of state and, 10 Public Health Acts, 86 race to the bottom, 51, 122 Rasmussen, Poul Nyrup, 173 recession, 5, 206, 214, 247–50, 276 reconfigurability, 185, 191, 214, 224 redistribution: capitalism and, 1, 18–20, 31–32, 35, 37, 39–40, 47, 51, 55, 124, 128–31, 137, 261, 273; democracy and, 1, 8, 18–20, 32, 35, 37, 40, 55–56, 60, 69–71, 74–79, 90–91, 95–100, 115, 124, 158, 221, 259–62, 273–74, 282n3, 284n2; Fordism and, 103, 111–12, 115, 123–25, 128–29; Gini coefficients and, 22–23, 25, 36, 117, 118, 141, 221; inequality and, 1, 3, 20, 40–46, 140, 220, 222, 273; knowledge economies and, 48, 137, 140, 158, 168, 220, 222, 225, 234–37, 241; middle class and, 3, 20, 35, 42, 60, 71, 90, 98, 100, 112, 115, 123–25, 140, 158, 168, 220, 222, 225, 234, 237, 241, 273–74; populism and, 220, 222, 225, 234–37, 241; proportional representation (PR) systems and, 91; skilled labor and, 8, 20, 31, 35, 37, 47, 71, 90, 98–100, 103, 115, 123, 125, 128, 158, 220, 222, 241, 259, 261; social insurance and, 8; taxes and, 35, 40, 51, 124, 158, 221–22, 225; voters and, 3, 19–21, 32, 43, 90, 98, 100, 125, 140, 158, 273; welfare and, 3, 8, 18–21, 31, 39–40, 43, 115, 123–24, 128, 131, 137, 261, 273 Reform Acts, 56, 80–81, 85–86 Reform Crisis 1865–7, The (Searle), 85 Reform League, 86 Reform Party, 88 regional theory, 11 regression, 99–100, 132–35, 236, 239–40, 246, 254–55 Rehn-Meidner model, 19 relational skills, 187 Republicans, 38, 57, 59, 87, 218, 244–45, 282n24 reputation: colocation and, 267; consultants and, 286n15; Fordism and, 112–13; knowledge economies and, 158, 163–64, 182–83, 188, 190–91; Liberal Market Economies (LMEs) and, 112; political, 4, 12, 29, 32, 34, 112–13, 158, 163–64, 182–83, 188, 190, 258, 259, 280n9; skill clusters and, 190–91; social networks and, 191; subconscious signals and, 190 research: capitalism and, 2, 10, 12, 37, 48, 139, 159, 165, 234; democracy and, 55, 66–67, 72, 262, 264, 268, 287n1; education and, 10, 12, 20–21, 28, 48, 55, 72, 146, 159, 165, 234, 262; Fordism and, 103, 108, 110; innovation and, 2, 12, 40; knowledge economies and, 139, 146, 159, 164–65, 179, 187, 189, 196, 200, 204, 234, 285n9; manufacturing and, 15, 200; populism and, 234; skilled labor and, 2, 12, 21, 28, 37, 39, 48, 66–67, 139, 179, 187, 196, 268 retirement, 110, 151, 201 Robin Hood Paradox, 220 Robinson, James, 9, 35, 37, 56, 58, 71–72, 74, 76, 85–86, 99, 282n3 robots, 18; artificial intelligence (AI) and, 260–62; great technology debate and, 260–66; knowledge economies and, 141, 143, 184, 193; politics of future and, 273 Rodrik, Dani, 16, 22, 128 Rokkan, Stein, 66, 94, 97, 100, 113 Rueda, D., 45, 282n25 Rueschemeyer, Dieter, 56, 72–73, 75, 77, 280n6, 283n7 Ruggie, John G., 51, 143 rust belt, 224 Scheve, Kenneth, 221 Schlüter, Poul, 172 Schumpter, Joseph A., 6, 9, 11, 279n4 Scotland, 283n12 Searle, G., 85 segregation: centripetal and centrifugal forces in, 200–6; cultural choices and, 205–6; educational, 43, 119, 140, 161, 192, 195, 197, 200–6, 214, 231; Fordism and, 109, 119; geographic, 109, 140, 161, 185, 195, 197, 200–6; health and, 204–5; knowledge economies and, 43, 140, 161, 185, 195, 197, 200–6, 214, 231; private services and, 203–4; social networks and, 205–6; transport systems and, 201–3 semiskilled labor: capitalism and, 261; democracy and, 61, 64–65, 68–69, 261; Fordism and, 12, 102–5, 112, 115, 118–20, 123–24, 127, 129; knowledge economies and, 142, 172–73, 212, 238–40; populism and, 238–40; segmentation of, 43–44; technology and, 41, 43, 65, 102–5, 118–19, 127, 238, 261; undeserving poor and, 43; unions and, 61, 64–65, 68–69, 105, 119–20, 123, 172–73 September Compromise, 66 service sectors, 16, 31, 44, 51, 119, 157, 194, 200, 204, 219, 285n5 settler colonies, 84–90 sexuality, 52, 216–18, 225, 237, 243, 249, 254, 269 Sherman Act, 153 shocks: capitalism and, 6, 10, 30, 54, 125, 136, 138, 140, 156, 159, 214; democracy and, 54; Fordism and, 125–27, 132–35; Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and, 136, 138, 214; knowledge economies and, 136–40, 143, 156–59, 181, 185, 194, 214; supply, 30; technology and, 6, 30, 136, 138, 140, 143, 159, 185, 194 Simmons, Beth, 161 Singapore, 4, 26–28, 221, 282n3 Single European Act, 145, 170–71 Single Market, 122 skill-biased technological change (SBTC), 41, 238, 262, 265–66 skill clusters: big-city agglomerations and, 194–200; capitalism and, 2, 7, 49, 145, 185, 192, 261; colocation and, 2–3, 7, 15–16, 185, 261; democracy and, 261; education and, 2–3, 7, 139, 141, 145, 148, 185, 190–95, 198, 223, 261; knowledge economies and, 139, 141, 144–48, 183, 185, 190–98, 200, 223; multinational enterprises (MNEs) and, 2, 192–93; reputation and, 190–91; social networks and, 28, 139, 191–92; specialization and, 190–91; sub-urbanization and, 141 skilled labor: analytic skills and, 186; artificial intelligence (AI) and, 261–62, 265–68, 271–72; capitalism and, 2–3, 6–8, 12–15, 19–20, 30–34, 37–38, 47–50, 53–54, 58, 60, 97, 101–2, 128, 137, 139, 144–47, 157–58, 172, 185–86, 192, 218, 250–51, 258, 261, 280n6; centralization and, 53, 58, 67, 69, 96, 99, 101, 110, 119–20, 173, 186, 279n1; colocation and, 2, 7, 261, 272; competition and, 6, 12, 18, 21, 30–34, 66, 96, 119, 128, 146, 157, 181, 186, 194, 198, 218, 222–23, 258; cospecificity and, 7–15, 20, 37, 47–50, 69, 99, 101, 115, 123, 196, 259, 261; craft skills and, 32, 53, 61–71, 79, 82, 90–91, 96, 98, 101, 104, 172; decentralization and, 96, 123, 138, 144, 146, 148, 172, 183–86, 190, 193, 212, 225, 262, 276; democracy and, 3, 6, 8, 12, 20, 31, 37–38, 44, 53–54, 58–71, 79, 84–85, 90, 96–101, 115, 158, 185–86, 250, 258–62, 265–68, 271–72, 276–77; economic geography and, 2–3, 7–8, 15, 20, 31, 48, 109, 116, 144–47, 185, 191–92, 195–96, 276–77; education and, 7, 12, 20–21, 31, 37–38, 41, 54, 60, 70–71, 79, 84, 90, 101–4, 119, 127–30, 139, 142, 158, 174–76, 179–81, 184–85, 191–95, 198, 217, 222–25, 228–35, 238–40, 246, 250–52, 266; Fordism and, 12, 14, 16, 102–5, 109–12, 115–30, 222–25, 277; foreign direct investment (FDI) and, 3, 139, 145, 147, 193, 198; growth and, 8, 13, 31, 68, 97, 110, 115–16, 218, 261; Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and, 41, 102, 185–86, 190, 193, 195, 198, 218, 276; innovation and, 2, 6–12, 19, 27, 31–34, 104, 128, 141, 174, 196, 198, 258, 262, 271, 281n18; knowledge economies and, 137–49, 157–58, 172–200, 211–13, 217–35, 238–41, 246, 249–52, 255–56; manufacturing and, 15, 33, 44–45, 109, 118, 194, 224; middle class and, 3, 20, 27, 30, 35, 41–44, 71, 85, 90, 96–101, 112, 115, 123, 125, 142, 158, 193, 222, 224, 235, 239–41, 249; mobility and, 8, 13, 20–21, 39, 124, 217, 222, 228, 232, 239, 249; nation-states and, 8, 30, 48, 139, 261; overlapping generation (OLG) logic and, 7; physical skills and, 193; politics of future and, 272–77; populism and, 52, 217–35, 238–41, 246, 249–52, 255–56; production and, 10, 18, 35, 43, 49–50, 60, 64–65, 69, 104–5, 115, 123, 127, 180, 183, 225, 249, 258, 262, 267, 271; protocorporatist countries and, 60, 64–66, 79, 90, 98, 101; rebirth of cities and, 224–27; redistribution and, 8, 20, 31, 35, 37, 47, 71, 90, 98–100, 103, 115, 123, 125, 128, 158, 220, 222, 241, 259, 261; relational skills and, 187; research and, 2, 12, 21, 28, 37, 39, 48, 66–67, 139, 179, 187, 196, 268; social insurance and, 8, 35, 50, 67, 123, 125, 127, 192; social networks and, 2, 28, 48, 139, 145, 185, 191–92, 195, 197, 225, 258, 261, 267–68, 271; specialization and, 14 (see also specialization); tacit knowledge and, 2, 39, 145, 263; technology and, 3, 7, 10–14, 20, 30–31, 37, 41, 43, 48, 50, 70, 96, 102–5, 118–19, 127–28, 138–40, 144, 147, 157, 175–76, 185–86, 192–94, 198–99, 222, 232, 238, 261, 268, 277; unions and, 6, 19, 33, 47, 50, 53, 58, 60–71, 96–101, 105, 110, 119–20, 123, 127, 172–73, 176, 181, 186, 251; upper class and, 43–44, 125; upskilling and, 102, 123, 129, 174–75, 178, 228, 232, 250–51; wages and, 6, 18, 33, 41, 50, 61, 64, 67, 104–5, 110, 115, 118–24, 127, 172–76, 181, 212, 222–23, 229, 266 Slomp, Hans, 62 smart cities, 194–95 social contract, 161, 221–27 social democratic parties: Denmark and, 76–77, 181; Germany and, 62–63, 68, 72–77, 181; Norway and, 282n3; Sweden and, 19, 72, 74, 76; unions and, 6, 19, 61–63, 67–68, 72, 74, 76, 114, 181, 282n3 Social Democratic Party (SPD) [Germany], 68, 74, 76–77, 78 Social Democratic Party (Sweden), 19 social insurance, 21; democracy and, 67; Fordism and, 111; skilled labor and, 8, 35, 50, 67, 123–25, 127, 192 socialism: competition and, 11; democracy and, 11, 56, 61–63, 68, 71, 75, 94, 97, 100, 137, 181–82, 215, 218; knowledge economies and, 137, 181–82, 215, 218; populism and, 218 social justice, 115, 237 social networks: cultural choices and, 205–6; democracy and, 258, 261, 268, 270–71, 274–75; economic geography and, 48–49, 185, 195, 274; education and, 2, 51–52, 139, 145, 185, 191–99, 204–5, 217, 225, 234, 261, 270–71, 274–75; growth and, 51, 92; knowledge economies and, 139, 145, 185, 188, 191–92, 195–97, 200, 204–6, 217, 225, 246; populism and, 217, 225, 246; reputation and, 191; segregation and, 205–6; skilled labor and, 2, 28, 48, 139, 145, 185, 191–92, 195, 197, 225, 258, 261, 267–68, 271 Social Security, 24, 42, 50, 118, 174, 184 socio-optimists, 260, 266, 275 socio-pessimists, 260, 266 Sokoloff, Kenneth L., 80, 84, 89 Soskice, David, 124, 135, 211 South Korea: capitalism and, 4, 26, 148; democracy and, 78; education and, 26, 28, 166, 231–32, 241, 284n4; Gini coefficients and, 36; knowledge economies and, 147–48, 150, 154, 156, 166, 232, 233, 236, 239, 241, 242, 284n4; middle-income trap and, 26; military and, 28; patents and, 27; populism and, 232, 233, 236, 239, 241, 242; skilled labor and, 28 Soviet Union, 139, 142, 156, 186, 241, 285n7 Spain: Gini coefficients and, 36; knowledge economies and, 154, 166, 201, 221, 233, 236, 242, 248; patents and, 27; taxes and, 17 Sparkassen, 176–77 specialization: advanced capitalist democracies (ACD) and, 14–17; Asia and, 267; capitalism and, 2, 6, 8, 17, 40, 139, 145, 147, 161, 192, 258, 267, 270–71, 276–77; cospecificity and, 14–17; cross-country comparison and, 39; democracy and, 67, 258, 267, 270–71, 276–77; economic geography and, 8, 14–17, 39, 144, 146–47, 192, 276–77; education and, 14, 191, 271; Fordism and, 108; globalization and, 3, 8, 17, 40, 51, 198, 258; heterogenous institutions and, 6; innovation and, 8, 14, 198, 267, 271; knowledge economies and, 2–3, 139, 144–47, 161, 190–93, 198, 200, 281n21; location cospecificity and, 14–17; multinational enterprises (MNEs) and, 192–93; patterns of, 192–93; production and, 51, 108, 161, 258, 267–71; skill clusters and, 190–91; as strengthening state, 50–51 Ständestaat group, 59–60, 65–66, 70, 90–91, 93 Standing, Guy, 142 Stasavage, David, 221 Stegmaier, Mary, 164, 167, 285n8 Steinmo, Sven, 16 Stephens, Evelyne Huber, 56, 229 Stephens, John, 56, 229, 280n6 Streeck, Wolfgang, 1, 16, 22, 30, 137, 163, 206, 281n17, 282n22 strikes, 73, 75, 108, 116 suffrage, 72–74, 76, 80, 87–89 Susskind, Daniel, 260 Susskind, Richard, 260 Swank, Duane, 16, 39, 101 Sweden: capitalism and, 19, 39, 49, 148; democracy and, 56, 57, 61, 62, 67, 71–76, 78; Fordism and, 106, 107, 117, 120, 129; Gini coefficients and, 25, 36; knowledge economies and, 147–48, 150, 153–54, 166, 173, 221, 233, 236, 242, 245; median income and, 25; populism and, 221, 233, 236, 242, 245; Social Democratic Party and, 19; taxes and, 17 Swenson, Peter, 108 Switzerland: democracy and, 56, 57, 61, 62–63, 282n3; Gini coefficient of, 36; knowledge economies and, 147–48, 150, 154, 166, 221, 233, 236, 242, 245; populism and, 221, 233, 236, 242, 245; protocorporatist countries and, 62–63; taxes and, 280n13; unions and, 106 symbiotic forces: democracy and, 5–9, 14, 20, 32, 53–54, 102, 130–31, 159, 165, 206, 249–53, 258, 259, 270, 272; Fordism and, 102, 130–31; knowledge economies and, 159, 165, 206, 249–53; populism and, 249–53 tacit knowledge, 2, 39, 145, 263 Taiwan, 4, 26–28, 78, 156 tariffs, 89, 114, 285n5 taxes: capitalism and, 16–17, 24, 34–35, 40, 51, 73, 167, 206, 261, 280n12; democracy and, 73, 261, 267–68, 271; Fordism and, 110–13, 124; Gini coefficients and, 22, 141; government concessions and, 18; Internal Revenue Service and, 42; knowledge economies and, 141, 157–58, 165, 167, 172, 206, 221–22, 225, 231, 281n21; majoritarianism and, 24, 44, 113, 124; middle class and, 21, 42, 124, 158, 222, 225; mobility and, 221; populism and, 221–22, 225, 231; redistribution and, 35, 40, 51, 124, 158, 221–22, 225; Republican reform and, 282n24; rich and, 22, 24, 261, 280n13; shelters and, 280n13; transfer systems and, 21–22, 112, 158; United Kingdom and, 17, 141, 206; United States and, 16–17, 24, 42, 141; upper class and, 42; value added, 34, 206; welfare and, 16–17, 21, 40, 42, 167 technology: artificial intelligence (AI) and, 260–72; assembly lines and, 104, 108; biotechnology and, 141, 175, 184; change and, 5, 13, 40–45, 50, 124, 138–41, 155, 162, 192, 199, 222, 232, 246, 249, 259, 262; codifiable, 7, 12, 14–15, 238; colocation and, 261, 266–72; cospecificity and, 7, 12, 14, 20, 37, 48, 50, 103, 159, 261–66; debates over future, 259–72; democracy and, 70, 92, 259–63, 267–72, 277; Fordism and, 5, 7, 14–15, 50, 102–6, 109, 117–19, 124, 127–28, 131, 140–43, 154, 192, 194, 222, 277; growth and, 3, 5, 13, 38, 162, 194, 226, 261; ICT and, 3 (see also Information and Communication Technology (ICT)); income distribution and, 21, 40; industrial revolution and, 5, 12, 58, 293, 295; investment in, 3, 20, 30, 37–38, 50, 109, 142, 147, 156, 175, 272; knowledge economies and, 138–44, 147, 154–62, 175–76, 184–86, 192–94, 198–99, 214, 222, 226, 232, 234, 238, 246, 249, 284n1, 284n3, 285n6; Luddites and, 226; manual jobs and, 264–65; microprocessors and, 14, 140, 284n1; middle class and, 3, 21, 29–30, 41, 117, 139, 222, 226, 249; multinational companies (MNCs) and, 48; nanotechnology, 141, 184; outsourcing and, 118, 193–94, 222; overlapping generation (OLG) logic and, 7; patents and, 7, 12–15, 26, 27, 145, 201, 281n15, 285n6; populism and, 222, 226, 232, 234, 238, 246, 249; robots and, 18, 141, 143, 184, 193, 260–66, 273; self-driving vehicles and, 265; semiskilled labor and, 41, 43, 65, 102–5, 118–19, 127, 238, 261; shocks and, 6, 30, 136, 138, 140, 143, 159, 185, 194; skilled labor and, 3, 7, 10–14, 20, 30–31, 37, 41, 43, 48, 50, 70, 96, 102–5, 118–19, 127–28, 138–40, 144, 147, 157, 175–76, 185–86, 192–94, 198–99, 222, 232, 238, 261, 268, 277; smart cities and, 194–95; trade and, 3, 7, 31, 50, 128, 131, 142, 284n3; transfer and, 18, 31, 38, 48, 128, 131; vocational training and, 31, 44, 68, 82, 89, 92, 104, 109, 113, 127–28, 131, 174, 176, 179, 228–30, 233, 242–43, 251–52, 257; voters and, 6, 13, 20, 159, 234, 260, 272 techno-optimists, 260, 269–70, 275, 277 techno-pessimists, 260–61 Teece, David J., 7, 12 Thatcher, Margaret, 33, 149, 163, 169–71, 182, 209 Thelen, Kathleen, 62–64, 219 Third Republic, 57, 81, 86–87 Tiebout, Charles M., 252 Tories, 87 trade: barriers to, 50, 114, 154, 285n5; competition and, 26, 31, 128, 131, 153–55, 218, 285n5, 285n9; democracy and, 258, 267; FDI and, 154, 163, 284n3, 285n5, 285n9; Fordism and, 114, 128, 131; free, 17, 155; knowledge economies and, 142, 145, 153–55, 163, 172–73, 180, 211–13, 218, 250; liberalism and, 51, 62, 142, 155, 163, 173, 213, 250, 284n3; NAFTA and, 155; open, 27, 154; populism and, 218, 250; protectionism and, 28, 41, 169; technology and, 3, 7, 31, 50, 128, 131, 142, 284n3 Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP), 155–56 transport systems, 201–3 Trump, Donald, 130, 156, 211, 215, 218–20, 237, 243–45, 248, 276 Über, 265 undeserving poor, 43, 142, 160, 216, 222, 227 unemployment: automatic disbursements and, 133, 284n2; capitalism and, 51, 117, 172, 282n22; countercyclical policies and, 16; democracy and, 74–77, 92, 96; Fordism and, 105, 107, 110, 117, 120–21, 124–27, 133, 135, 284n2; knowledge economies and, 170–72, 174, 178, 180, 207, 248–49, 255–56, 285n8; social protection and, 51 unions: centralization and, 49, 53, 58, 63, 67, 69–70, 73, 96, 99, 101, 105, 107–10, 113, 116, 119, 122–23, 152, 156, 172, 174, 283n8; centralization/decentralization issues and, 49–50, 53, 58, 63, 67–70, 73, 96, 99, 101, 105–10, 113, 116, 119, 122–23, 152, 172, 174, 186, 283n8; competition and, 6, 33, 66, 68, 80, 96, 119, 152, 169–72, 177, 181, 186; craft, 61, 63, 67–71, 101, 172; democracy and, 53, 58–80, 90–92, 95–101, 274, 282n3, 283n8; exclusion of, 67, 70, 98; Fordism and, 105–16, 119–23, 127, 284n3; hostile takeovers and, 33; institutional frameworks and, 32–33; knowledge economies and, 152, 169–83, 212, 228, 251; laborist unionism and, 62; low-skilled labor and, 19, 47, 50, 66, 70–71, 96, 98–99, 119, 127, 181; polarized unionism and, 62; populism and, 228, 251; power and, 32, 66–67, 69, 73–76, 99, 105, 108, 112–13, 119, 169, 172, 186; predatory, 6; Rehn-Meidner model and, 19; segmented, 62, 105, 113; semiskilled labor and, 61, 64–65, 68–69, 105, 119–20, 123, 172–73; September Compromise and, 66; skilled labor and, 6, 19, 33, 47, 50, 53, 58, 60–71, 96–101, 105, 110, 119–20, 123, 127, 172–73, 176, 181, 186, 251; social democratic parties and, 6, 19, 61–63, 67–68, 72, 74, 76, 114, 181, 282n3; solidaristic, 62, 105, 172; strikes and, 73, 75, 108, 116; trade, 62–64, 170 United Kingdom: Blair and, 33, 171, 209; Brexit and, 130, 245, 248, 250, 276; British disease and, 172; British North American Act and, 87–88; Callaghan and, 169, 171; capitalism and, 10, 13, 19, 32, 38, 148, 152, 172, 206, 209; centralization and, 49; Confederation of British Industry (CBI) and, 169–70; Conservative Party and, 32, 81, 85, 88, 169, 218–19; democracy and, 38, 54–65, 73, 80–90, 277, 283n9; Disraeli and, 81, 85, 96; education and, 38, 130, 166, 177, 231–32, 277; enfranchisement and, 84–90; Fordism and, 105–8, 120, 123, 130; Forster Elementary Education Act and, 86; Gini coefficents for, 25, 36; Healey and, 169; health and, 204–5; Hyde Park Riots and, 85; inequality and, 36; knowledge economies and, 142, 147–48, 150, 152, 154, 161–63, 166, 169–77, 180–81, 194, 200–1, 204, 206, 209, 218, 232, 233, 236, 242, 245, 250; labor co-operation and, 152; laborist unionism and, 62; Labour Party and, 68, 169, 171; Liberals and, 32; Local Government Act and, 86; median income and, 25; modernization and, 19; Municipal Corporations Act and, 86; patents and, 27; populism and, 13, 218, 232, 233, 236, 242, 245, 250; postwar, 11; Prior and, 169–70; Public Health Acts and, 86; Reform Acts and, 56, 80–81, 85–86; Reform Party and, 88; segregation and, 200–3; settler colonies and, 84–90; taxes and, 17, 141, 206; Thatcher and, 33, 149, 163, 169–71, 182, 209; Tories and, 87; Victorian reformers and, 82; Whigs and, 80 United States: capitalism and, 13, 16–17, 24–25, 38, 47, 148, 152, 186, 209, 275, 277; Civil War and, 57; Clayton Act and, 153; Cold War and, 78, 111; decentralization and, 49; democracy and, 13, 24, 38, 55–57, 59, 62–64, 70, 83, 88, 96, 107, 147–48, 186, 215, 220, 275, 277; education and, 24, 38, 55, 70, 83, 109, 127, 130, 166, 177, 195, 223, 230–32, 241, 275; Fordism and, 105–9, 117–20, 123, 127, 130; inequality and, 24, 36, 42, 107, 117, 118, 123, 220, 282n22; knowledge economies and, 141–42, 147–56, 162, 166, 169, 171, 177, 186, 194–95, 198, 202, 209, 215, 218–23, 230, 232, 236, 241, 244, 277; labor market and, 56 (see also labor market); NAFTA and, 155; populism and, 13, 130, 171, 195, 215, 218–23, 230, 232, 236, 241, 244, 275; Sherman Act and, 153; taxes and, 16–17, 24, 42, 141; Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) and, 155–56 unskilled workers: democracy and, 62–63, 67–71, 96–97, 101; Fordism and, 104–5, 118; knowledge economies and, 193, 246, 255; populism and, 246, 255–56 upper class: capitalism and, 4, 6; democracy and, 35; education and, 43; as gaming the system, 222; global distribution and, 27–29; Great Gatsby Curve (GGC) and, 220, 221, 227–28, 247, 259, 275–76; inequality and, 41, 158, 261; political influence of, 24, 41–43, 253; populism and, 222, 227, 237, 253; skilled labor and, 43–44, 125; taxes and, 22, 42, 261, 280n13; voters and, 2 upskilling, 102, 123, 129, 174–75, 178, 228, 232, 250–51 urbanization, 37, 92; big-city agglomerations and, 194–200; effects of, 83–84; feeder towns and, 108–9, 224; knowledge economies and, 141, 194–95, 201–3, 224–27, 239, 241; rebirth of cities and, 224–27; segregation and, 200–6 (see also segregation); smart cities and, 194–95; transport systems and, 201–3 US Patent and Trademark Office, 26–27 value-added sectors, 206–9 Van Kersbergen, Kees, 44, 92, 95, 124 Verily Life Sciences, 262 Vernon, Raymond, 18 VET system, 176, 179–80 Vliet, Olaf van, 133 Vogel, Steven, 11 Von Hagen, Jürgen, 121, 151 Von Papen, Franz, 77 voters: advanced capitalism and, 2, 6, 11–14, 19–22, 30–32, 38, 46–47, 112, 158–59, 167, 215, 247, 273; aspirational, 6, 12–13, 20–21, 32, 167, 214, 219, 272; decisive, 2–3, 6, 11–14, 19–23, 32, 38, 43, 158–59; democracy and, 75, 81, 90, 96–100, 111–13, 125, 129–30, 133, 260, 272–73; economic, 164; education and, 12–13, 21, 38, 45, 90, 158, 164, 167–68, 219, 234, 247, 273; electoral politics and, 21–22, 46, 100, 111, 158, 183, 217, 272; growth and, 2, 13, 23, 32, 111, 113, 164, 168, 247; knowledge economies and, 24, 138, 140, 158–59, 163–64, 167–68, 183, 213–19, 234–36, 245, 247; median, 3, 21, 23, 44, 96–97, 100, 125, 168, 213; Meltzer-Richard model and, 3; middle class, 2–3, 20–22, 44, 90, 96–100, 125, 140, 158, 168, 273; mobilizing, 75; neoliberalism and, 2; politics of the future and, 272–73; populism and, 217–19, 234–36, 244–47, 250, 256; prospective, 164; PR systems and, 19, 34, 100, 217; redistribution and, 3, 19–21, 32, 43, 90, 98, 100, 125, 140, 158, 273; retrospective, 164; suffrage and, 72–74, 76, 80, 87–89; technology and, 6, 13, 20, 159, 234, 260, 272; upper class and, 2; welfare and, 3, 21–22, 43, 45–46, 111, 167, 214, 234, 273 wages: bargaining and, 49–50, 61, 105–10, 119–21, 127, 151, 172, 176; coordination and, 49–50, 106–7, 120, 123, 172, 229; cospecificity and, 49–50; democracy and, 266, 268, 273; Fordism and, 104–24, 127, 284n2; Great Gatsby Curve (GGC) and, 220, 221, 227–28, 247, 259, 275–76; knowledge economies and, 151, 160, 172–76, 181, 196, 211–12, 219, 222–23, 227, 229; monopoly, 6; populism and, 219, 222–23, 227, 229; restraint and, 18, 110, 113, 120–21, 151, 176, 211–12; skilled labor and, 6, 18, 33, 41, 50, 61, 64, 67, 104–5, 110, 115, 118–24, 127, 172–76, 181, 212, 222–23, 229, 266 Wajcman, Judy, 260 Wallerstein, Michael, 105 Washington Consensus, 38 Waymo, 265 Weimar Republic, 75–77 welfare: Bismarckian, 176; capitalism and, 8, 16–19, 31, 39–40, 46, 122, 125, 128, 131, 137, 167, 234, 261, 279n5, 282n22; cash transfers and, 21; competition and, 31, 40, 52, 122, 128, 131, 223, 285n6; cospecificity and, 49–50; democracy and, 94, 96, 261, 273; education and, 31, 42, 45, 52, 94, 96, 116, 128, 131, 146, 167, 223, 234, 261, 287n1; Fordism and, 110–11, 115–28, 131; free riders and, 127; Golden Age of, 127; inequality and, 3, 42, 125, 223, 282n22; Keynesianism and, 115; knowledge economies and, 137, 146, 167, 176, 214, 223, 234, 249, 285n6, 285n8, 287n1; labor market and, 31, 46, 96, 118, 120, 122–23, 125, 128, 176, 223, 279n5; populism and, 45, 223, 234, 249, 287n1; power resources theory and, 280n6; public services and, 21; redistribution and, 3, 8, 18–21, 31, 39–40, 43, 115, 123–24, 128, 131, 137, 261, 273; skilled labor and, 45; social insurance and, 21; taxes and, 16–17, 21, 40, 42, 167; trade protectionism and, 51; undeserving poor and, 43; voters and, 3, 21–22, 43, 45–46, 111, 167, 214, 234, 273; wage coordination and, 49–50 Westminster systems, 19 Whigs, 80 Winters, J.


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A Game as Old as Empire: The Secret World of Economic Hit Men and the Web of Global Corruption by Steven Hiatt; John Perkins

"RICO laws" OR "Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations", "World Economic Forum" Davos, accelerated depreciation, addicted to oil, airline deregulation, Andrei Shleifer, Asian financial crisis, Berlin Wall, big-box store, Bob Geldof, book value, Bretton Woods, British Empire, capital controls, centre right, clean water, colonial rule, corporate governance, corporate personhood, deglobalization, deindustrialization, disinformation, Doha Development Round, energy security, European colonialism, export processing zone, financial deregulation, financial independence, full employment, global village, high net worth, land bank, land reform, large denomination, liberal capitalism, Long Term Capital Management, Mexican peso crisis / tequila crisis, Mikhail Gorbachev, military-industrial complex, moral hazard, Naomi Klein, new economy, North Sea oil, offshore financial centre, oil shock, Ponzi scheme, race to the bottom, reserve currency, Ronald Reagan, Scramble for Africa, Seymour Hersh, statistical model, structural adjustment programs, Suez crisis 1956, Tax Reform Act of 1986, too big to fail, trade liberalization, transatlantic slave trade, transfer pricing, union organizing, Washington Consensus, working-age population, Yom Kippur War

Naomi Klein, “Not Neo-Con, Just Plain Greed,” Globe and Mail (Toronto), December 20, 2003. 5. 2006 World Data Sheet (Washington, D.C.: Population Reference Bureau, 2006). 6. Ha-Joon Chang, Kicking Away the Ladder: How the Economic and Intellectual Histories of Capitalism Have Been Re-Written to Justify Neo-Liberal Capitalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002). 7. See www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/printnews.php?ID=79568. 8. Lishala C. Situmbeko (Bank of Zambia), and Jack Jones Zulu (Jubilee-Zambia), “Zambia: Condemned to Debt.” Accessed at www.africafocus.org/docs04/zam0406.php. 9. Asad Ismi, “Plunder with a Human Face: The World Bank,” Z Magazine, February 1998, p. 10. 10.

London: TNI/Pluto Press, 1999. Blum, William. Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II—Updated Through 2003. Monroe, Maine: Common Courage, 2003. Chang, Ha-Joon. Kicking Away the Ladder: How the Economic and Intellectual Histories of Capitalism Have Been Re-Written to Justify Neo-Liberal Capitalism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Chomsky, Noam. Hegemony or Survival: America’s Quest for Global Dominance. New York: Metropolitan, 2003. Noam Chomsky’s Web site is www.chomsky.info/. Coll, Steve. Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001.


pages: 767 words: 208,933

Liberalism at Large: The World According to the Economist by Alex Zevin

"there is no alternative" (TINA), activist fund / activist shareholder / activist investor, affirmative action, Alan Greenspan, anti-communist, Asian financial crisis, bank run, Berlin Wall, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, Bretton Woods, British Empire, business climate, business cycle, capital controls, carbon tax, centre right, Chelsea Manning, collective bargaining, Columbine, Corn Laws, corporate governance, corporate social responsibility, creative destruction, credit crunch, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, debt deflation, desegregation, disinformation, disruptive innovation, do well by doing good, Donald Trump, driverless car, Edward Snowden, failed state, Fall of the Berlin Wall, financial deregulation, financial innovation, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, full employment, Gini coefficient, Glass-Steagall Act, global supply chain, guns versus butter model, hiring and firing, imperial preference, income inequality, interest rate derivative, invisible hand, It's morning again in America, Jeremy Corbyn, John von Neumann, Joseph Schumpeter, Julian Assange, junk bonds, Khartoum Gordon, land reform, liberal capitalism, liberal world order, light touch regulation, Long Term Capital Management, low interest rates, market bubble, Martin Wolf, means of production, Michael Milken, Mikhail Gorbachev, Monroe Doctrine, Mont Pelerin Society, moral hazard, Naomi Klein, new economy, New Journalism, Nixon triggered the end of the Bretton Woods system, no-fly zone, Norman Macrae, Northern Rock, Occupy movement, Philip Mirowski, plutocrats, post-war consensus, price stability, quantitative easing, race to the bottom, railway mania, rent control, rent-seeking, road to serfdom, Ronald Reagan, Rosa Parks, Seymour Hersh, Snapchat, Socratic dialogue, Steve Bannon, subprime mortgage crisis, Suez canal 1869, Suez crisis 1956, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus, too big to fail, trade liberalization, trade route, unbanked and underbanked, underbanked, unorthodox policies, upwardly mobile, War on Poverty, WikiLeaks, Winter of Discontent, Yom Kippur War, young professional

Its correspondent was gung-ho about the dictatorship, which would endure for over four decades, killing or disappearing hundreds of thousands: ‘the government, the political parties, the labour unions, and the independent agencies dealing with such matters as social security and land reform had all been so thoroughly infiltrated by Communists that there was no alternative to starting all over again.’108 In contrast to Crowther, who was prepared to cut back social spending to pay for rearmament as the Cold War intensified, Ward saw butter for natives as the necessary complement to guns.109 Going considerably further than the Economist, in her last book as foreign editor Ward called on Britain and America each to dedicate 15 per cent of their national income to defence, with an annual 3 per cent added on for a colonial Marshall Plan – providing a boost to full employment at home and a form of social democracy abroad, as part of a worldwide Keynesian stimulus.110 At the end of 1950 Ward went abroad to test these theories, overseeing development projects with her Royal Navy officer husband, sending back reports to the Economist from India, Australia and the Gold Coast (where she grew close to Kwame Nkrumah).111 By then Ward was a star, crisscrossing the globe to extol liberal capitalism as a test of ‘faith and freedom’ – and now to far more powerful audiences, US Democrats like Adlai Stevenson, John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson.112 Donald Tyerman and the Cold War News Room Crowther may have moved the extreme centre to the right by 1950–51, but for the rest of the decade the newsroom he built was less narrow.

Milton Friedman, or that, even if they read Newsweek, they have ever heard of him.1 Brian Beedham, Robert Moss and Vietnam The moonlighting of a celebrity editor gave a great deal more freedom to his two deputies – Brian Beedham and Norman Macrae – each equally influential in their domains, both convinced liberal capitalism must fight communism to some final reckoning. How did the Economist represent the battlefields of the US Empire, which took that fight direct to the enemy, and what were the implications for democracy? From 1965 to 1989 the answers were given by the dour, domineering and articulate Brian ‘Bomber’ Beedham, whose author photos show him dressed like a retired US intelligence analyst in a natty sweater layered over a shirt and tie, wearing aviator glasses and a beard.

These people were not just enemies but lightweights, who well-meaning liberals mistakenly wished to engage in dialogue. In the end, his economic position dovetailed with Beedham’s politics: in a backward country like Brazil or Chile, or in a poor black neighbourhood in America or Britain, democracy could easily become the enemy of liberal capitalism. Richard Nixon, with scant respect for the former, received barely a slap on the wrist over Watergate. The Economist viewed the affair as a mildly amusing intrigue almost up to the day the president resigned.61 Macrae, at any rate, looking to escape from the corset of fixed exchange, praised Nixon for dismantling Bretton Woods between 1971 and 1973.62 Andrew Knight: Special Relationships, 1974–86 The Economist may have applauded the delinking of the dollar from gold and the effective end of the Bretton Woods system of fixed exchange in 1973.


Profit Over People: Neoliberalism and Global Order by Noam Chomsky

Alan Greenspan, Bernie Sanders, Bretton Woods, classic study, declining real wages, deindustrialization, full employment, invisible hand, Jim Simons, joint-stock company, land reform, liberal capitalism, manufacturing employment, means of production, Monroe Doctrine, Nixon triggered the end of the Bretton Woods system, public intellectual, Ronald Reagan, strikebreaker, structural adjustment programs, Telecommunications Act of 1996, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus, union organizing, Washington Consensus

Constraints on capital flow are barred: for example, the conditions imposed by Chile to discourage inflows of short-term capital, widely credited with having insulated Chile somewhat from the destructive impact of highly volatile financial markets subject to unpredictable herdlike irrationality. Or more far-reaching measures that might well reverse the deleterious consequences of liberalizing capital flows. Serious proposals to achieve these ends have been on the table for years, but have never reached the agenda of the “architects of power.” It may well be that the economy is harmed by financial liberalization, as the evidence suggests. But that is a matter of little moment in comparison with the advantages conferred by the liberalization of financial flows for a quarter century, initiated by the governments of the United States and UK, primarily.


pages: 470 words: 130,269

The Marginal Revolutionaries: How Austrian Economists Fought the War of Ideas by Janek Wasserman

"World Economic Forum" Davos, Abraham Wald, Albert Einstein, American Legislative Exchange Council, anti-communist, battle of ideas, Berlin Wall, Bretton Woods, business cycle, collective bargaining, Corn Laws, correlation does not imply causation, creative destruction, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, different worldview, Donald Trump, experimental economics, Fall of the Berlin Wall, floating exchange rates, Fractional reserve banking, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, full employment, Gunnar Myrdal, housing crisis, Internet Archive, invisible hand, John von Neumann, Joseph Schumpeter, laissez-faire capitalism, liberal capitalism, low interest rates, market fundamentalism, mass immigration, means of production, Menlo Park, military-industrial complex, Mont Pelerin Society, New Journalism, New Urbanism, old-boy network, Paul Samuelson, Philip Mirowski, price mechanism, price stability, public intellectual, RAND corporation, random walk, rent control, road to serfdom, Robert Bork, rolodex, Ronald Coase, Ronald Reagan, Silicon Valley, Simon Kuznets, The Chicago School, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas Kuhn: the structure of scientific revolutions, Thomas Malthus, trade liberalization, union organizing, urban planning, Vilfredo Pareto, Washington Consensus, zero-sum game, éminence grise

The 1937 publication of Walter Lippmann’s Inquiry into the Principles of the Good Society provided an impetus for a more coordinated reaction against the threats that Mises, Hayek, and the Chicagoans had identified. The Good Society initiated a transnational conversation about the salvation of liberalism, capitalism, and democracy. The Austrians were at the center of these developments as theorists, organizers, and ideologues.41 Lippmann’s The Good Society inspired many European and American intellectuals in defense of liberty and the capitalist order. Interestingly the book owed a substantial debt to Austrian ideas.

The shift from gold-backed to floating currencies has been called “probably the most significant market reform of the last 25 years,” and Machlup spearheaded its inception. The Machlup Group, MPS, AEI, and other free-market institutions turned a fringe idea into a dominant one. Supporters for liberalized capital exchange and floating currencies were a tiny minority in the early 1950s (about 5 percent of economists), but by the late 1960s they were hegemonic (about 90 percent). According to Matthias Schmelzer, no two individuals were more instrumental than Machlup and Haberler. The monetary changes they wrought developed hand in hand with liberalized international trade, globalization, the rise of multinational corporations, and a growing confidence in the power and logic of market thinking.


pages: 505 words: 138,917

Open: The Story of Human Progress by Johan Norberg

Abraham Maslow, additive manufacturing, affirmative action, Albert Einstein, anti-globalists, basic income, Berlin Wall, Bernie Sanders, Bletchley Park, Brexit referendum, British Empire, business cycle, business process, California gold rush, carbon tax, citizen journalism, classic study, Clayton Christensen, clean water, cognitive dissonance, collective bargaining, Corn Laws, coronavirus, COVID-19, creative destruction, crony capitalism, decarbonisation, deindustrialization, Deng Xiaoping, digital map, Donald Trump, Edward Jenner, fake news, Fall of the Berlin Wall, falling living standards, Filter Bubble, financial innovation, flying shuttle, Flynn Effect, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, future of work, Galaxy Zoo, George Gilder, Gini coefficient, global pandemic, global supply chain, global village, green new deal, humanitarian revolution, illegal immigration, income per capita, Indoor air pollution, indoor plumbing, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), invisible hand, Isaac Newton, Islamic Golden Age, James Watt: steam engine, Jane Jacobs, Jeff Bezos, job automation, John von Neumann, joint-stock company, Joseph Schumpeter, Kickstarter, knowledge economy, labour mobility, Lao Tzu, liberal capitalism, manufacturing employment, mass immigration, negative emissions, Network effects, open borders, open economy, Pax Mongolica, place-making, profit motive, RAND corporation, regulatory arbitrage, rent control, Republic of Letters, road to serfdom, Ronald Reagan, Schrödinger's Cat, sharing economy, side project, Silicon Valley, Solyndra, spice trade, stem cell, Steve Bannon, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Steven Pinker, tacit knowledge, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas L Friedman, too big to fail, trade liberalization, trade route, transatlantic slave trade, Tyler Cowen, Uber for X, ultimatum game, universal basic income, World Values Survey, Xiaogang Anhui farmers, zero-sum game

There were some exaggerated hopes swirling around at the time the Berlin Wall came down, but since Fukuyama wrote his article in 1989 the share of countries that are electoral democracies has actually increased from 41 to 64 per cent.1 The fact that most governments in the world pledge allegiance to democracy, some form of rule of law and a relatively open economy seems almost banal today, but this represents an astonishing turn of events, not just compared to the ancient past but even to 1974, when the German chancellor Willy Brandt thought that ‘Western Europe has only 20 or 30 years more of democracy left in it; after that it will slide, engineless and rudderless, under the surrounding sea of dictatorship.’2 But just because we can’t go forwards and replace liberal capitalism with an even more responsive and open system, it doesn’t mean we can’t go backwards. Fukuyama recognized that we live in a ‘world still full of authoritarianisms, theocracies, intolerant nationalisms’ and thought we could very well ‘drag the world back into history with all its wars, injustices, and revolution’.3 Far from being a triumphalist, Fukuyama feared that freedom and wealth would not be enough, as people fought for something more important: recognition and respect.

When he discussed whether the status-seeking and power-hungry would in the long run be satisfied with the comfortable life at the end of history, he just happened to mention ‘a developer like Donald Trump’.4 I don’t agree with all of Fukuyama’s analysis, and I do think he overdosed on Hegel and Nietzsche. But he was perceptive in his historical positioning of liberal capitalism and of the cultural and psychological factors that make us uncomfortable with it, and which therefore threaten to undermine it. Meanwhile, history has not been as kind to Samuel Huntington’s predictions as popular perception would have it. We did not experience global chaos after the Cold War; instead it has been the most peaceful era yet.5 Despite the Syrian civil war, the rate of battle deaths in 2018 was a quarter of what it was during the 1980s.


Rethinking Islamism: The Ideology of the New Terror by Meghnad Desai

Ayatollah Khomeini, battle of ideas, Berlin Wall, Dr. Strangelove, full employment, global village, illegal immigration, income per capita, invisible hand, liberal capitalism, liberation theology, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Wolf, means of production, Meghnad Desai, Nelson Mandela, oil shock, purchasing power parity, Ronald Reagan, structural adjustment programs, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Timothy McVeigh, Yom Kippur War

฀Many฀of฀these฀states฀had฀a฀large฀Muslim฀population฀ which฀had฀thus฀far฀been฀subjected฀to฀religious฀repression.฀Now฀that฀   ฀  the฀old฀system฀could฀no฀longer฀provide฀bread฀or฀circuses,฀the฀time฀ was฀ripe฀for฀Islamists฀to฀move฀in. Globalisation฀accelerated฀the฀spread฀of฀liberal฀capitalism.฀Many฀ countries฀ that฀ had฀ sought฀ to฀ use฀ their฀ independence฀ to฀ fashion฀ a฀ national฀ development฀ strategy฀ found฀ that฀ they฀ were฀ exposed฀ to฀ the฀ vagaries฀ of฀ the฀ international฀ bond฀ markets.฀ They฀ had฀ lost฀ their฀economic฀sovereignty.฀Countries฀that฀had฀a฀more฀or฀less฀wellfunctioning฀ economy฀ found฀ that฀ with฀ the฀ increased฀ availability฀ of฀ private฀ capital฀ old฀ policies฀ did฀ not฀ work฀ any฀ longer.฀ Mexico฀ had฀followed฀the฀advice฀of฀the฀IMF฀and฀won฀praise฀for฀its฀policy.฀ When฀the฀peso฀collapsed฀in฀December฀,฀there฀was฀widespread฀ misery.


pages: 173 words: 55,328

Last Best Hope: America in Crisis and Renewal by George Packer

affirmative action, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Alan Greenspan, anti-bias training, anti-communist, Berlin Wall, Bernie Sanders, Big Tech, BIPOC, Black Lives Matter, blue-collar work, Branko Milanovic, British Empire, business cycle, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, collective bargaining, coronavirus, COVID-19, crony capitalism, defund the police, deindustrialization, desegregation, disinformation, Donald Trump, failed state, fake news, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Ferguson, Missouri, fulfillment center, full employment, George Floyd, ghettoisation, gig economy, glass ceiling, informal economy, Jeff Bezos, knowledge economy, liberal capitalism, lockdown, Lyft, Mark Zuckerberg, mass immigration, meritocracy, minimum wage unemployment, new economy, Norman Mailer, obamacare, off-the-grid, postindustrial economy, prosperity theology / prosperity gospel / gospel of success, QAnon, ride hailing / ride sharing, road to serfdom, Ronald Reagan, school vouchers, self-driving car, Silicon Valley, social distancing, Social Justice Warrior, Steve Bannon, too big to fail, Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, Uber and Lyft, uber lyft, Upton Sinclair, white flight, working poor, young professional

If the narrative helps to create a more humane criminal justice system and bring Black Americans into the conditions of full equality, it will live up to its promise. But the grand systemic analysis usually ends in small symbolic politics. In some ways Just America resembles Real America and has entered the same dubious conflict from the other side. The disillusionment with liberal capitalism that gave rise to identity politics has also produced a new authoritarianism among many young white men. Just and Real America share a skepticism, from opposing points of view, about the universal ideas of the founding documents and the promise of America as a multi-everything democracy. There’s another way to understand Just America, like the other three narratives, and that’s in terms of class.


pages: 194 words: 56,074

Angrynomics by Eric Lonergan, Mark Blyth

AlphaGo, Amazon Mechanical Turk, anti-communist, Asian financial crisis, basic income, Ben Bernanke: helicopter money, Berlin Wall, Bernie Sanders, Big Tech, bitcoin, blockchain, Branko Milanovic, Brexit referendum, business cycle, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, central bank independence, collective bargaining, COVID-19, credit crunch, cryptocurrency, decarbonisation, deindustrialization, diversified portfolio, Donald Trump, Erik Brynjolfsson, Extinction Rebellion, fake news, full employment, gig economy, green new deal, Greta Thunberg, hiring and firing, Hyman Minsky, income inequality, income per capita, Jeremy Corbyn, job automation, labour market flexibility, liberal capitalism, lockdown, low interest rates, market clearing, Martin Wolf, Modern Monetary Theory, precariat, price stability, quantitative easing, Ronald Reagan, secular stagnation, self-driving car, Skype, smart grid, sovereign wealth fund, spectrum auction, The Future of Employment, The Great Moderation, The Spirit Level, universal basic income

To see why, let’s go back to our opening parable. The Karl in our opening parable is not Karl Marx, as you may have thought. Rather it was Karl Polanyi, a historian and sociologist. Polanyi wrote a book in 1944 called The Great Transformation that captured the essence of the bug in the software that killed version 1.0 of liberal capitalism, the version that emerged in the nineteenth century, spanned the globe by the turn of that century, and crashed and burned in the aftermath of the First World War. To find that bug, Polanyi asked the following question. Markets, trading, and prices have existed for as long as humans have been around, so what is it that makes economic organization “capitalist”?


pages: 621 words: 157,263

How to Change the World: Reflections on Marx and Marxism by Eric Hobsbawm

anti-communist, banking crisis, battle of ideas, Berlin Wall, British Empire, continuation of politics by other means, creative destruction, currency manipulation / currency intervention, deindustrialization, discovery of the americas, experimental subject, Fall of the Berlin Wall, full employment, Gunnar Myrdal, Herbert Marcuse, labour market flexibility, liberal capitalism, market fundamentalism, mass immigration, means of production, new economy, public intellectual, Simon Kuznets, Thorstein Veblen, Upton Sinclair, upwardly mobile, Vilfredo Pareto, zero-sum game

The object of social institutions is to ‘faire concourir les principales institutions à l’accroissement du bien- être des prolétaires’, defined simply as ‘la classe la plus nombreuse’ ( Organisation Sociale, 1825). On the other hand, insofar as the ‘industrialists’ are entrepreneurs and technocratic 28 Marx, Engels and pre-Marxian Socialism planners, they oppose not only the idle and parasitic ruling classes, but also the anarchy of bourgeois-liberal capitalism, of which he provides an early critique. Implicit in him is the recognition that industrialisation is fundamentally incompatible with an unplanned society. The emergence of the ‘industrial class’ is the result of history. How much of Saint-Simon’s views were his own, how much influenced by his secretary (1814–17), the historian Augustin Thierry, need not concern us.

Nevertheless, the fall of the USSR and the Soviet model was traumatic not only for communists but for socialists everywhere, if only because, with all its patent defects, it had been the only attempt actually to construct a socialist society. It had also produced a superpower which for almost half a century acted as a global counterbalance to the capitalism of the old capitalist countries. In both these respects its failure, not to mention its patent inferiority in most respects to Western liberal capitalism, was manifest, even to those who did not share the post-1989 triumphalism of Washington ideologists. Capitalism had lost its memento mori. Socialists saw that the end of the Soviet Union 386 Marxism in Recession 1983–2000 foreclosed any hope that somehow a different and better socialism (‘with a human face’ as the Prague Spring put it) could emerge from the heritage of the October Revolution.


pages: 613 words: 151,140

No Such Thing as Society by Andy McSmith

"there is no alternative" (TINA), anti-communist, Ayatollah Khomeini, Berlin Wall, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, Black Monday: stock market crash in 1987, Bob Geldof, Boris Johnson, British Empire, Brixton riot, Bullingdon Club, call centre, cuban missile crisis, Etonian, F. W. de Klerk, Farzad Bazoft, feminist movement, fixed income, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, friendly fire, full employment, glass ceiling, God and Mammon, greed is good, illegal immigration, index card, John Bercow, Kickstarter, liberal capitalism, light touch regulation, Live Aid, loadsamoney, long peace, means of production, Mikhail Gorbachev, mortgage debt, mutually assured destruction, negative equity, Neil Kinnock, Nelson Mandela, North Sea oil, Northern Rock, old-boy network, popular capitalism, Right to Buy, Ronald Reagan, Rubik’s Cube, Sloane Ranger, South Sea Bubble, spread of share-ownership, Stephen Fry, strikebreaker, Suez crisis 1956, The Chicago School, union organizing, upwardly mobile, urban decay, Winter of Discontent, young professional

People expected this contest between rival systems to continue indefinitely. Instead, they saw it coming to a quick, decisive and non-violent end. As communism rolled out of Eastern Europe in 1989, an American philosopher forecast that the end of history was approaching13 and that every other political system in the world would evolve into the western model of liberal capitalism. These developments were mirrored in domestic politics. Since 1945, the UK had edged towards becoming more ‘socialist’, with free medicine, free schools, state pensions and more than 40 per cent of the country’s industrial capacity owned by the state. Within the Labour Party, there was a vigorous movement led by Tony Benn to give the country another sharp push in the same direction.

‘Nowadays, there is a clear tendency to proclaim the death of all ideologies in the name of the victory of capitalism,’ the novelist Carlos Fuentes lamented, writing in the Guardian in the last week of 1990.16 However, to proclaim that history has ended, that all ideologies have been routed by the final victory of liberal capitalism is itself ideological. It was to be the prevailing ideology of the 1990s. British history did not end during the 1980s, but it did slow down, because the events of that turbulent decade had settled the way that Britons would be ruled and the way they thought about the world for at least the next quarter of a century.


pages: 498 words: 145,708

Consumed: How Markets Corrupt Children, Infantilize Adults, and Swallow Citizens Whole by Benjamin R. Barber

"World Economic Forum" Davos, Abraham Maslow, addicted to oil, AltaVista, American ideology, An Inconvenient Truth, AOL-Time Warner, Berlin Wall, Bertrand Russell: In Praise of Idleness, Bill Gates: Altair 8800, bread and circuses, business cycle, Celebration, Florida, collective bargaining, creative destruction, David Brooks, delayed gratification, digital divide, do well by doing good, Donald Trump, double entry bookkeeping, Dr. Strangelove, G4S, game design, George Gilder, Gordon Gekko, greed is good, Herbert Marcuse, Hernando de Soto, illegal immigration, informal economy, invisible hand, John Perry Barlow, Joseph Schumpeter, laissez-faire capitalism, late capitalism, liberal capitalism, Marc Andreessen, McJob, microcredit, Naomi Klein, new economy, New Journalism, Norbert Wiener, nuclear winter, Panopticon Jeremy Bentham, Paradox of Choice, pattern recognition, presumed consent, profit motive, race to the bottom, Ralph Nader, retail therapy, road to serfdom, Robert Bork, Ronald Reagan, Saturday Night Live, Silicon Valley, SimCity, spice trade, Steve Jobs, telemarketer, The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid, the market place, The Wisdom of Crowds, Thomas L Friedman, Thorstein Veblen, trade route, Tyler Cowen, vertical integration, Virgin Galactic, X Prize

It defines the ideal capitalist protagonist as the prudent bookkeeper: the calculating investor who is capable of hard work and long-term rational planning as well as sustained saving. The several stages that then interpose themselves between Weber’s ideal moment of capitalist takeoff can be called “Liberal Capitalism,” accompanied by an ethic of radical individualism and defined by the protagonist as free chooser (the individual defined by autonomy and rights); then “Managerial Capitalism,” accompanying and accompanied by an ethic of organization and conservation defined by the ideal protagonist as manager.

As entrepreneurial competition was overtaken by cartels and monopoly, democratic antitrust legislation saved capitalism from itself. Egoism found itself up against a civic community willing to enforce the rights of the public. Ayn Rand in a face-off with John Dewey. Hoover versus FDR. John D. Rockefeller’s capitalism in check. Liberal capitalism was accompanied and to some degree succeeded by a phase of managerial capitalism, best exemplified by the 1950s and 1960s in the United States when management of capital became more important than ownership, and the deployment of resources more valuable than the creation of resources. Corporate managers grew conservative, seeing their task as maintaining wealth and perhaps expanding it on paper rather than in reality.


pages: 554 words: 158,687

Profiting Without Producing: How Finance Exploits Us All by Costas Lapavitsas

Alan Greenspan, Andrei Shleifer, asset-backed security, bank run, banking crisis, Basel III, Bear Stearns, borderless world, Branko Milanovic, Bretton Woods, business cycle, capital controls, Carmen Reinhart, central bank independence, collapse of Lehman Brothers, computer age, conceptual framework, corporate governance, credit crunch, Credit Default Swap, David Graeber, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, disintermediation, diversified portfolio, Erik Brynjolfsson, eurozone crisis, everywhere but in the productivity statistics, false flag, financial deregulation, financial independence, financial innovation, financial intermediation, financial repression, Flash crash, full employment, general purpose technology, Glass-Steagall Act, global value chain, global village, High speed trading, Hyman Minsky, income inequality, inflation targeting, informal economy, information asymmetry, intangible asset, job satisfaction, joint-stock company, Joseph Schumpeter, Kenneth Rogoff, liberal capitalism, London Interbank Offered Rate, low interest rates, low skilled workers, M-Pesa, market bubble, means of production, Minsky moment, Modern Monetary Theory, Money creation, money market fund, moral hazard, mortgage debt, Network effects, new economy, oil shock, open economy, pensions crisis, post-Fordism, Post-Keynesian economics, price stability, Productivity paradox, profit maximization, purchasing power parity, quantitative easing, quantitative trading / quantitative finance, race to the bottom, regulatory arbitrage, reserve currency, Robert Shiller, Robert Solow, savings glut, Scramble for Africa, secular stagnation, shareholder value, Simon Kuznets, special drawing rights, Thales of Miletus, The Chicago School, The Great Moderation, the payments system, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Tobin tax, too big to fail, total factor productivity, trade liberalization, transaction costs, union organizing, value at risk, Washington Consensus, zero-sum game

An early and incisive critique of Hilferding reliance on German/Austrian phenomena was made by Kozo Uno (Keizai Seisakuron, Tokyo: Kobundo Shobo, 1936, part 3, ch. 2), who suggested that finance capital actually takes several forms, and British finance capital is heavily dependent on stock markets. Uno was fully aware of the importance of joint-stock capital for Hilferding’s analysis (part 3, ch.1). The specific character of joint-stock capital was vital to Uno defining the stage of ‘imperialism’ in contrast to the stages of ‘liberal’ capitalism and ‘mercantilism’. 42 Lenin’s view of imperialism was developed in a variety of writings during 1915–17; see Bibliography. 43 See, for instance, John Gallagher and Ronald Robinson, ‘The Imperialism of Free Trade’, Economic History Review 6:1, 1953; and David Fieldhouse, The West and the Third World, Oxford: Blackwell, 1999. 44 Joseph A.

In Marx’s writings, the spontaneously arising form of the capitalist credit system has close affinities with market-based finance.58 That is, the credit system comprises banks that lend essentially on a short-term basis by mobilizing idle money capital. Hilferding’s innovative argument about the transformation of capitalism due to the emergence of finance capital can thus be understood in terms of the market-based financial system of competitive liberal capitalism spontaneously becoming the bank-based system of mature (and declining) capitalism. For Hilferding, banks dominate the financial system in mature capitalism, even though the capital market also grows as it supports finance capital. The future of capitalism for Hilferding lay in Germany, a late developer that relied on her banks, not England, a declining power in which banks kept their distance from corporations.


pages: 223 words: 58,732

The Retreat of Western Liberalism by Edward Luce

"World Economic Forum" Davos, 3D printing, affirmative action, Airbnb, Alan Greenspan, basic income, Berlin Wall, Bernie Sanders, Boris Johnson, Branko Milanovic, bread and circuses, Bretton Woods, Brexit referendum, business cycle, call centre, carried interest, centre right, Charles Lindbergh, cognitive dissonance, colonial exploitation, colonial rule, computer age, corporate raider, cuban missile crisis, currency manipulation / currency intervention, disinformation, Dissolution of the Soviet Union, Doha Development Round, Donald Trump, double entry bookkeeping, driverless car, Erik Brynjolfsson, European colonialism, everywhere but in the productivity statistics, Evgeny Morozov, fake news, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, future of work, gentrification, George Santayana, gig economy, Gini coefficient, global pandemic, global supply chain, Great Leap Forward, illegal immigration, imperial preference, income inequality, independent contractor, informal economy, Internet of things, Jaron Lanier, knowledge economy, lateral thinking, Les Trente Glorieuses, liberal capitalism, Marc Andreessen, Mark Zuckerberg, Martin Wolf, mass immigration, means of production, meritocracy, microaggression, Monroe Doctrine, moral panic, more computing power than Apollo, mutually assured destruction, new economy, New Urbanism, Norman Mailer, offshore financial centre, one-China policy, opioid epidemic / opioid crisis, Peace of Westphalia, Peter Thiel, plutocrats, precariat, purchasing power parity, reserve currency, reshoring, Richard Florida, Robert Gordon, Robert Solow, Ronald Reagan, Second Machine Age, self-driving car, sharing economy, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley billionaire, Skype, Snapchat, software is eating the world, South China Sea, Steve Bannon, Steve Jobs, superstar cities, telepresence, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas L Friedman, Tyler Cowen, Tyler Cowen: Great Stagnation, universal basic income, unpaid internship, Washington Consensus, We are the 99%, We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters, white flight, World Values Survey, Yogi Berra

The West is good at screening out local detail when it is inconvenient, particularly in regard to Russia. In the 1980s, the Soviet Union’s collapse humiliated an entire generation of Western Sovietologists. None had been expecting it. In the 1990s, we convinced ourselves Russia was in transition from socialist autocracy to liberal capit­alism, even while Western consultants urged Moscow to adopt shock therapy, which would enable the rise of a new Russian oligarchy. On Western advice, Yeltsin privatised Russia’s most valuable state assets in a fire sale to a small coterie of businessmen in exchange for bankrolling his 1996 re-election.


pages: 221 words: 55,901

The Globalization of Inequality by François Bourguignon

Berlin Wall, Branko Milanovic, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, collective bargaining, Credit Default Swap, deglobalization, deindustrialization, Doha Development Round, Edward Glaeser, European colonialism, Fall of the Berlin Wall, financial deregulation, financial intermediation, gender pay gap, Gini coefficient, Glass-Steagall Act, income inequality, income per capita, labor-force participation, liberal capitalism, low interest rates, minimum wage unemployment, offshore financial centre, open economy, Pareto efficiency, purchasing power parity, race to the bottom, Robert Gordon, Simon Kuznets, structural adjustment programs, The Spirit Level, too big to fail, very high income, Washington Consensus

See also emerging economies development aid, 148–53, 157 development gap, 34–35, 83 Di Bao program, 166 discrimination: ghettos and, 66– 67; immigrants and, 64, 66, 127; labor and, 64–66, 69, 132, 142, 180–81; non-­material inequalites and, 64–66, 69; racial, 65; women and, 64–65, 103 disinflation, 95, 102, 110 distribution, 10n1, 186; capital-­ labor split and, 55–58, 60; efficiency and, 142–45; evolution of inequality and, 41, 42t, 44t, 45, 46t, 48–59, 64, 71–72; fairer globalization and, 148, 153, 156–73, 175, 178; geographical disequilibria and, 83; Gini coefficient and, 18 (see also Gini coefficient); global, 18–19, 25, 29, 39, 41, 46t, 121, 124–38, 141– 45, 156; growth and, 49–50, 188; international, 17–18, 30, 148; median of, 31; OECD countries and, 10–11, 12n3; policy and, 26, 72, 135, 188; range of, 16; real earnings loss and, 78; redistribution and, 4, 7, 37 (see also redistribution); rise in inequality and, 74, 77–79, 82, 85, 90–92, 94–96, 99, 103–4, 106–7, 112, 114–15; Southern perspective on, 82–85; standard of living and, 16, 18 (see also standard of living); taxes and, 37, 92–94 (see also taxes); Theil coefficient and, 18–19, 37–38, 194 distribution (cont.) 52; transfers and, 4, 14, 48, 105, 110, 130, 135–36, 142, 148, 153, 158–67, 170, 175, 181, 183, 187; wage, 3, 78–79, 107 Divided We Stand report, 52 Doha negotiations, 154 drugs, 66, 133 Dubai, 127 Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs), 156 education, 34, 187; college, 132; evolution of inequality and, 61, 65–68; fairer globalization and, 149, 152, 167–73, 180–81; globalization and, 132, 140, 143; labor and, 168, 180; Millennium Development Goals and, 149– 50; national inequality and, 167–73; poverty and, 24; preschool, 169–70; redistribution and, 149, 152, 167–73; rise in inequality and, 111; taxes and, 167–73; tuition and, 170 efficiency: data transfer technology and, 78; deregulation and, 94, 96, 105, 108; economic, 1, 4, 6, 111, 116, 119, 129–33, 135, 140–45, 158, 164, 167, 171, 181; emerging economies and, 78; equality and, 116, 129–31; fairness and, 8, 129– 31; globalization and, 1, 4, 6, 8, 36, 78, 94, 96, 105, 108, 111, 116, 118–19, 129–35, 140–45, 157–58, 164, 167, 170–71, 175, 180–81, 188; human capital and, 175; import substitution and, 34, 180; inefficiency and, 105, 129–30, 132–33, 135, 140, 170–71, 180, 188; labor Index and, 175; loss of, 142, 164; opportunity and, 142–45; Pareto, 130n5; privatization and, 94, 96, 105, 108; redistribution and, 142–45; rents and, 180; social tensions and, 188; spontaneous redistribution and, 133; taxes and, 170; technology and, 78; weak institutions and, 36; wealth of nations and, 1 elitism, 182; fairer globalization and, 151, 165; globalization and, 127n4, 136, 138; rise in inequality and, 4, 6–7 emerging economies: Africa and, 122–23 (see also Africa); competition and, 178, 187–88; conditional cash transfers and, 165– 66; credit cards and, 165; domestic markets and, 120, 125; efficient data transfer and, 78; evolution of inequality and, 57; fairer globalization and, 147, 154, 158, 165–66, 177–78, 182; global inequality and, 40, 77– 80, 82, 109, 113, 115, 188–89; globalization and, 117, 119–22, 125–27; institutions and, 109– 12; Kuznets curve and, 113; labor and, 77; natural resources and, 127; profits and, 117; rise in inequality and, 109–12; structural adjustment and, 109– 12; taxes and, 165; trends in, 57; Washington consensus and, 109–10, 153 entrepreneurs, 83, 92, 96, 131–32, 135, 143, 170–71, 188 equality: efficiency and, 116, 129– 31; policy for, 184–89; relative gap and, 18, 28, 30, 31–32, 36 Ethiopia, 21–22, 46t, 155 Index195 European Union (EU), 24, 156, 174, 177 Everything But Arms (EBA) initiative, 155 evolution of inequality: Africa and, 46t, 54–55; Brazil and, 46t, 55, 59, 70; capital and, 55–58, 60, 73; China and, 47, 53, 57–60; consumption and, 42t, 44t; convergence and, 65, 69; credit and, 61; crises and, 48, 50, 54, 57, 73–74; developed countries and, 47, 52–53, 56, 59–64, 66; developing countries and, 47, 53–55, 57, 63, 68; distribution and, 41, 42t, 44t, 45, 46t, 48–59, 64, 71– 72; education and, 61, 65–68; elitism and, 4, 6–7, 46t; emerging economies and, 57; exceptions and, 52–53; France and, 46t, 51f, 52–53, 55, 58, 59n8, 62–63, 66, 70–71; ghettos and, 66–67; Gini coefficient and, 39, 42t, 44t, 48, 50, 51f, 53, 58–59; Great Depression and, 48; growth and, 33, 49–50, 54; India and, 54, 57, 59–60; institutions and, 55, 69; investment and, 56; labor and, 55–58, 60; markets and, 48–50, 53–54, 64, 69; national income inequality and, 48–52; non-­monetary inequalities and, 49, 60–70; normalization and, 41, 43–44; opportunity and, 61–62, 68, 70–71; perceptions of inequality and, 69–73; policy and, 55, 72; primary income and, 48–50, 58; production and, 57; productivity and, 63; profit and, 56; reform and, 54, 72; rise in inequality in, 48–52, 73, 77–80, 91–95, 97–98, 102–8; risk and, 63, 66; standard of living and, 41, 43– 45, 46t, 53–55, 58, 60–62, 67, 69, 73; surveys and, 42t, 43–45, 56, 68n17, 69–71; taxes and, 12–14, 37, 48, 50, 56n5; Theil coefficient and, 42; United Kingdom and, 46t, 50, 51f, 59, 67, 68n17; United States and, 2, 4–6, 9, 11, 21, 33, 46t, 47–50, 51f, 58, 59n9, 66–70, 73; wealth and, 58–60 executives, 73, 88–89, 97, 174 expenditure per capita, 13, 15, 42t, 44t exports: deindustrialization and, 76, 82; fairer globalization and, 147, 154–55, 176, 178; globalization and, 124, 128; rise in inequality and, 76, 82–84 fairer globalization: Africa and, 147, 151, 154–56, 179, 183; African Growth Opportunity Act (AGOA) and, 155; Bolsa Familia and, 166; Brazil and, 150, 154, 166–68, 173; capital and, 158–62, 167, 171, 175, 182; China and, 150, 154, 165–66, 172, 178; competition and, 155, 169, 173, 176–79, 182; consumers and, 177–78; consumption and, 159, 177; convergence and, 146–47, 157; correcting national inequalities and, 158–80; credit and, 164–65, 172, 180; crises and, 163, 176; deregulation and, 173; developed countries and, 150, 154–57, 160, 162, 164, 168–72, 176, 178–79, 181; developing countries and, 154, 166; development aid and, 196 fairer globalization (cont.) 148–53, 157; Di Bao program and, 166; distribution and, 148, 153, 156–73, 175, 178; Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) and, 156; education and, 149, 152, 167–73; 180–81; elitism and, 151, 165; emerging economies and, 147, 154, 158, 165–66, 177–78, 182; Everything But Arms (EBA) initiative and, 155; exports and, 147, 154–55, 176, 178; France and, 147, 159–61, 164, 169, 175, 177; Gini coefficient and, 156, 166; goods and services sector and, 180; growth and, 147–52, 155, 162, 167–68, 171, 177, 180, 183; health issues and, 152, 166; imports and, 154, 177–78, 180; India and, 150, 154, 165– 66, 172; inheritance and, 170– 73; institutions and, 151, 168, 174–75; international trade and, 176–77; investment and, 150, 155, 157, 160, 170, 174, 179; liberalization and, 156, 179; markets and, 147–48, 154–58, 168, 173–75, 178–81; Millennium Development Goals and, 149–50; national inequality and, 147, 158; opportunity and, 155, 167, 170, 172; policy and, 147–53, 157, 167–73, 175, 177, 179–83; poverty and, 147–52, 164, 166, 175; prices and, 147– 48, 176, 178, 182; primary income and, 158, 163n10, 167, 173; production and, 155–57, 167, 176, 178–79; productivity and, 155, 177–78; profit and, 173, 176; Progresa program and, Index 166; protectionism and, 7, 147, 154, 157, 176–79; redistribution and, 148, 153, 156–73, 175, 178; reform and, 151, 161, 163, 168–69; regulation and, 152, 173–76, 181–82; risk and, 148, 154, 156, 159, 164, 171, 174–75, 178; standard of living and, 146–48, 154, 156–58, 160, 165, 168–69; surveys and, 169; taxes and, 148, 158–73, 175, 181–83; technology and, 156, 173; TRIPS and, 156; United Kingdom and, 163, 169; United States and, 155, 159–61, 163– 64, 169, 174–75, 182; wealth and, 162, 164, 167, 170–73 Fitoussi, Jean-­Paul, 14 France: evolution of inequality and, 46t, 51f, 52–53, 55, 58, 59n8, 62–63, 66, 70–71; fairer globalization and, 147, 159–61, 164, 169, 175, 177; Gini coefficient of, 20; global inequality and, 2, 9, 11, 20–21; offshoring and, 81; rise in inequality and, 80, 88, 92–93, 95, 97, 99, 103; soccer and, 87; wage deductions and, 159 G7 countries, 56 G20 countries, 182 Garcia-­Panalosa, Cecilia, 107 Gates, Bill, 5–6, 70, 150 Germany, 2, 21, 46t, 50, 51f, 80, 88, 92 Ghana, 46t, 54 ghettos, 66–67 Giertz, Seth, 160–61 Gini coefficient: Brazil and, 22; Current Population Survey and, 21; evolution of inequality and, Index197 39, 42t, 44t, 48, 50, 51f, 53, 58– 59; fairer globalization and, 156, 166; France and, 20; historical perspective on, 27–28; meaning of, 18–19; purchasing power parity and, 28; rise in inequality and, 110; United States and, 21; wealth inequality and, 58–60 Glass-­Steagall Act, 174n15 global distribution, 18–19, 25, 29, 39, 41, 46t, 121, 156 global inequality: Africa and, 16, 21, 23, 30–31, 34, 36; between countries, 2–3, 5, 7, 9, 16–19, 23, 33, 36, 38–39, 42–45, 47, 53, 58, 68, 90–91, 107, 117–19, 123, 128, 153; Brazil and, 21– 23; crises and, 20, 38–41; cross-­ country heterogeneity and, 13; definition of, 3–4, 9–10, 25–26, 30–32, 39; developed countries and, 10–11, 21, 34–39; developing countries and, 10–11, 13, 21, 32, 34–39; effects of, 38–40; emerging economies and, 40, 77–80, 82, 109, 113, 115, 188– 89; at the end of the 2000s, 20– 25; evolution of inequality and, 41 (see also evolution of inequality); expenditure per capita and, 13, 15, 42t, 44t; France and, 2, 9, 11, 20–21; globalization and, 117–18, 121–23, 128; great gap and, 33–36; historic turning point for, 25–32; Human Development Report and, 25; institutions and, 36; measuring, 10– 20; Millennium Development Goals and, 149–50, 185; normalization and, 13, 15, 22–23, 26, 29; OECD Database on Household Income Distribution and Poverty and, 11–12; policy and, 185–89; Povcal database and, 10, 12, 42t, 43, 44t; prices and, 27–28, 74, 80, 84, 91–92, 94, 97, 110; profit and, 13; reduction of, 2, 185–86; relative gap and, 18, 28, 30–32, 36; rise of, 2–4, 7; risk and, 20; standard of living and, 10–26, 29, 31–33, 36, 39; surveys on, 10, 12–15, 20n10, 21–22, 29, 42t, 43–45; technology and, 3–4, 34–35; trend reversal in, 37–38; within countries, 2, 5–7, 9, 16, 30, 33, 35–45, 47, 113–14, 118, 124– 29, 184–85, 189 globalization: Africa and, 122–23, 126–27; Asian dragons and, 34, 82; Brazil and, 127, 133; capital and, 117, 125–26, 132, 137; China and, 120–22, 128; competition and, 117–18, 130, 186 (see also competition); as complex historical phenomenon, 1–2; consumption and, 137–39; convergence and, 120–22, 125; credit and, 131–32, 137–40; crises and, 119–22, 125, 135–39, 142; debate over, 1; deindustrialization in developed countries and, 75–82; democratic societies and, 135–36; deregulation and, 95–99; developed countries and, 117, 119, 121, 127n4, 128, 133, 143; developing countries and, 121, 127n4, 128, 132, 143; education and, 132, 140, 143; efficiency and, 1, 4, 6, 8, 36, 78, 94, 96, 105, 108, 111, 116, 118–19, 129–35, 140–45, 157–58, 164, 167, 170–71, 175, 180–81, 188; elitism and, 127n4, 136, 138; 198 globalization (cont.) emerging economies and, 117, 119–22, 125–27; exports and, 124, 128; fairer, 146–83 (see also fairer globalization); future of inequality between countries and, 119–22; global inequality and, 117–18, 121–23, 128; goods and services sector and, 127, 130; growth and, 118–29, 134–39; health issues and, 140– 41, 144; Heckscher-­Ohlin model and, 76; imports and, 119, 124; inequality within countries and, 124–29; inheritance and, 144–45; institutions and, 124; as instrument for modernization, 1; international trade and, 3, 75–76, 78–79, 83, 112, 114, 176–77; investment and, 119, 130, 134–35, 143; laissez-­faire approach and, 118, 129; markets and, 118, 120–21, 124–37, 140, 143–44; as moral threat, 1; national inequality and, 119; negative consequences of inequality and, 131–42; opportunity and, 133–34, 139, 142–44; as panacea, 1; policy and, 118–19, 124, 126, 128–31, 139, 143–44; poverty and, 117, 123, 126–27, 134, 144; prices and, 118, 122, 126, 136–38; primary income and, 135, 143–44; production and, 119, 124, 126, 129, 131, 133, 137; productivity and, 120, 125, 127, 144; profit and, 117; redistribution and, 121, 124–38, 141–45; reform and, 124, 126–27, 138; regulation and, 136; rise in inequality and, 117–18; risk and, 127–28, Index 137–39, 144; shocks and, 38, 55, 91–92, 175; Southern perspective on, 82–85; standard of living and, 120–23, 126, 138, 143; surveys and, 127n4, 141n15; taxes and, 74, 89n10, 91–94, 104, 114–15, 129–30, 135–36, 142–45; technology and, 86–91, 118–20, 125; trends and, 118; United States and, 135–39; wealth and, 74, 95, 98, 125, 127, 129, 131–32, 139, 143–45 Great Depression, 48 Greece, 46t, 135 gross domestic product (GDP) measurement: Current Population Survey and, 21; evolution of inequality and, 41–45, 56–57; fairer globalization and, 123, 127, 165–66, 176; global inequality and, 13–15, 20–21, 23, 26, 27f, 29–30, 39; normalization and, 29, 41, 43–45; rise in inequality and, 94; Sen-­Stiglitz-­ Fitoussi report and, 14 Gross National Income (GNI), 148–49 Growing Unequal report, 52 growth, 4; African Growth Opportunity Act (AGOA) and, 155; constraints and, 35; consumption and, 13–15, 42t, 44t, 80, 137–39, 159, 177; convergence and, 16; determinants of, 34; distribution and, 49–50, 188; emerging economies and, 125 (see also emerging economies); evolution of inequality and, 33, 49–50, 54; fairer globalization and, 147–52, 155, 162, 167–68, 171, 177, 180, 183; GDP mea- Index199 surement of, 30, 39 (see also gross domestic product (GDP) measurement); globalization and, 118–29, 134–39; great gap in, 33–36; import substitution and, 34, 180; inflation and, 50, 95, 102, 110; negative, 31; political reversals and, 36; poverty and, 28–29; production and, 3, 34–35, 57, 74, 76–81, 84–86, 119, 124, 126, 129, 131, 133, 137, 155–57, 167, 176, 178–79; rate of, 15, 29–35, 79, 125, 185; recession and, 6, 31, 99, 120; relative gap and, 18, 20, 30–32, 36; rise in inequality and, 75, 79, 82, 84, 109–12; trends in, 40, 121 health issues, 24, 187; fairer globalization and, 152, 166; globalization and, 140–41, 144; public healthcare and, 37, 111, 140 Heckscher-­Ohlin model, 76 Hong Kong, 34, 82, 174 housing, 12, 61, 137 human capital, 74, 167, 175 Human Development Report, 25 Ibrahimovich, Zlata, 87 IKEA, 172 immigrants, 64, 66, 127 imports: fairer globalization and, 154, 177–78, 180; globalization and, 119, 124; import substitution and, 34, 180; rise in inequality and, 80 income: average, 9, 18, 21, 29–30, 43, 72; bonuses and, 87, 174; convergence and, 16; currency conversion and, 11; definition of, 45; deindustrialization and, 75–82; developed/developing countries and, 5, 36; disposable, 20, 22, 24, 48, 50, 51f, 74, 91, 163; distribution of, 3 (see also distribution); executives and, 73, 88–89, 97, 174; family, 10; financial operators and, 87–88, 90–91; gap in, 3, 5–6, 27f, 33– 36, 42t, 44t, 149; GDP measurement and, 13–15, 20–21, 23, 26, 27f, 29–30, 39, 41–45, 56–57, 94, 123, 127, 165–66, 176; high, 50, 52, 56, 85–93, 97–99, 140, 143, 158–62, 164, 189; household, 10–12, 43, 45, 50, 58, 105, 107, 137, 163, 177; inequality in, 2, 4, 41, 48–50, 56–64, 68, 70, 72–73, 83, 98, 102–3, 107–8, 114, 125, 132– 34, 137, 140–41, 143–44, 163; inflation and, 50, 95, 102, 110; international scale for, 17–18, 23, 30; lawyers and, 89–90; mean, 17, 20n10, 27f, 42t, 44t; median, 6, 49, 71, 102–3, 106; minimum wage and, 52–53, 100, 102–8, 175, 177; national, 7, 16–19, 30, 43, 48–52, 60, 73, 84n6, 125, 149, 153, 172; OECD Database on Household Income Distribution and Poverty and, 11; opportunity and, 5; payroll and, 53, 93, 100, 104, 107, 175; pension systems and, 167; per capita, 20, 25, 29–30, 42t, 45, 48, 55–56, 120; portfolios and, 88; poverty and, 1, 11, 15n6, 19–20, 22–25, 28–29, 32, 44t, 109, 117, 123, 126–27, 134, 144, 147–52, 164, 166, 175; primary, 48–50, 58, 135, 143–44, 158, 163n10, 167, 173; 200 income (cont.) purchasing power and, 11, 13, 19–24, 27f, 28, 50, 80, 144, 158, 178; real earnings loss and, 78; relative gap and, 18, 28, 30, 31– 32, 36; superstars and, 85–87, 89–90; taxes and, 37, 89n10, 92–93, 145, 159, 161–65, 170 (see also taxes); technology and, 34, 180; virtual, 12; wage inequality and, 51–53, 79, 101–3, 106, 108; wage ladder effects and, 78–79; wealth inequality and, 58–60; women and, 64– 65, 103 India: evolution of inequality and, 54, 57, 59–60; fairer globalization and, 150, 154, 165– 66, 172; household consumption and, 15; international trade and, 75; Kuznets hypothesis and, 113; rise in inequality and, 2, 15–16, 19, 30, 34, 46t, 75, 83, 90, 112–13; taxes and, 165 Indonesia, 30, 46t, 54, 111, 127 industrialization: deindustrialization and, 1, 75–82, 102, 120, 188; labor and, 1, 26, 29, 33, 35, 54, 82, 84, 102, 113, 120, 127, 179, 188 Industrial Revolution, 26, 29, 33, 35 inequality: between countries, 2–3, 5, 7, 9, 16–19, 23, 33, 36, 38– 39, 42–45, 47, 53, 58, 68, 90– 91, 107, 117–19, 123, 128, 153; efficiency and, 1, 4, 6, 8, 36, 78, 94, 96, 105, 108, 111, 116, 118– 19, 129–35, 140–45, 157–58, 164, 167, 170–71, 175, 180–81, 188; Gini coefficient and, 18 (see Index also Gini coefficient); income, 2, 4, 41, 48–50, 56–64, 68, 70, 72–73, 83, 98, 102–3, 107–8, 114, 125, 132–34, 137, 140–41, 143–44, 163; international, 17; inverted U curve and, 54, 113; measurement of, 18; negative consequences of, 131–42; non-­ monetary, 49, 60–70; perceptions of, 69–73; social tensions and, 188; standard of living and, 18 (see also standard of living); Theil coefficient and, 18–19, 37–38, 42; wealth, 58–60; within countries, 2, 5–7, 9, 16, 30, 33, 37–45, 47, 113–14, 118, 124–29, 184–85, 189 infant mortality, 150 inflation, 50, 95, 102, 110 inheritance: fairer globalization and, 170–73; globalization and, 144–45; rise in inequality and, 93 institutions: deregulation and, 91– 112 (see also deregulation); disinflation and, 95, 102, 110; emerging economies and, 109– 12; evolution of inequality and, 55, 69; fairer globalization and, 151, 168, 174–75; global inequality and, 36; globalization and, 124; markets and, 91–92; privatization and, 94–109; reform and, 91–112; rise in inequality and, 91–112, 114; structural adjustment and, 109– 12; taxes and, 92–94; “too big to fail” concept and, 174–75; Washington consensus and, 109–10, 153 International Development Association, 149 Index201 international income scale, 17–18, 23, 30 International Labor Organization, 51 International Monetary Fund (IMF), 54, 57, 84, 90, 109–10 international trade: capital mobility and, 74; China and, 75; de­ industrialization and, 75–76, 78–79; effect of new players, 75–76; Heckscher-­Ohlin model and, 76; India and, 75; offshoring and, 81–82; rise in inequality and, 75–76, 78–79, 83, 112, 114; Soviet Union and, 75; theory of, 76; wage ladder effects and, 78–79 inverted U curve, 54, 113 investment: direct, 76, 79; evolution of inequality and, 56; fairer globalization and, 150, 155, 157, 160, 170, 174, 179; foreign, 83, 85, 112, 155, 157, 160, 179; globalization and, 119, 130, 134– 35, 143; production and, 119; public services and, 143; re-­ investment and, 56; rise in inequality and, 76, 79, 82–83, 85, 92, 97–98, 112; taxes and, 92 Ivory Coast, 54 Japan, 34, 46t, 51f, 103 job training, 34, 181, 187 Kenya, 46t, 54 kidnapping, 133 Kuznets, Simon, 113, 126 labor: agriculture and, 12, 82, 84, 122–23, 127–28, 132, 155; artists and, 86–87; bonuses and, 87, 174; capital and, 3–4, 55– 58, 60, 158, 161n7, 185; capital mobility and, 3; cheap, 77, 117; costs of, 81, 100, 104–5, 117, 176, 187; decline in share of national income and, 73; deindustrialization and, 75–82; demand for, 168; deregulation and, 99– 109; discrimination and, 64–66, 69, 132, 142, 180–81; distribution of income and, 175 (see also distribution); education and, 168, 180; efficiency and, 96–97, 175; emerging economies and, 77; entrepreneurs and, 83, 92, 96, 131–32, 135, 143, 170–71, 188; evolution of inequality and, 55–58, 60; excess, 81, 83; executives and, 73, 88–89, 97, 174; goods and services sector and, 13, 73, 80, 85, 91, 102, 127, 130, 180; growth and, 154, 179; immigrant, 64, 66, 127; increased mobility and, 90–91; industrialization and, 1, 26, 29, 33, 35, 54, 80, 82, 84, 102, 113, 120, 127, 179, 188; inflation and, 50, 95, 102, 110; International Labor Organization and, 51; job training and, 34, 181, 187; manufacturing and, 57, 80–82, 84, 123, 154–55, 157; median wage and, 49, 71, 102– 3, 106; minimum wage and, 52– 53, 100, 102–8, 175, 177; mobility of, 185; offshoring and, 81–82; payroll and, 53, 93, 100, 104, 107, 175; pension systems and, 167; portfolios and, 88; poverty and, 1, 11, 15n6, 19– 20, 22–25, 28–29, 32, 44t, 109, 117, 123, 126–27, 134, 144, 147–52, 164, 166, 175; 202 labor (cont.) privatization and, 99–109; productivity and, 63, 79, 81–82, 89, 100, 102, 104, 114, 120, 125, 127, 144, 155, 177–78; protectionism and, 7, 147, 154, 157, 176–79; real earnings loss and, 78; reserve, 84; security and, 133; skilled, 76–78, 82–83, 86, 90, 114, 117, 126, 176; standard of living and, 69 (see also standard of living); superstars and, 85, 87, 89–90; supply of, 130– 31, 164; taxes and, 159–60, 171; technology and, 85–91 (see also technology); unemployment and, 37, 39, 53, 62–63, 66, 69, 77, 94, 100–108, 164, 175–76; unions and, 100–106, 108, 156, 179; unskilled, 3, 76–77, 79, 83, 105, 117, 154; wage inequality and, 51–53, 79, 101–3, 106, 108; wage ladder effects and, 78–79; women and, 64–65, 103, 114; writers and, 86–87 Lady Gaga, 5–6 laissez-­faire approach, 118, 129 Latin America, 9, 34, 36, 54–55, 58, 109–11, 155, 165–66, 168, 180 lawyers, 89–90 liberalization: capital and, 96; customs, 156; deregulation and, 96–99, 108–9, 112 (see also deregulation); fairer globalization and, 156, 179; mobility of capital and, 115; policy effects of, 97–99; Reagan administration and, 91; recession and, 6, 31, 99, 120; rise in inequality and, 76, 91, 93, 96–99, 108–9, 112, 115; tax rates and, 93 Luxembourg, 16, 19 Index Madonna, 71 Malaysia, 127 manufacturing: deindustrialization and, 75–82, 84, 123; emerging economies and, 57, 84; fairer globalization and, 154–55, 157; France and, 81; offshoring and, 81–82; United Kingdom and, 80; United States and, 80 markets: competition and, 76–77, 79–82, 84, 86, 94–98, 102, 104, 115–18, 130, 155, 169, 173, 176–79, 182, 186–88; credit, 131; deindustrialization and, 1, 75–82, 102, 120, 188; deregulation and, 91–92, 99–109 (see also deregulation); development gap and, 34–35, 83; Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) and, 156; effect of new players, 75–76; emerging economies and, 120 (see also emerging economies); entrepreneurs and, 83, 92, 96, 131–32, 135, 143, 170–71, 188; evolution of inequality and, 48–50, 53–54, 64, 69; exports and, 76, 82–84, 124, 128, 147, 154–55, 176, 178; fairer globalization and, 147–48, 154–58, 168, 173–75, 178–81; GDP measurement and, 13–15, 20–21, 23, 26, 27f, 29–30, 39, 41–45, 56–57, 94, 123, 127, 165–66, 176; globalization and, 35, 118, 120–21, 124–37, 140, 143–44; Heckscher-­Ohlin model and, 76; housing, 12, 61, 137; imports and, 1, 34, 80, 119, 124, 154, 177–78, 180; institutions and, 91–112; international trade and, 3, 75–76, 78–79, 83, 112, 114, 176–77; labor and, Index203 144 (see also labor); liberalization and, 112 (see also liberalization); monopolies and, 94, 111, 127, 136; offshoring and, 81– 82; protectionism and, 7, 147, 154, 157, 176–79; purchasing power and, 11, 13, 19–24, 27f, 28, 50, 80, 144, 158, 178; reform and, 54 (see also reform); regulation and, 74 (see also regulation); rise in inequality and, 74, 76– 79, 83, 86, 90–112, 114; shocks and, 38, 55, 91–92, 175; single market and, 76; South-­South exchange and, 35; TRIPS and, 156 median wage, 49, 71, 102–3, 106 Mexico, 46t, 57, 59, 109–10, 133, 166, 172 middle class, 51, 71, 93, 109, 133– 34, 136, 140 Milanovic, Branko, 4–5, 17n8, 29n16 Millennium Development Goals, 149–50, 185 minerals, 84, 127 minimum wage, 52–53, 100, 102– 8, 175, 177 monopolies, 94, 111, 127, 136 Morocco, 173 Morrisson, Christian, 28 movies, 87 Murtin, Fabrice, 28 national inequality, 2–4; correcting, 158–80; education and, 167–73; fairer globalization and, 147, 158; Gini coefficient and, 27 (see also Gini coefficient); globalization and, 119; market regulation and, 173–75; protectionism and, 147, 157, 176–79; redistribution and, 158–73, 175, 178; rise in, 6, 48– 52, 115, 204; taxes and, 158–73, 175, 181–83 natural resources, 84–85, 92, 122, 126–28, 127, 151 Netherlands, 46t, 50, 66, 70, 102 Nigeria, 9, 46t, 54, 127, 151 non-­monetary inequalities: access and, 61, 67–68; capability and, 61; differences in environment and, 66–68; discrimination and, 64–66, 69; employment precariousness and, 63–64; evolution of inequality and, 49, 60–70; intergenerational mobility and, 68; opportunities and, 49, 60– 70; social justice and, 60, 70; unemployment and, 62–63 normalization: evolution of inequality and, 41, 43–44; GDP measurement and, 29, 41, 43– 45; global inequality and, 13, 15, 22–23, 26, 29 Occupy Wall Street movement, 6, 135 OECD countries, 27t; evolution of inequality and, 42t, 43, 44t, 50– 52, 64, 65n13; fairer globalization and, 149, 159, 162, 164– 65; Gini coefficient and, 51; income distribution and, 51; relaxation of regulation and, 99; restrictive, 64; rise in inequality and, 50–51, 94, 99, 102, 106n18, 107; social programs and, 94; standard of living and, 11–12, 43, 50–52, 64, 94, 99, 102, 107, 120, 149, 159, 162, 164–65; U-­shaped curve on income and, 50 OECD Database on Household 204 Income Distribution and Poverty, 11–12 offshoring, 81–82 oil, 92, 127 opportunity, 5; African Growth Opportunity Act (AGOA) and, 155; as capability, 61; efficiency and, 142–45; evolution of inequality and, 61–62, 68, 70–71; fairer globalization and, 155, 167, 170, 172; globalization and, 133–34, 139, 142–44; redistribution and, 142–45; rise in inequality and, 102 Pakistan, 46t, 111 Pareto efficiency, 130n5 Pavarotti, Luciano, 86–87 payroll, 53, 93, 100, 104, 107, 175 Pearson Commission, 149 pension systems, 167 Perotti, Roberto, 134 Philippines, 46t, 111 Pickett, Kate, 140 Piketty, Thomas, 4, 48, 59n8, 60, 89n10, 125, 160n4 PISA survey, 169–70 policy, 4; adjustment, 109, 153; Cold War and, 149, 153; convergence and, 147–48; development aid and, 148–53; distributive, 26, 72, 135, 188; educational, 149, 152, 167–73; evolution of inequality and, 55, 72; fairer globalization and, 147–53, 157–58, 167–73, 175–83; Glass-­Steagall Act and, 174n15; global inequality and, 185–89; globalization and, 118–19, 124, 126, 128–31, 139, 143–44; globalizing equality and, 184–89; import substi- Index tution and, 34; Millennium Development Goals and, 149– 50, 185; poverty reduction and, 147–48; protectionist, 7, 99– 100, 107–8, 147, 154, 157, 176–79; reform and, 74 (see also reform); rise in inequality and, 34, 74–75, 85, 94, 97, 99– 100, 104, 106–11, 114–16; social, 7; standard of living and, 147–48 population growth, 28–29, 110, 183 portfolios, 88 Povcal database, 10, 12, 42t, 43, 44t poverty, 1, 44t, 109; Collier on, 23; convergence and, 147–48; criminal activity and, 133–34; definition of, 24; development aid and, 147–52; fairer globalization and, 147–52, 164, 166, 175; ghettos and, 66–67; global inequality and, 11, 15n6, 19–20, 22–25, 28–29, 32; globalization and, 117, 123, 126–27, 134, 144; growth and, 28–29; measurement of, 23–24; Millennium Development Goals and, 149– 50, 185; OECD Database on Household Income Distribution and Poverty and, 11–12; reduction policies for, 147–48; traps of, 144, 150, 164 prices: commodity, 84, 182; exports and, 178; factor, 74, 126; fairer globalization and, 147–48, 176, 178, 182; global inequality and, 27–28, 74, 80, 84, 91–92, 94, 97, 110; globalization and, 118, 122, 126, 136–38; imports and, 80; international compari- Index205 sons of, 11; lower, 94, 137; oil, 92; rise in inequality and, 74, 80, 84, 91–92, 94, 97, 110; rising, 110, 122, 178; shocks and, 38, 55, 91–92, 175; statistics on, 11, 27; subsidies and, 109–10, 175 primary income: evolution of inequality and, 48–50, 58; fairer globalization and, 158, 163n10, 167, 173; globalization and, 135, 143–44 privatization: deregulation and, 94–112; efficiency and, 94, 96, 105, 108; globalization of finance and, 95–99; institutions and, 94–109; labor market and, 99–109; reform and, 94–109; telecommunications and, 111 production: deindustrialization and, 75–82; evolution of inequality and, 57; fairer globalization and, 155–57, 167, 176, 178–79; globalization and, 119, 124, 126, 129, 131, 133, 137; growth and, 3, 34–35, 57, 74, 76–81, 84–86, 119, 124, 126, 129, 131, 133, 137, 155–57, 167, 176, 178–79; material investment and, 119; North vs.


pages: 215 words: 64,460

Shadows of Empire: The Anglosphere in British Politics by Michael Kenny, Nick Pearce

battle of ideas, Berlin Wall, Boris Johnson, Bretton Woods, Brexit referendum, British Empire, colonial rule, corporate governance, Dominic Cummings, Donald Trump, eurozone crisis, Fall of the Berlin Wall, floating exchange rates, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, full employment, global reserve currency, imperial preference, informal economy, invention of the telegraph, Khartoum Gordon, labour mobility, Les Trente Glorieuses, liberal capitalism, Mahatma Gandhi, mass immigration, Monroe Doctrine, Neal Stephenson, Nixon shock, public intellectual, quantitative easing, reserve currency, Ronald Reagan, Steve Bannon, Suez canal 1869, Suez crisis 1956, trade route, Washington Consensus

The liberal, free market institutional order appeared to contain no internal contradictions that could threaten it. The prospect of a serious challenge to the Anglo-American West was almost inconceivable. Fukuyama captured the Zeitgeist of this moment with great elan, anchoring the claims of liberal democratic politics and Anglo-liberal capitalism in a historicist account which foretold their continued dominance into the new century. Yet, precisely because of its universalist aspirations, Fukuyama's thinking eschewed any recourse to Anglosphere Whiggishness. The spread of democracy and the market could not be reduced, culturally or institutionally, to the genius of the English-speaking peoples.


pages: 205 words: 61,903

Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires by Douglas Rushkoff

"World Economic Forum" Davos, 4chan, A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace, agricultural Revolution, Airbnb, Alan Greenspan, Amazon Mechanical Turk, Amazon Web Services, Andrew Keen, AOL-Time Warner, artificial general intelligence, augmented reality, autonomous vehicles, basic income, behavioural economics, Big Tech, biodiversity loss, Biosphere 2, bitcoin, blockchain, Boston Dynamics, Burning Man, buy low sell high, Californian Ideology, carbon credits, carbon footprint, circular economy, clean water, cognitive dissonance, Colonization of Mars, coronavirus, COVID-19, creative destruction, Credit Default Swap, CRISPR, data science, David Graeber, DeepMind, degrowth, Demis Hassabis, deplatforming, digital capitalism, digital map, disinformation, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, en.wikipedia.org, energy transition, Ethereum, ethereum blockchain, European colonialism, Evgeny Morozov, Extinction Rebellion, Fairphone, fake news, Filter Bubble, game design, gamification, gig economy, Gini coefficient, global pandemic, Google bus, green new deal, Greta Thunberg, Haight Ashbury, hockey-stick growth, Howard Rheingold, if you build it, they will come, impact investing, income inequality, independent contractor, Jane Jacobs, Jeff Bezos, Jeffrey Epstein, job automation, John Nash: game theory, John Perry Barlow, Joseph Schumpeter, Just-in-time delivery, liberal capitalism, Mark Zuckerberg, Marshall McLuhan, mass immigration, megaproject, meme stock, mental accounting, Michael Milken, microplastics / micro fibres, military-industrial complex, Minecraft, mirror neurons, move fast and break things, Naomi Klein, New Urbanism, Norbert Wiener, Oculus Rift, One Laptop per Child (OLPC), operational security, Patri Friedman, pattern recognition, Peter Thiel, planetary scale, Plato's cave, Ponzi scheme, profit motive, QAnon, RAND corporation, Ray Kurzweil, rent-seeking, Richard Thaler, ride hailing / ride sharing, Robinhood: mobile stock trading app, Sam Altman, Shoshana Zuboff, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley billionaire, SimCity, Singularitarianism, Skinner box, Snapchat, sovereign wealth fund, Stephen Hawking, Steve Bannon, Steve Jobs, Steven Levy, Steven Pinker, Stewart Brand, surveillance capitalism, tech billionaire, tech bro, technological solutionism, technoutopianism, Ted Nelson, TED Talk, the medium is the message, theory of mind, TikTok, Torches of Freedom, Tragedy of the Commons, universal basic income, urban renewal, warehouse robotics, We are as Gods, WeWork, Whole Earth Catalog, work culture , working poor

Lifting language from books by new economics theorists such as Paul Mason, Kate Rayworth, and even myself, Schwab claims the concept of “stakeholder capitalism,” which will acknowledge the interests not only of shareholders but workers and locals impacted by a company’s operations. Some of what he’s asking for sounds great. We are to welcome the billion or more refugees displaced by climate change, listen to scientific experts, and eat less meat. All good stuff. The ways we are to arrive at this new normal are more suspect. First, we are to liberate capital from all regulatory encumbrances—stuff like taxation, protection for local industries, and, worst of all, nationalization. Instead of forcing corporations to address global problems or taxing their winnings to do it on a national level, we are supposed to encourage their voluntary “impact investing” and support their emerging spirit of “corporate global citizenship.”


pages: 662 words: 180,546

Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste: How Neoliberalism Survived the Financial Meltdown by Philip Mirowski

"there is no alternative" (TINA), Adam Curtis, Alan Greenspan, Alvin Roth, An Inconvenient Truth, Andrei Shleifer, asset-backed security, bank run, barriers to entry, Basel III, Bear Stearns, behavioural economics, Berlin Wall, Bernie Madoff, Bernie Sanders, Black Swan, blue-collar work, bond market vigilante , bread and circuses, Bretton Woods, Brownian motion, business cycle, capital controls, carbon credits, Carmen Reinhart, Cass Sunstein, central bank independence, cognitive dissonance, collapse of Lehman Brothers, collateralized debt obligation, complexity theory, constrained optimization, creative destruction, credit crunch, Credit Default Swap, credit default swaps / collateralized debt obligations, crony capitalism, dark matter, David Brooks, David Graeber, debt deflation, deindustrialization, democratizing finance, disinformation, do-ocracy, Edward Glaeser, Eugene Fama: efficient market hypothesis, experimental economics, facts on the ground, Fall of the Berlin Wall, financial deregulation, financial engineering, financial innovation, Flash crash, full employment, George Akerlof, Glass-Steagall Act, Goldman Sachs: Vampire Squid, Greenspan put, Hernando de Soto, housing crisis, Hyman Minsky, illegal immigration, income inequality, incomplete markets, information asymmetry, invisible hand, Jean Tirole, joint-stock company, junk bonds, Kenneth Arrow, Kenneth Rogoff, Kickstarter, knowledge economy, l'esprit de l'escalier, labor-force participation, liberal capitalism, liquidity trap, loose coupling, manufacturing employment, market clearing, market design, market fundamentalism, Martin Wolf, money market fund, Mont Pelerin Society, moral hazard, mortgage debt, Naomi Klein, Nash equilibrium, night-watchman state, Northern Rock, Occupy movement, offshore financial centre, oil shock, Pareto efficiency, Paul Samuelson, payday loans, Philip Mirowski, Phillips curve, Ponzi scheme, Post-Keynesian economics, precariat, prediction markets, price mechanism, profit motive, public intellectual, quantitative easing, race to the bottom, random walk, rent-seeking, Richard Thaler, road to serfdom, Robert Shiller, Robert Solow, Ronald Coase, Ronald Reagan, Savings and loan crisis, savings glut, school choice, sealed-bid auction, search costs, Silicon Valley, South Sea Bubble, Steven Levy, subprime mortgage crisis, tail risk, technoutopianism, The Chicago School, The Great Moderation, the map is not the territory, The Myth of the Rational Market, the scientific method, The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen, The Wisdom of Crowds, theory of mind, Thomas Kuhn: the structure of scientific revolutions, Thorstein Veblen, Tobin tax, tontine, too big to fail, transaction costs, Tyler Cowen, vertical integration, Vilfredo Pareto, War on Poverty, Washington Consensus, We are the 99%, working poor

The neoliberal subject is not supposed to be “free” to meditate upon the nature and limits of her own freedom—that is the dreaded “relativism” which neoliberals uniformly denounce. 95 Behrent, “Liberalism Without Humanism.” This is discussed in the next chapter, in the section on governmentality. 96 See Kristol, “Socialism, Capitalism, Nihilism,” LAMP, Montreux meeting, 1972: “And what if the ‘self’ that is ‘realized’ under the conditions of liberal capitalism is a self that despises liberal capitalism, and uses its liberty to subvert and abolish a free society? To this question, Hayek—like Friedman—has no answer.” 97 There are exceptions to this generalization. For instance, the MPS member Gary Becker has proposed to solve illegal immigration by “selling” the rights to citizenship.


pages: 593 words: 183,240

An Economic History of the Twentieth Century by J. Bradford Delong

affirmative action, Alan Greenspan, Andrei Shleifer, ASML, asset-backed security, Ayatollah Khomeini, banking crisis, Bear Stearns, Bretton Woods, British Empire, business cycle, buy and hold, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, Carmen Reinhart, centre right, collapse of Lehman Brothers, collective bargaining, colonial rule, coronavirus, cotton gin, COVID-19, creative destruction, crowdsourcing, cryptocurrency, cuban missile crisis, deindustrialization, demographic transition, Deng Xiaoping, Donald Trump, en.wikipedia.org, ending welfare as we know it, endogenous growth, Fairchild Semiconductor, fake news, financial deregulation, financial engineering, financial repression, flying shuttle, Ford Model T, Ford paid five dollars a day, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, full employment, general purpose technology, George Gilder, German hyperinflation, global value chain, Great Leap Forward, Gunnar Myrdal, Haber-Bosch Process, Hans Rosling, hedonic treadmill, Henry Ford's grandson gave labor union leader Walter Reuther a tour of the company’s new, automated factory…, housing crisis, Hyman Minsky, income inequality, income per capita, industrial research laboratory, interchangeable parts, Internet Archive, invention of agriculture, invention of the steam engine, It's morning again in America, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, John Maynard Keynes: technological unemployment, Joseph Schumpeter, Kenneth Rogoff, labor-force participation, land reform, late capitalism, Les Trente Glorieuses, liberal capitalism, liquidity trap, Long Term Capital Management, low interest rates, manufacturing employment, market bubble, means of production, megacity, Menlo Park, Mikhail Gorbachev, mortgage debt, mutually assured destruction, Neal Stephenson, occupational segregation, oil shock, open borders, open economy, Paul Samuelson, Pearl River Delta, Phillips curve, plutocrats, price stability, Productivity paradox, profit maximization, public intellectual, quantitative easing, Ralph Waldo Emerson, restrictive zoning, rising living standards, road to serfdom, Robert Gordon, Robert Solow, rolodex, Ronald Coase, Ronald Reagan, savings glut, secular stagnation, Silicon Valley, Simon Kuznets, social intelligence, Stanislav Petrov, strikebreaker, structural adjustment programs, Suez canal 1869, surveillance capitalism, The Bell Curve by Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray, The Chicago School, The Great Moderation, The Nature of the Firm, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, too big to fail, transaction costs, transatlantic slave trade, transcontinental railway, TSMC, union organizing, vertical integration, W. E. B. Du Bois, Wayback Machine, Yom Kippur War

So let us look at the failures that fascism ascribed to the pseudo-classical semi-liberal order that establishment politicians were attempting to rebuild after World War I. And make no mistake: the failures were real. The first was a macroeconomic failure: semi-liberal capitalism had failed to guarantee high employment and rapid economic growth. The second was a distributional failure: either semi-liberal capitalism made the rich richer while everyone else stayed poor, or it failed to preserve an adequate income differential between the more-educated, more-respectable lower middle class and the unskilled industrial proletariat. It could not win.


The Empire Project: The Rise and Fall of the British World-System, 1830–1970 by John Darwin

anti-communist, banking crisis, Bretton Woods, British Empire, capital controls, classic study, cognitive bias, colonial rule, Corn Laws, disinformation, European colonialism, floating exchange rates, full employment, imperial preference, Joseph Schumpeter, Khartoum Gordon, Kickstarter, labour mobility, land tenure, liberal capitalism, liquidationism / Banker’s doctrine / the Treasury view, Mahatma Gandhi, Monroe Doctrine, new economy, New Urbanism, open economy, railway mania, reserve currency, Right to Buy, rising living standards, scientific management, Scientific racism, South China Sea, Suez canal 1869, Suez crisis 1956, tacit knowledge, the market place, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, trade route, transaction costs, transcontinental railway, undersea cable

Germany's foreign trade had expanded rapidly and its new merchant fleet, like its navy, was second only to Britain's. German investment had begun to penetrate regions like Latin America, long the preserve of British capital.26 Not surprisingly, in some naval, shipping and colonial circles, as well as among conservatives hostile to the liberal capitalism with which London was so closely identified, antagonism to Britain was commonplace. But, while German policy was committed to the Tirpitz plan, and a high seas fleet strong enough to enforce neutrality on Britain in the event of continental war, there was little enthusiasm in Berlin for a frontal assault on the British system.

Some regions – those where the old staples of textiles, shipbuilding and coal were still strongly entrenched – suffered acute unemployment and the deprivation that followed. South Wales, Lancashire, Northeast England and industrial Scotland were especially hard-hit. Here, political feeling displayed deep alienation from the Victorian ethos of liberal capitalism, including perhaps the Victorian conception of a free-trading empire. The sense of betrayal was sharpened by the irony that it was in these old staple regions that wages had been highest, labour unions strongest, and awareness of Britain's great place in the world most widely diffused. But the critical fact was that, despite all their visible hardship, the ‘old’ industrial regions were not representative of the British economy as a whole.

There, as in Europe, the champions of the post-war settlement seemed weak and divided, reluctant to challenge the revisionist powers, let alone to match their military power. For all the fragility of its industrial base (carefully noted in London), Japan's military spending between 1933 and 1938 exceeded that of Britain or America.3 The revolt against the geopolitical order was also a revolt against liberal capitalism and its two great centres in London and New York.4 By the mid-1930s, a new world economy had emerged, bringing a drastic reversal of the post-war ‘normality’ of the late 1920s. Commercial liberalism was replaced by economic nationalism. Almost every state had built a wall of controls to reduce its exposure to external pressures – trade competition, capital movements and currency fluctuations – and the domestic unrest that followed closely behind.


pages: 238 words: 73,121

Does Capitalism Have a Future? by Immanuel Wallerstein, Randall Collins, Michael Mann, Georgi Derluguian, Craig Calhoun, Stephen Hoye, Audible Studios

affirmative action, blood diamond, Bretton Woods, BRICs, British Empire, business cycle, butterfly effect, company town, creative destruction, deindustrialization, demographic transition, Deng Xiaoping, discovery of the americas, distributed generation, Dr. Strangelove, eurozone crisis, fiat currency, financial engineering, full employment, gentrification, Gini coefficient, global village, hydraulic fracturing, income inequality, Isaac Newton, job automation, joint-stock company, Joseph Schumpeter, junk bonds, land tenure, liberal capitalism, liquidationism / Banker’s doctrine / the Treasury view, loose coupling, low skilled workers, market bubble, market fundamentalism, mass immigration, means of production, mega-rich, Mikhail Gorbachev, military-industrial complex, mutually assured destruction, offshore financial centre, oil shale / tar sands, Ponzi scheme, postindustrial economy, reserve currency, Ronald Reagan, shareholder value, short selling, Silicon Valley, South Sea Bubble, sovereign wealth fund, Suez crisis 1956, too big to fail, transaction costs, vertical integration, Washington Consensus, WikiLeaks

State capitalism has been an exception during the last 450 years, but one possible transformation of capitalism would be for it to grow more common. Arguably Soviet communism already involved something like state capitalism. Certainly fascism did. Where governments today use reactionary nationalism to shore up their legitimacy, state capitalism seems more likely. The key point is that future capitalism need not be an extension of the “liberal capitalism” dominant in the last two centuries of Western history. The widely remarked link between capitalism and liberal democracy may turn out to have been only one way of relating capitalism to politics, shaped by particular historical conditions and struggles. Of course domestic neoliberalism was closely related to the international promotion of “free trade.”


Global Governance and Financial Crises by Meghnad Desai, Yahia Said

Asian financial crisis, bank run, banking crisis, Bretton Woods, business cycle, capital controls, central bank independence, corporate governance, creative destruction, credit crunch, crony capitalism, currency peg, deglobalization, financial deregulation, financial innovation, Financial Instability Hypothesis, financial intermediation, financial repression, floating exchange rates, frictionless, frictionless market, German hyperinflation, information asymmetry, Japanese asset price bubble, knowledge economy, liberal capitalism, liberal world order, Long Term Capital Management, low interest rates, market bubble, Meghnad Desai, Mexican peso crisis / tequila crisis, moral hazard, Nick Leeson, Nixon triggered the end of the Bretton Woods system, oil shock, open economy, Post-Keynesian economics, price mechanism, price stability, Real Time Gross Settlement, rent-seeking, short selling, special drawing rights, structural adjustment programs, Tobin tax, transaction costs, Washington Consensus

S. (1999) Malaysia’s Political Economy: Politics, Patronage and Profits, 2nd edition, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Hamilton-Hart, N. (2000) ‘Indonesia: reforming the institutions of financial governance?’, Processed, Australian National University, Canberra. Helleiner, E. (1994) ‘Freeing money: why have states been more willing to liberalize capital controls than trade barriers?’, Policy Sciences, 27(4): 299–318. Hellmann, T., Murdock, K. and Stiglitz, J. (1997) ‘Financial restraint: toward a new paradigm’, in M. Aoki, H. Kim and M. Okuno-Fujiwara (eds), The Role of Government in East Asian Economic Development: Comparative Institutional Analysis, Clarendon Press, Oxford, pp. 163–207.


pages: 233 words: 75,712

In Defense of Global Capitalism by Johan Norberg

anti-globalists, Asian financial crisis, capital controls, clean water, correlation does not imply causation, creative destruction, Deng Xiaoping, Edward Glaeser, export processing zone, Gini coefficient, Great Leap Forward, half of the world's population has never made a phone call, Hernando de Soto, illegal immigration, income inequality, income per capita, informal economy, James Carville said: "I would like to be reincarnated as the bond market. You can intimidate everybody.", Joseph Schumpeter, Kenneth Rogoff, land reform, Lao Tzu, liberal capitalism, market fundamentalism, Mexican peso crisis / tequila crisis, Naomi Klein, new economy, open economy, prediction markets, profit motive, race to the bottom, rising living standards, Silicon Valley, Simon Kuznets, structural adjustment programs, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Tobin tax, trade liberalization, trade route, transaction costs, trickle-down economics, Tyler Cowen, union organizing, zero-sum game

Politicians can create the appearance of rising wages by accelerating inflation, which is precisely what Swedish politicians did for a long time. Because each dollar is then worth less, however, those increases are entirely chimerical. Growth and productivity alone are capable of raising real wages in the long run. All political and economic systems need rules, and this includes even the most liberal capitalism, which presupposes rules about legitimate ownership, the writing of contracts, the resolution of disputes, and many other matters. Those rules are a necessary framework required for markets to operate smoothly. But there are also rules that prevent the market economy from working—detailed regulations specifying the uses people can make of their property and making it difficult to start up a certain kind of activity, owing to the need for licenses and permits or to restrictive rules on pricing and business transactions.


Raw Data Is an Oxymoron by Lisa Gitelman

23andMe, collateralized debt obligation, computer age, continuous integration, crowdsourcing, disruptive innovation, Drosophila, Edmond Halley, Filter Bubble, Firefox, fixed income, folksonomy, Google Earth, Howard Rheingold, index card, informal economy, information security, Isaac Newton, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, knowledge worker, Large Hadron Collider, liberal capitalism, lifelogging, longitudinal study, Louis Daguerre, Menlo Park, off-the-grid, optical character recognition, Panopticon Jeremy Bentham, peer-to-peer, RFID, Richard Thaler, Silicon Valley, social graph, software studies, statistical model, Stephen Hawking, Steven Pinker, text mining, time value of money, trade route, Turing machine, urban renewal, Vannevar Bush, WikiLeaks

Adam Hochschild, Bury the Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire’s Slaves (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2005), 197. 99 100 Ellen Gruber Garvey 7. See Augusta Rohrbach, “‘Truth Stronger and Stranger than Fiction’: Reexamining William Lloyd Garrison’s The Liberator,” Truth Stranger Than Fiction: Race, Realism, and the U.S. Literary Marketplace (New York: Palgrave, 2002), 2, for an examination of the relationship of The Liberator to “liberal capitalism and moral suasion.” 8. Dan McKanan, Identifying the Image of God: Radical Christians and Nonviolent Power in the Antebellum United States (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 135. 9. Although writers like Spender have criticized Theodore Weld for failing to share authorial credit for American Slavery with his wife and sister-in-law, and he did sign the circular requesting information, his name does not actually appear on the 1839 edition as the book’s author.


pages: 333 words: 76,990

The Long Good Buy: Analysing Cycles in Markets by Peter Oppenheimer

Alan Greenspan, asset allocation, banking crisis, banks create money, barriers to entry, behavioural economics, benefit corporation, Berlin Wall, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, Black Monday: stock market crash in 1987, book value, Bretton Woods, business cycle, buy and hold, Cass Sunstein, central bank independence, collective bargaining, computer age, credit crunch, data science, debt deflation, decarbonisation, diversification, dividend-yielding stocks, equity premium, equity risk premium, Fall of the Berlin Wall, financial engineering, financial innovation, fixed income, Flash crash, foreign exchange controls, forward guidance, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, general purpose technology, gentrification, geopolitical risk, George Akerlof, Glass-Steagall Act, household responsibility system, housing crisis, index fund, invention of the printing press, inverted yield curve, Isaac Newton, James Watt: steam engine, Japanese asset price bubble, joint-stock company, Joseph Schumpeter, Kickstarter, Kondratiev cycle, liberal capitalism, light touch regulation, liquidity trap, Live Aid, low interest rates, market bubble, Mikhail Gorbachev, mortgage debt, negative equity, Network effects, new economy, Nikolai Kondratiev, Nixon shock, Nixon triggered the end of the Bretton Woods system, oil shock, open economy, Phillips curve, price stability, private sector deleveraging, Productivity paradox, quantitative easing, railway mania, random walk, Richard Thaler, risk free rate, risk tolerance, risk-adjusted returns, Robert Shiller, Robert Solow, Ronald Reagan, Savings and loan crisis, savings glut, secular stagnation, Shenzhen special economic zone , Simon Kuznets, South Sea Bubble, special economic zone, stocks for the long run, tail risk, Tax Reform Act of 1986, technology bubble, The Great Moderation, too big to fail, total factor productivity, trade route, tulip mania, yield curve

Low inflation and interest rates led to a growing belief that, after a period of strong growth, the major economies could achieve a ‘soft landing’ – avoiding a recession and enjoying an extended economic expansion. The fall of communism and the ‘peace dividend’ that followed, together with the expansion of liberal capitalism, enabled risk premia to fall. This optimism and strong market rises continued throughout 1986 and, in the first 10 months of 1987, the Dow Jones appreciated by an astonishing 44%. Then, quite suddenly, on 18 October, everything changed. The Dow collapsed by 22.6% in a single day. That day became known as Black Monday, in reference to Black Monday, Tuesday and Thursday in 1929, almost exactly 58 years earlier, when the stock market had dropped by 13% (with much sharper falls to follow).


pages: 717 words: 196,908

The Idea of Decline in Western History by Arthur Herman

agricultural Revolution, Albert Einstein, Alvin Toffler, anti-communist, bread and circuses, British Empire, David Attenborough, Dr. Strangelove, European colonialism, Future Shock, George Santayana, ghettoisation, Great Leap Forward, Gregor Mendel, Herbert Marcuse, hiring and firing, Joan Didion, laissez-faire capitalism, late capitalism, lateral thinking, Lewis Mumford, liberal capitalism, mass immigration, means of production, Menlo Park, military-industrial complex, Murray Bookchin, Nelson Mandela, Norman Mailer, nuclear winter, plutocrats, post scarcity, profit motive, road to serfdom, Robert Bork, Scientific racism, Scramble for Africa, Suez canal 1869, The Bell Curve by Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray, the scientific method, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, transcontinental railway, upwardly mobile, W. E. B. Du Bois

But Horkheimer and the others had already fled to Geneva, where they took refuge while waiting for visas to the United States. In the meantime they began to put forward a theory to explain why a supposedly civilized country like Germany had embraced an irrational, violent, and racist ideology with such devastating swiftness. In the end, they proclaimed that liberal capitalism “contained from its very beginning the tendency toward national socialism.”16 Meanwhile Horkheimer and the institute took refuge in the United States. Only a year earlier, in 1935, its administrative director, Friedrich Pollock, had denounced New Deal America as a hotbed of fascism.17 Now it became their place of refuge.

And since “violence is the common origin of all regimes” and “successful revolutions taken together have not spilled as much blood as empires … we should prefer revolutionary violence because it has a humanist future.” The violence and terror of Stalinism were really only a more blatant and “honest” form of the violence and terror that underlay liberal capitalism. “The purity of [liberal] principles not only tolerates but even requires violence,” Merleau-Ponty intoned. Hence, “a regime which acknowledges its violence might have in it more genuine humanity” than those of the bourgeois West, which try to disguise it by appeals to the rule of law.37 In praising Marxist “humanist” violence, Merleau-Ponty was saying something more than that the end justifies the means.


Culture Shock! Costa Rica 30th Anniversary Edition by Claire Wallerstein

anti-communist, bilateral investment treaty, call centre, card file, Day of the Dead, Easter island, fixed income, Kickstarter, liberal capitalism, out of africa, Silicon Valley, sustainable-tourism, trade route, urban sprawl

Guanacaste is the only part of the country where colonial architecture can still be seen intact and traditional ox carts are in use. In fact, however, Guanacaste only became part of Costa Rica in 1824. Previously the southernmost province of Nicaragua, its inhabitants narrowly voted to leave that country because of the ongoing civil war between the liberal capital, León, and the powerful conservative trading town of Granada following independence from Spain in 1821. Nicaragua did not accept the loss of Guanacaste until 1858, when a border limit treaty was finally signed. The people of Guanacaste (known by the Meseta Central Ticos as cholos) clearly have a richer ethnic mix than most other areas of the country.


pages: 290 words: 87,084

Branded Beauty by Mark Tungate

augmented reality, Berlin Wall, call centre, corporate social responsibility, double helix, East Village, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Frank Gehry, haute couture, independent contractor, invention of the printing press, joint-stock company, liberal capitalism, placebo effect, Ray Kurzweil, Silicon Valley, stem cell

According to Jacques Marseille in his history of L’Oréal, Eugène Schueller was familiar with a number of ‘Cagoulards’. Following the fall of France in 1940, he helped to finance Deloncle’s next group, Le Mouvement Social-Révolutionnaire (The Social Revolutionary Movement), whose aim was to ‘construct a new Europe with the cooperation of Germany and all other nations free, like her, of liberal capitalism, Judaism, Bolshevism and Freemasonry’. This time Schueller’s name appeared for all to see on the group’s posters and political tracts – alongside that of Jacques Corrèze, Deloncle’s secretary, who would later become chairman of L’Oréal’s American operations (‘Jacques Corrèze, L’Oréal official and Nazi collaborator, dies at 79’, New York Times, 28 June 1991).


pages: 561 words: 87,892

Losing Control: The Emerging Threats to Western Prosperity by Stephen D. King

"World Economic Forum" Davos, Admiral Zheng, Alan Greenspan, asset-backed security, barriers to entry, Berlin Wall, Bernie Madoff, Bretton Woods, BRICs, British Empire, business cycle, capital controls, Celtic Tiger, central bank independence, collateralized debt obligation, corporate governance, credit crunch, crony capitalism, currency manipulation / currency intervention, currency peg, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, demographic dividend, demographic transition, Deng Xiaoping, Diane Coyle, Fall of the Berlin Wall, financial deregulation, financial innovation, fixed income, foreign exchange controls, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, full employment, G4S, George Akerlof, German hyperinflation, Gini coefficient, Great Leap Forward, guns versus butter model, hiring and firing, income inequality, income per capita, inflation targeting, invisible hand, Isaac Newton, junk bonds, knowledge economy, labour market flexibility, labour mobility, liberal capitalism, low interest rates, low skilled workers, market clearing, Martin Wolf, mass immigration, Meghnad Desai, Mexican peso crisis / tequila crisis, Naomi Klein, new economy, old age dependency ratio, Paul Samuelson, Ponzi scheme, price mechanism, price stability, purchasing power parity, rent-seeking, reserve currency, rising living standards, Ronald Reagan, Savings and loan crisis, savings glut, Silicon Valley, Simon Kuznets, sovereign wealth fund, spice trade, statistical model, technology bubble, The Great Moderation, The inhabitant of London could order by telephone, sipping his morning tea in bed, the various products of the whole earth, The Market for Lemons, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus, trade route, transaction costs, Washington Consensus, We are all Keynesians now, women in the workforce, working-age population, Y2K, Yom Kippur War

In a world of constant financial innovation, it became increasingly difficult to impose capital controls successfully. Moreover, capital controls allowed countries to pursue bad domestic policies for too long, ultimately to their own detriment. Nevertheless, the abolition of capital controls has hardly been plain sailing. Some economists foresaw the problems associated with newly liberalized capital markets. James Tobin (1918–2002), for example, suggested in 1972 a (now-eponymous) tax – to be paid on foreign-exchange transactions – to limit speculative cross-border capital flows. He feared that the failures of Bretton Woods would be replaced by anarchy in the capital markets. On occasion, he was proved right.


pages: 297 words: 83,651

The Twittering Machine by Richard Seymour

4chan, anti-communist, augmented reality, behavioural economics, Bernie Sanders, Big Tech, Black Lives Matter, Cal Newport, Californian Ideology, Cass Sunstein, Chelsea Manning, citizen journalism, classic study, colonial rule, Comet Ping Pong, correlation does not imply causation, credit crunch, crisis actor, crowdsourcing, dark triade / dark tetrad, disinformation, don't be evil, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Erik Brynjolfsson, Evgeny Morozov, fake news, false flag, Filter Bubble, Gabriella Coleman, gamification, Google Chrome, Google Earth, hive mind, informal economy, Internet of things, invention of movable type, invention of writing, James Bridle, Jaron Lanier, Jeremy Corbyn, Jon Ronson, Jony Ive, Kevin Kelly, Kevin Roose, knowledge economy, late capitalism, Lewis Mumford, liberal capitalism, Mark Zuckerberg, Marshall McLuhan, meta-analysis, Mohammed Bouazizi, moral panic, move fast and break things, Network effects, new economy, packet switching, patent troll, Philip Mirowski, post scarcity, post-industrial society, post-truth, RAND corporation, Rat Park, rent-seeking, replication crisis, sentiment analysis, Shoshana Zuboff, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley ideology, Skinner box, smart cities, Snapchat, Social Justice Warrior, Steve Bannon, Steve Jobs, Stewart Brand, Stuxnet, surveillance capitalism, TaskRabbit, technological determinism, technoutopianism, TED Talk, the scientific method, Tim Cook: Apple, Timothy McVeigh, Twitter Arab Spring, undersea cable, upwardly mobile, white flight, Whole Earth Catalog, WikiLeaks

The fascist movements of the interwar period were rooted in imperialist ideologies, popular militarism, paramilitary organizations and a world system run by colonial empires and menaced by socialist revolution. These circumstances will not return. The colonies are dead, most armies are professional and there isn’t an abundance of popular organization of any kind, let alone paramilitary organization. Nonetheless, liberal capitalism shows itself to be vulnerable, crisis-ridden and open to challenge by the racist, nationalist far right. And what, in such circumstances, are the cultural valences of the social industry that produces so much of our social life now? Which tendencies would it select for, and which would it mute?


pages: 286 words: 87,168

Less Is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World by Jason Hickel

air freight, Airbnb, Anthropocene, basic income, Bernie Sanders, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, biodiversity loss, Boris Johnson, Bretton Woods, British Empire, capital controls, circular economy, cognitive dissonance, coronavirus, corporate governance, corporate personhood, cotton gin, COVID-19, David Graeber, decarbonisation, declining real wages, degrowth, deindustrialization, dematerialisation, disinformation, Elon Musk, energy transition, Extinction Rebellion, extractivism, Fairphone, Fellow of the Royal Society, flying shuttle, Fractional reserve banking, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, full employment, gender pay gap, green new deal, Greta Thunberg, income inequality, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), invention of the steam engine, James Watt: steam engine, Jeff Bezos, Jevons paradox, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, land reform, liberal capitalism, lockdown, longitudinal study, low interest rates, Mahatma Gandhi, Mark Zuckerberg, McMansion, means of production, meta-analysis, microbiome, Money creation, moral hazard, mortgage debt, Murray Bookchin, Naomi Klein, negative emissions, new economy, ocean acidification, offshore financial centre, oil shale / tar sands, opioid epidemic / opioid crisis, out of africa, passive income, planetary scale, planned obsolescence, plutocrats, Post-Keynesian economics, quantitative easing, rent control, rent-seeking, retail therapy, Ronald Reagan, Rupert Read, Scramble for Africa, secular stagnation, shareholder value, sharing economy, Simon Kuznets, structural adjustment programs, the scientific method, The Spirit Level, transatlantic slave trade, trickle-down economics, universal basic income

Proponents of the Green New Deal have it right: we need to pump public investment into building renewable energy infrastructure at a historically unprecedented rate, reminiscent of the industrial retooling that enabled the Allies to win the Second World War. But there’s something troubling about the way this idea has been picked up and repackaged by some media pundits. The claim is that transitioning to clean energy will liberate capitalism from any concerns about ecology. It will pave the way to ‘green growth’, they say, and we can keep expanding the economy for ever. It’s a compelling story. It seems so obvious and straightforward. And not surprisingly, it has seized the imaginations of orthodox economists and politicians. But this narrative suffers from a number of serious flaws.


pages: 295 words: 87,204

The Capitalist Manifesto by Johan Norberg

AltaVista, anti-communist, barriers to entry, Berlin Wall, Bernie Sanders, Big Tech, Boris Johnson, business climate, business cycle, capital controls, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, carbon footprint, carbon tax, Charles Babbage, computer age, coronavirus, COVID-19, creative destruction, crony capitalism, data is not the new oil, data is the new oil, David Graeber, DeepMind, degrowth, deindustrialization, Deng Xiaoping, digital map, disinformation, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, energy transition, Erik Brynjolfsson, export processing zone, failed state, Filter Bubble, gig economy, Gini coefficient, global supply chain, Google Glasses, Greta Thunberg, Gunnar Myrdal, Hans Rosling, Hernando de Soto, Howard Zinn, income inequality, independent contractor, index fund, Indoor air pollution, industrial robot, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), invention of the printing press, invisible hand, Jeff Bezos, Jeremy Corbyn, job automation, job satisfaction, Joseph Schumpeter, land reform, liberal capitalism, lockdown, low cost airline, low interest rates, low skilled workers, Lyft, manufacturing employment, Mark Zuckerberg, means of production, meta-analysis, Minecraft, multiplanetary species, Naomi Klein, Neal Stephenson, Nelson Mandela, Network effects, open economy, passive income, Paul Graham, Paul Samuelson, payday loans, planned obsolescence, precariat, profit motive, Ralph Nader, RAND corporation, rent control, rewilding, ride hailing / ride sharing, Ronald Coase, Rosa Parks, Salesforce, Sam Bankman-Fried, Shenzhen was a fishing village, Silicon Valley, Simon Kuznets, Snapchat, social distancing, social intelligence, South China Sea, Stephen Fry, Steve Jobs, tech billionaire, The Spirit Level, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, TikTok, Tim Cook: Apple, total factor productivity, trade liberalization, transatlantic slave trade, Tyler Cowen, Uber and Lyft, uber lyft, ultimatum game, Virgin Galactic, Washington Consensus, working-age population, World Values Survey, X Prize, you are the product, zero-sum game

Free markets and individualist societies make us obsessed with being independent, but this also liberates us from what makes us human – communities, relationships, fellow human beings, faith and family. Self-realization becomes nothing but a beautiful word for the emptiness of modernity, the loneliness of the mall. This is the last line of defence against free markets, from the statist left, the national conservatives and collectivist intellectuals. Once upon a time the critics said liberal capitalism could never produce wealth, then they had to admit that it does albeit only to a small elite, then they admitted that everyone might get richer but poor countries will suffer, but eventually then they said OK, everyone might be better off, but why would that be such a good thing? Capitalism may make us materially rich but spiritually poor.


pages: 891 words: 220,950

Winds of Change by Peter Hennessy

anti-communist, Beeching cuts, Berlin Wall, Bletchley Park, Bretton Woods, British Empire, centre right, Corn Laws, creative destruction, cuban missile crisis, Dr. Strangelove, Etonian, Fall of the Berlin Wall, floating exchange rates, full employment, government statistician, Great Leap Forward, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, Joseph Schumpeter, land tenure, liberal capitalism, meritocracy, Mikhail Gorbachev, Nelson Mandela, Norman Macrae, North Sea oil, oil shock, reserve currency, rising living standards, Robert Gordon, Scramble for Africa, Suez canal 1869, Suez crisis 1956, Ted Sorensen, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, total factor productivity, upwardly mobile, uranium enrichment

I call ’em Stop-Go and Son’ [Steptoe and Son was in its comedic prime on BBC TV in 1964] … It was rousing election rhetoric and even Conservative Central Office’s secret agent could scarce forbear to cheer the Labour leader for providing such wonderful entertainment.21 Aitken returned to London thinking Wilson ‘would win the election easily’. Elections are always difficult to read. There is a dash of quantum physics about them – they are a mix of waves and particles. Sometimes (1945, 1966, 1979, 1997) the electorate votes for a serious squirt of social democracy or liberal capitalism, but usually it wants a sensible fusion of both and looks to Westminster and Whitehall to broker it. What were the waves and particles of the general election of 1964? In the grand sweep of post-1945 British politics and political economy, it has a particular significance as the first example of what Peter Riddell calls the ‘declinist general election’.22 Wilson set out his stall firmly and powerfully as the man to halt and then reverse the UK’s deep-set relative economic decline (Ted Heath did the same in 1970 and Margaret Thatcher in 1979).

More recent American economic historians have characterized the first two-and-a-half decades as ‘the Great Leap Forward’:11 the Princeton economist Robert Gordon argues that the great technical breakthroughs of the second industrial revolution of the late nineteenth century did not reach their maximum effect in terms of ‘total factor productivity’ until the years after 1945, boosted by wartime innovation and stimulated still further by the rise of a mass-consumption society whose ingredients were electricity, cars, telephones, running water and sewerage, improved infrastructure generally plus the spread of mass higher education.12 Gordon was writing about the United States (where, of course, overall consumption and living standards were much higher), but his analysis fits early postwar Britain apart from mass higher education, which the UK reached only in the late 1980s and early 1990s. This delayed bonus from late-nineteenth-century technological breakthroughs powerfully shaped the nature of the UK’s standard model of politics and the liberal capitalism/social democracy tussle at the heart of it. It enabled the UK version of Bobbitt’s ‘constitutional industrial state’ to make generous offers to its people compared with past political eras. The Second World War had also laid down a new psychological path along which subsequent socioeconomic progress could march.


pages: 354 words: 93,882

How to Be Idle by Tom Hodgkinson

Albert Einstein, Alexander Shulgin, Bertrand Russell: In Praise of Idleness, call centre, David Attenborough, David Brooks, deskilling, Easter island, financial independence, full employment, Gordon Gekko, James Hargreaves, James Watt: steam engine, Lao Tzu, liberal capitalism, moral panic, New Urbanism, PIHKAL and TIHKAL, spinning jenny, three-martini lunch, Torches of Freedom, trade route, wage slave, work culture

Yutang, Lin, The Importance of Living (London: Heinemann, 1 938) . Zeldin, Theodore, An Intimate History of Humanity (London: Vintage, 1 998) . Zeldin, Theodore, Conversation (London: Harvill, 1 999) . A list of useful websites: www.abebooks.co.uk Beautiful secondhand books at low prices. Brian Dean ' s brilliant critique of liberal capitalism. For an insight into the mind of poetlrocker/freedomseeker Peter Doherty. Useful reference site. The home of the Campaign for Real Ale. Spend less, work less. www.hermenaut.com Josh Glenn ' s digest of heady philosophy. www.idler.co.uk Website of the Idler magazine. www.luxuriamusic.com For lovers of lounge music.


pages: 297 words: 89,206

Social Class in the 21st Century by Mike Savage

Bullingdon Club, call centre, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, Clapham omnibus, Corn Laws, deindustrialization, deskilling, Downton Abbey, emotional labour, financial independence, gender pay gap, gentrification, Gini coefficient, income inequality, liberal capitalism, Mark Zuckerberg, megacity, meritocracy, moral panic, New Urbanism, Occupy movement, old-boy network, precariat, psychological pricing, Sloane Ranger, The Spirit Level, the strength of weak ties, unpaid internship, upwardly mobile, very high income, winner-take-all economy, young professional

Elite educational institutions succeed not because they are in the pocket of the former aristocratic elite (though, of course, old habits die hard and it is still possible to find traces of this), but because they are at the apex of highly competitive recruitment and training processes which lie at the heart of contemporary neo-liberal capitalism. Meritocracy goes hand-in-hand with the generation of the kind of intense inequalities we have identified in this book. It thus follows that calls for more ‘education’ as a means of encouraging social mobility and addressing class inequalities have considerable limitations in the face of the growing inequalities witnessed in recent decades.


pages: 355 words: 92,571

Capitalism: Money, Morals and Markets by John Plender

activist fund / activist shareholder / activist investor, Alan Greenspan, Andrei Shleifer, asset-backed security, bank run, Berlin Wall, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, Black Monday: stock market crash in 1987, Black Swan, bond market vigilante , bonus culture, Bretton Woods, business climate, business cycle, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, central bank independence, collapse of Lehman Brothers, collective bargaining, computer age, Corn Laws, Cornelius Vanderbilt, corporate governance, creative destruction, credit crunch, Credit Default Swap, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, deindustrialization, Deng Xiaoping, discovery of the americas, diversification, Eugene Fama: efficient market hypothesis, eurozone crisis, failed state, Fall of the Berlin Wall, fiat currency, financial engineering, financial innovation, financial intermediation, Fractional reserve banking, full employment, Glass-Steagall Act, God and Mammon, Golden arches theory, Gordon Gekko, greed is good, Hyman Minsky, income inequality, industrial research laboratory, inflation targeting, information asymmetry, invention of the wheel, invisible hand, Isaac Newton, James Carville said: "I would like to be reincarnated as the bond market. You can intimidate everybody.", James Watt: steam engine, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, John Meriwether, joint-stock company, Joseph Schumpeter, labour market flexibility, liberal capitalism, light touch regulation, London Interbank Offered Rate, London Whale, Long Term Capital Management, manufacturing employment, Mark Zuckerberg, market bubble, market fundamentalism, mass immigration, means of production, Menlo Park, money market fund, moral hazard, moveable type in China, Myron Scholes, Nick Leeson, Northern Rock, Occupy movement, offshore financial centre, paradox of thrift, Paul Samuelson, plutocrats, price stability, principal–agent problem, profit motive, proprietary trading, quantitative easing, railway mania, regulatory arbitrage, Richard Thaler, rising living standards, risk-adjusted returns, Robert Gordon, Robert Shiller, Ronald Reagan, savings glut, shareholder value, short selling, Silicon Valley, South Sea Bubble, spice trade, Steve Jobs, technology bubble, The Chicago School, The Great Moderation, the map is not the territory, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thorstein Veblen, time value of money, too big to fail, tulip mania, Upton Sinclair, Veblen good, We are the 99%, Wolfgang Streeck, zero-sum game

In his book After the Victorians, the novelist, biographer and journalist A. N. Wilson points out that when Mond was raised to the peerage with the title of Lord Melchett, he felt obliged to counter a denunciation of capitalism made by Philip Snowden in the House of Commons.223 In a classic defence of liberal capitalism, he talked of his father’s risk taking and altruism, of the dangers they had endured to build up a huge business and of the benefits to society that resulted. Father, son and various business partners had, he said, given work and prosperity to thousands, an enterprise which ‘could never have been commended under any Socialist system that I have ever known’.


pages: 312 words: 91,835

Global Inequality: A New Approach for the Age of Globalization by Branko Milanovic

Asian financial crisis, assortative mating, Berlin Wall, bitcoin, Black Swan, Branko Milanovic, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, centre right, colonial exploitation, colonial rule, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, deglobalization, demographic transition, Deng Xiaoping, discovery of the americas, European colonialism, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, full employment, Gini coefficient, Gunnar Myrdal, income inequality, income per capita, invisible hand, labor-force participation, liberal capitalism, low skilled workers, Martin Wolf, means of production, military-industrial complex, mittelstand, moral hazard, Nash equilibrium, offshore financial centre, oil shock, open borders, open immigration, Paul Samuelson, place-making, plutocrats, post scarcity, post-industrial society, profit motive, purchasing power parity, Ralph Nader, Robert Solow, Second Machine Age, seigniorage, Silicon Valley, Simon Kuznets, special economic zone, stakhanovite, trade route, transfer pricing, very high income, Vilfredo Pareto, Washington Consensus, women in the workforce

Surely, those who argue for localism do not wish to propose a major drop in living standards or a Khmer Rouge solution to inequality. Forms of state capitalism, as in Russia and China, do exist, but this is capitalism nevertheless: the private profit motive and private companies are dominant. It is often stated that Islam is the only remaining ideological competitor to Western liberal capitalism. This is, I think, true in many respects as far as liberal society is concerned but not in the one that we address here, namely, the effects of inequality on capitalism. For Islam itself, not only as it exists in dominantly Muslim countries, but even in theory, is indeed a kind of capitalism, in its emphasis on private ownership of the means of production, the pursuit of gain, and the rejection of unfree labor.31 The only area of economics where Western and Islamic capitalisms part ways is in the treatment of interest (as differentiated from profit, which, unlike interest, is a variable rather than a fixed source of income that depends on the success of the enterprise).


China's Good War by Rana Mitter

"World Economic Forum" Davos, 9 dash line, Admiral Zheng, anti-communist, Berlin Wall, Bretton Woods, British Empire, colonial rule, COVID-19, Deng Xiaoping, do well by doing good, Donald Trump, Great Leap Forward, high-speed rail, Internet Archive, land reform, liberal capitalism, Mahatma Gandhi, Mikhail Gorbachev, Nelson Mandela, New Journalism, sexual politics, South China Sea, Washington Consensus

In the Cold War, both the American and Soviet systems generated their own moral discourses, often based on similar-sounding vocabulary (freedom, peace, democracy), but consisting of contrasting worldviews which then generated adherents and dissenters. The legacy of the Second World War was drawn into service to argue for the superiority of liberal capitalism or socialism, opposing discourses which could nonetheless draw on shared assumptions about the war as a transformative event. With the war more than seven decades in the past, and little sense that China provides an attractive model for generating “soft power” (in the strict sense, following Joseph Nye, of being able to influence without coercion), Beijing’s discourse about the war has had considerably less purchase than it would wish.42 A New Marshall Plan?


pages: 307 words: 88,745

War for Eternity: Inside Bannon's Far-Right Circle of Global Power Brokers by Benjamin R. Teitelbaum

Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, bitcoin, Black Lives Matter, Boris Johnson, Cambridge Analytica, creative destruction, crony capitalism, cryptocurrency, Donald Trump, Etonian, fake news, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, illegal immigration, Joseph Schumpeter, liberal capitalism, liberal world order, mass immigration, mutually assured destruction, Network effects, public intellectual, Saturday Night Live, school choice, side project, Skype, South China Sea, Steve Bannon, Westphalian system, WikiLeaks

They agreed that the past was something to be overcome, that with the help of their reforms a greater future could come about—one that wouldn’t be experienced in the confines of a village or home, but on a global scale. He could have added to his argument, for in his writings he described all three as being materialist as well—liberalism (capitalism) and communism being obsessed with money, and fascism with bodies. To put that differently, all three were modernist, competing for the chance to modernize the world. Liberalism won, of course. It partnered with communism to defeat fascism in 1945, and then let communism die of old age in 1991.


pages: 314 words: 88,524

American Marxism by Mark R. Levin

"RICO laws" OR "Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations", 2021 United States Capitol attack, affirmative action, American ideology, belling the cat, Bernie Sanders, Big Tech, BIPOC, Black Lives Matter, British Empire, carbon tax, centre right, clean water, collective bargaining, colonial exploitation, conceptual framework, coronavirus, COVID-19, creative destruction, critical race theory, crony capitalism, data science, defund the police, degrowth, deindustrialization, deplatforming, disinformation, Donald Trump, energy security, Food sovereignty, George Floyd, green new deal, Herbert Marcuse, high-speed rail, illegal immigration, income inequality, liberal capitalism, lockdown, Mark Zuckerberg, means of production, Michael Shellenberger, microaggression, New Journalism, open borders, Parler "social media", planned obsolescence, rolling blackouts, Ronald Reagan, school choice, school vouchers, single-payer health, tech billionaire, the market place, urban sprawl, yellow journalism

Unlike sustainable development, which is a concept based on false consensus, degrowth does not aspire to be adopted as a common goal by the United Nations, the OECD [Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development] or the European Commission. The idea of ‘socially sustainable degrowth,’ or simply degrowth, was born as a proposal for radical change. The contemporary context of neo-liberal capitalism appears as a post-political condition, meaning a political formation that forecloses the political and prevents the politicization of particular demands. Within this context, degrowth is an attempt to re-politicize the debate on much needed socio-ecological transformation, affirming dissidence with the current world representations and search for alternative ones….


pages: 335 words: 89,924

A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things: A Guide to Capitalism, Nature, and the Future of the Planet by Raj Patel, Jason W. Moore

"World Economic Forum" Davos, agricultural Revolution, Anthropocene, Bartolomé de las Casas, biodiversity loss, British Empire, business cycle, call centre, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, carbon credits, carbon footprint, classic study, clean water, collateralized debt obligation, colonial exploitation, colonial rule, company town, complexity theory, creative destruction, credit crunch, Donald Trump, double entry bookkeeping, energy transition, European colonialism, feminist movement, financial engineering, Food sovereignty, Ford Model T, Frederick Winslow Taylor, full employment, future of work, Glass-Steagall Act, global supply chain, Haber-Bosch Process, interchangeable parts, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Joseph Schumpeter, land reform, Lewis Mumford, liberal capitalism, low interest rates, means of production, Medieval Warm Period, megacity, Mercator projection, meta-analysis, microcredit, Naomi Klein, Nixon shock, Occupy movement, peak oil, precariat, scientific management, Scientific racism, seminal paper, sexual politics, sharing economy, source of truth, South Sea Bubble, spinning jenny, strikebreaker, surplus humans, The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen, too big to fail, trade route, transatlantic slave trade, union organizing, Upton Sinclair, wages for housework, World Values Survey, Yom Kippur War

Understand how capitalism has made “cheap lives” a strategy of cheap nature, and you understand not only the forces required to keep money, work, care, food, and energy cheap but also how the most sophisticated and subtle modern institution, the nation-state, still draws on early modern roots and natural science to manage modern life. More important still, as states confront the limits of their ability both to manage the lives in their charge and to provide conducive environments for liberal capitalism, we’re reaching the end of an era of cheap lives. We make this argument not with relish for the successor to the liberal nation-state but out of concern for what may follow. We’re astute enough students of history to know that what comes next might be far worse. Like everything else in our tale of cheap things, the components of the modern nation-state and its cheap lives predate capitalism.


pages: 736 words: 233,366

Roller-Coaster: Europe, 1950-2017 by Ian Kershaw

airport security, anti-communist, Apollo 11, Ayatollah Khomeini, banking crisis, Berlin Wall, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, Boris Johnson, Bretton Woods, Brexit referendum, British Empire, business cycle, centre right, colonial rule, cuban missile crisis, deindustrialization, Deng Xiaoping, Donald Trump, European colonialism, eurozone crisis, Exxon Valdez, failed state, Fall of the Berlin Wall, falling living standards, feminist movement, first-past-the-post, fixed income, floating exchange rates, foreign exchange controls, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, full employment, Herbert Marcuse, illegal immigration, income inequality, Jeremy Corbyn, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, labour market flexibility, land reform, late capitalism, Les Trente Glorieuses, liberal capitalism, liberation theology, low interest rates, low skilled workers, mass immigration, means of production, Mikhail Gorbachev, mutually assured destruction, Neil Armstrong, Nelson Mandela, Nixon triggered the end of the Bretton Woods system, North Sea oil, Northern Rock, oil shale / tar sands, oil shock, open borders, post-war consensus, precariat, price stability, public intellectual, quantitative easing, race to the bottom, reserve currency, rising living standards, road to serfdom, Ronald Reagan, Ronald Reagan: Tear down this wall, Sinatra Doctrine, Suez crisis 1956, The Chicago School, trade liberalization, union organizing, upwardly mobile, washing machines reduced drudgery, Washington Consensus, Winter of Discontent, young professional

In the post-war decades all political parties agreed on the need to expand welfare provision. The extraordinary economic growth allowed the fulfilment of both aims – in the east under communist regimes that forcibly created societies more equal than ever before, if at a high political price, and greatly extended welfare provision from the state, and in Western Europe under liberal capitalism that also reduced social inequalities (though to a far smaller degree than in the east) and combined market forces with the varying forms of welfare state. Pre-war advances in social security had left many gaps. Scandinavia, Germany and Britain had made most progress with national insurance schemes, but these were still limited, while in most European countries large sections of the population had minimal insurance (or none at all) for accidents at work, unemployment and ill-health, and little or no provision for old-age pensions.

They applauded President Reagan’s hardline stance (abetted by his British acolyte, the ‘Iron Lady’ Margaret Thatcher) on communism, revelling in what they saw as the vindication of the ‘Star Wars’ programme and levels of military spending that had demonstrated Western economic superiority and exposed Soviet weakness. They did not conceal their sense of triumph at what they paraded as the victory of liberal capitalism over state socialism, of freedom over serfdom. Most people, though, refrained from outright triumphalism. Relief was more apparent – relief that the Cold War was finally over and, consequently, that the danger of nuclear conflict had been eliminated. This mingled with satisfaction at the collapse of a system built upon oppression and unfreedom and the sense that Western values had triumphed.


pages: 308 words: 99,298

Brexit, No Exit: Why in the End Britain Won't Leave Europe by Denis MacShane

"World Economic Forum" Davos, 3D printing, Alan Greenspan, Alvin Toffler, banking crisis, battle of ideas, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, Boris Johnson, Bretton Woods, Brexit referendum, British Empire, centre right, Corn Laws, deindustrialization, Doha Development Round, Donald Trump, Etonian, European colonialism, fake news, financial engineering, first-past-the-post, fixed income, Gini coefficient, greed is good, illegal immigration, information security, James Dyson, Jeremy Corbyn, labour mobility, liberal capitalism, low cost airline, low interest rates, Martin Wolf, mass immigration, military-industrial complex, Mont Pelerin Society, negative equity, Neil Kinnock, new economy, non-tariff barriers, offshore financial centre, open borders, open economy, post-truth, price stability, purchasing power parity, quantitative easing, reshoring, road to serfdom, secular stagnation, Silicon Valley, Thales and the olive presses, trade liberalization, transaction costs, women in the workforce

By February 2017, the Swiss parliament had quietly turned the referendum vote into a system of internal management of people movement which allowed European workers into Switzerland and was acceptable to the European Commission in Brussels. Many were aghast at this rapid expansion of the EU from a grouping of states with roughly similar levels of development based broadly on the system of responsible, open-trade liberal capitalism with a social face that put down roots after 1950, despite widely varied political and government systems. Greece was perhaps the most egregious example, though southern Italy would run it a close second. The creation of the euro was meant to have a double effect. It would allow the Single Market to expand, as every economic actor would now stop worrying about currency wars or need to hedge against the uncertainty of what a franc, peseta, lira or drachma would be worth.


pages: 356 words: 103,944

The Globalization Paradox: Democracy and the Future of the World Economy by Dani Rodrik

"World Economic Forum" Davos, affirmative action, Alan Greenspan, Asian financial crisis, bank run, banking crisis, Bear Stearns, bilateral investment treaty, borderless world, Bretton Woods, British Empire, business cycle, capital controls, Carmen Reinhart, central bank independence, classic study, collective bargaining, colonial rule, Corn Laws, corporate governance, corporate social responsibility, credit crunch, Credit Default Swap, currency manipulation / currency intervention, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, deindustrialization, Deng Xiaoping, Doha Development Round, en.wikipedia.org, endogenous growth, eurozone crisis, export processing zone, financial deregulation, financial innovation, floating exchange rates, frictionless, frictionless market, full employment, George Akerlof, guest worker program, Hernando de Soto, immigration reform, income inequality, income per capita, industrial cluster, information asymmetry, joint-stock company, Kenneth Rogoff, land reform, liberal capitalism, light touch regulation, Long Term Capital Management, low interest rates, low skilled workers, margin call, market bubble, market fundamentalism, Martin Wolf, mass immigration, Mexican peso crisis / tequila crisis, microcredit, Monroe Doctrine, moral hazard, Multi Fibre Arrangement, night-watchman state, non-tariff barriers, offshore financial centre, oil shock, open borders, open economy, Paul Samuelson, precautionary principle, price stability, profit maximization, race to the bottom, regulatory arbitrage, Savings and loan crisis, savings glut, Silicon Valley, special drawing rights, special economic zone, subprime mortgage crisis, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas L Friedman, Tobin tax, too big to fail, trade liberalization, trade route, transaction costs, tulip mania, Washington Consensus, World Values Survey

When Stanley Fischer made the case for capital mobility during the 1997 meetings of the IMF, he devoted a major part of his presentation to the adjustments required for countries to “prepare well” for capital mobility. As he put it, “economic policies and institutions, particularly the financial system, need to be adapted to operate in a world of liberalized capital markets.” Some of what needs to be done was well known, he said. Macroeconomic policies need to be “sound” the domestic financial system needs to be “strengthened” and the removal of capital controls should be phased in “appropriately.” But there were also issues about which there was less knowledge or consensus.


pages: 358 words: 104,664

Capital Without Borders by Brooke Harrington

Alan Greenspan, banking crisis, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, British Empire, capital controls, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, classic study, complexity theory, corporate governance, corporate social responsibility, diversified portfolio, emotional labour, equity risk premium, estate planning, eurozone crisis, family office, financial innovation, ghettoisation, Great Leap Forward, haute couture, high net worth, income inequality, information asymmetry, Joan Didion, job satisfaction, joint-stock company, Joseph Schumpeter, Kevin Roose, liberal capitalism, mega-rich, mobile money, offshore financial centre, prudent man rule, race to the bottom, regulatory arbitrage, Robert Shiller, South Sea Bubble, subprime mortgage crisis, the market place, The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen, Thorstein Veblen, transaction costs, upwardly mobile, wealth creators, web of trust, Westphalian system, Wolfgang Streeck, zero-sum game

It would be more accurate to say that many high-net-worth individuals desire to “escape what they regard as onerous, unreasonable or capricious restrictions imposed by governments.”13 These maneuvers range from the relatively benign, such as evading the “prohibition against interest payments in some Moslem countries,” to the more sinister, like “arms dealing and the evasion of international sanctions and embargoes.”14 What all those restrictions have in common is that they limit participation in global financial markets, which are the primary site of wealth generation in the contemporary political economy.15 Wealth managers “liberate” capital from these limitations on growth and mobility, freeing clients to accumulate wealth unfettered. Ironically enough, shifting wealth away from one set of sovereign constraints requires recourse to another set of states: ones that use their sovereignty in a different way, to compete for and shelter assets that have been “liberated” from other places.


pages: 463 words: 105,197

Radical Markets: Uprooting Capitalism and Democracy for a Just Society by Eric Posner, E. Weyl

3D printing, activist fund / activist shareholder / activist investor, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Airbnb, Amazon Mechanical Turk, anti-communist, augmented reality, basic income, Berlin Wall, Bernie Sanders, Big Tech, Branko Milanovic, business process, buy and hold, carbon footprint, Cass Sunstein, Clayton Christensen, cloud computing, collective bargaining, commoditize, congestion pricing, Corn Laws, corporate governance, crowdsourcing, cryptocurrency, data science, deep learning, DeepMind, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, endowment effect, Erik Brynjolfsson, Ethereum, feminist movement, financial deregulation, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, full employment, gamification, Garrett Hardin, George Akerlof, global macro, global supply chain, guest worker program, hydraulic fracturing, Hyperloop, illegal immigration, immigration reform, income inequality, income per capita, index fund, informal economy, information asymmetry, invisible hand, Jane Jacobs, Jaron Lanier, Jean Tirole, Jeremy Corbyn, Joseph Schumpeter, Kenneth Arrow, labor-force participation, laissez-faire capitalism, Landlord’s Game, liberal capitalism, low skilled workers, Lyft, market bubble, market design, market friction, market fundamentalism, mass immigration, negative equity, Network effects, obamacare, offshore financial centre, open borders, Pareto efficiency, passive investing, patent troll, Paul Samuelson, performance metric, plutocrats, pre–internet, radical decentralization, random walk, randomized controlled trial, Ray Kurzweil, recommendation engine, rent-seeking, Richard Thaler, ride hailing / ride sharing, risk tolerance, road to serfdom, Robert Shiller, Ronald Coase, Rory Sutherland, search costs, Second Machine Age, second-price auction, self-driving car, shareholder value, sharing economy, Silicon Valley, Skype, special economic zone, spectrum auction, speech recognition, statistical model, stem cell, telepresence, Thales and the olive presses, Thales of Miletus, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, The Future of Employment, The Market for Lemons, The Nature of the Firm, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thorstein Veblen, trade route, Tragedy of the Commons, transaction costs, trickle-down economics, Tyler Cowen, Uber and Lyft, uber lyft, universal basic income, urban planning, Vanguard fund, vertical integration, women in the workforce, Zipcar

Scott, 174 Ford, 185–87, 193, 240, 243, 311n30 France, 10, 12, 13, 90, 127–30, 139, 141, 182, 210 free access, 43, 211 free data, 209, 220, 224, 231–35, 239 free-rider problem, 107–8 Free: The Future of a Radical Prize (Anderson), 212 free trade, 23, 131–33, 136, 266 French Revolution, 46, 86, 90, 277 Friedman, Milton, xiii, xix Galbraith, John Kenneth, 125–26, 240 Galeano, Eduardo, 140 General Agreements on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), 138 General Theory of Employment, Money and Interest, The (Keynes), 1 George, Henry, 4; capitalism and, 36–37; inequality and, xix–xx; labor and, 137; laissez-faire and, 45, 250, 253; Progress and Poverty and, 36–37, 43, 240; Progressive movement and, 174–75; property and, 36–37, 42–46, 49, 51, 59, 66; reform and, 23; socialism and, 37, 45, 137, 250, 253; Vickrey and, xx–xxii Germany, 10, 12, 13, 45, 77, 93–94, 131, 135, 139 Gibbons, Robert, 52 Giegel, Josh, 32–33 Gilded Age, 174, 262 globalization: backlash against, 265; capital flows and, 265; common ownership self-assessed tax (COST) and, 269–70; foreign products and, 130; General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and, 138; growth and, 257–58; imbalance in, 264–65; immigrants and, 28, 127–30, 132, 141–53, 156–66, 256–57, 261, 266–69, 273, 308n19; inequality and, 8, 9, 134, 135, 165; internationalism and, 140, 160–67; international trade and, 14, 22, 132, 137–38, 140, 142, 265, 270; investment and, 140–41; labor and, 130, 137–40; liberalism and, 255; public goods and, 265; Quadratic Voting (QV) and, 266–69; reform and, 255; VIP program and, 265–66 Glorious Revolution, 86, 95 GM, 185–87, 193, 196, 243 Goeree, Jacob, 304n34 Google, xxi, 314n29; advertising and, 202, 211–13, 220, 234; algorithms and, 289; asset managers and, 171; Brin and, 211; data and, 28, 202, 207–13, 219–20, 224, 231–36, 241–42, 246; immigrants and, 149–51, 154, 163, 169; Page and, 211; re-CAPTCHA and, 235–36; search and, 117, 202, 213, 233, 235 Google Assistant, 219 Gray, Mary, 233–34 Great Depression, 3, 17, 46, 176 Great Recession, 181–82 Greece, 55, 83–84, 90, 131, 296n16 gridlock, 84, 88, 122–24, 261, 267 Groves, Theodore, 99–100, 102, 105 growth, economic: capitalism’s slowing of, 3; common ownership self-assessed tax (COST) and, 73, 256; entrenched privilege and, 4; entrepreneurial sectors and, 144; equal distribution of, 148; globalization and, 257–58; index funds and, 181; inequality and, 3, 5, 8–9, 11, 23–24, 123, 148, 256–57; investment and, 181; liberalism and, 3–11, 23–24, 29; monopsony and, 199, 241; productivity, 254–55; quadratic, 103–5, 123; savings and, 6; stagnation and, 257–58; technology and, 255; wage, 190, 201 guest workers, 140, 150–51, 308n32 Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), 158–65, 265–66 gun rights, 15, 76, 81, 90, 105–9, 116, 127 H1–B program, 149, 154, 162–63 Hacker, Jacob, 191 Haiti, 127–30, 153 Hajjar, 168–71 Handmaid’s Tale, The (Atwood), 18–19 happiness: Bentham on, 95–96, 98; Quadratic Voting (QV) and, 108–10, 306n52; utilitarian principle and, 95 Harberger, Arnold, 56–59 Hardin, Garrett, 44 Hayek, Friedrich, xix, 47–48, 278, 286 health issues, 100–101, 113, 151–52, 154, 266, 290–91 Her (film), 254 Hicks, John, 68 Hitler, Adolf, 3–94 Hobbes, Thomas, 85 holdout, 33, 62, 71–72, 88, 299n28 homeowners, 17, 26, 33, 42, 56–57, 65 Horizontal Merger Guidelines, 186 House of Cards (TV series), 221 human capital, 130, 258–61, 264, 293 Hume, David, 132 Hylland, Aanund, 100 immigrants: auctioning visas and, 147–49; au pair program and, 154–55, 161; common ownership self-assessed tax (COST) and, 261, 269, 273; data as labor and, 256; DeFoe on, 132; democratizing visas and, 149–57; education and, 14, 143–44, 148; elitism and, 3, 146, 166; English language and, 151, 155, 165, 251; Europe and, 139–40; expansion of existing migration and, 142–46; family reunification programs and, 150, 152; free trade and, 131–33, 136; George on, 137; globalization and, 28, 127–30, 132, 141–53, 156–66, 256–57, 261, 266–69, 273, 308n19; guest workers and, 140, 150–51, 308n32; H1–B program and, 149, 154, 162–63; Haitian, 127–30, 153; human trafficking and, 158; illegal, 130, 139, 143, 152–53, 158, 160, 165–66, 268; Irish, 137; J-1 program and, 154, 161, 273; labor and, 28, 127–30, 132, 141–53, 156–66, 256–57, 261, 266–69, 273, 308n19; legal issues and, 130, 139, 143, 152–53, 158; living standards and, 148, 153, 257; logic of free migration and, 132–37; Marx on, 137; mercantilism and, 132; Mexico and, 139–40; Mill on, 137; New World and, 136; populism and, 14; Quadratic Voting (QV) and, 261, 266–69, 273; refugees and, 130, 140, 145; skill levels of, 143–47, 150, 159–65; Smith on, 132–33; sponsors and, 129, 149–65, 273; Stolper-Samuelson Theorem and, 142–43; Syrian, 116, 140, 145; taxes and, 143–45, 156; technology and, 256–57; transportation costs and, 141; unlimited immigration and, 142; Visas Between Individuals Program (VIP) and, 150, 153, 156–66, 261, 265–66, 269; wages and, 143, 154, 158, 161–62, 165, 308n19; World Bank studies and, 140; xenophobia and, 3, 166 Immorlica, Nicole, 306n52 impossibility theorem, 92 income distribution, 4–8, 12, 74, 133, 223 index funds, 172, 181–82, 185–91, 194–95, 302n63, 310n16 India, 15, 21, 134–35, 149, 173, 206 industrial revolution, 36, 255 inequality: Brazil and, xiv; common ownership self-assessed tax (COST) and, 256–59; crosscountry analysis of, 134–35; democracy and, 123; evolution of, 133–34; George and, xix–xx; global, 8, 9, 134, 135, 165; growth and, 3, 5, 8–9, 11, 23–24, 123, 148, 256–57; growth in, 4–8; immigrants and, 266 (see also immigrants); income distribution and, 4–8, 12, 74, 133; institutional investment and, 187; labor and, 133–35, 141, 148, 163–65, 223; legal issues and, 22; liberalism and, 2–11, 22–25; living standards and, 3, 11, 13, 133, 135, 148, 153, 254, 257; measurement of, 133; minorities and, 12, 14–15, 19, 23–27, 85–90, 93–97, 101, 106, 110, 181, 194, 273, 303n14, 304n36; ownership and, 42, 45, 75, 79, 253; Quadratic Voting (QV) and, 264; Radical Markets and, 174, 176, 199, 257; slavery and, xiv, 1, 19, 23, 37, 96, 136, 255, 260; Smith on, 22; stagnequality and, 276; US Civil Rights movement and, 24 inflation, 8–9, 11, 149 innovation: competition and, 202–3; neural networks and, 214–19; robots and, 222, 248, 251, 254, 287; supersonic trains and, 30–32; technology and, 34, 71, 172, 187, 189, 202, 258 Innovator’s Dilemma, The (Christensen), 202 Instagram, 117, 202, 207 intellectual property, 26, 38, 48, 72, 210, 212, 239 International Monetary Fund (IMF), 138, 141, 267 international trade, 14, 22, 132, 137–42, 265, 270 Internet, 27, 51, 71; data and, 210–12, 224, 232, 235, 238–39, 242, 246–48; dot-com bubble and, 211; free access and, 211; high prices of, 21; online services and, 211, 235; user fees and, 211 “In the Soviet Union, Optimization Problem Solves You” (Shalizi), 281 Israel, 71 Italy, 10, 12, 13, 21 It’s a Wonderful Life (film), 17 J-1 visa program, 154, 161, 273 Jackson, Andrew, 14 James II, King of England, 86 Japan, 10, 12, 13, 80–81, 105–8 Jefferson, Thomas, 86 Jevons, William Stanley, 41, 50, 66, 224 Jonze, Spike, 254 JP Morgan, 171, 183, 184, 191 judicial activism, 124 Jury Theorem, 90–92 Kapital, Das (Marx), 239 Kasparov, Gary, 213 Keynes, John Maynard, 1, 9, 11 Kingsley, Sara, 234 Klemperer, Paul, 52 Korea, 11, 13, 71, 251 Kuwait, 158 labor: artisan, 206, 222; auctioning visas and, 147–49; au pair program and, 154–55, 161; automation of, 222–23, 251, 254; border issues and, 28, 130, 133, 139–40, 142, 144, 161, 164–65, 242, 256, 264–66; capitalism and, 136–37, 143, 159, 165, 211, 224, 231, 239–40, 316n4; collective bargaining and, 240–41; competition and, 145, 158, 162–63, 220, 234, 236, 239, 243, 245, 256, 266; cooperatives and, 118, 126, 261, 267, 299n24; cost of, 129, 200; craftsmen and, 17, 35; data and, 209–13, 246–49; democracy and, 122, 147, 149–57; digital economy and, 208–9 (see also digital economy); education and, 140, 143–44, 148, 150, 158, 170–71, 232, 248, 258–60; efficiency and, 130, 148, 240–41, 246; Engels on, 239–40; as entertainment, 233–39, 248–49; entrepreneurs and, xiv, 35, 39, 129, 144–45, 159, 173, 177, 203, 209–12, 224, 226, 256; equality and, 147, 166, 239, 257; exploitation of, 154, 157–58, 239–40; farm, 17, 34–35, 37–38, 61, 72, 135, 142, 179, 283–85; feudalism and, 16, 34–35, 37, 41, 61, 68, 136, 230–33, 239; free trade and, 131–33, 136; General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and, 138; George and, 137; globalization and, 130, 137–40, 264–65 (see also globalization); guest workers and, 140, 150–51, 308n32; H1–B program and, 149, 154, 162–63; human capital and, 130, 258–60, 264; human trafficking and, 158; illegal aliens and, 160, 165–66, 268; immigrants and, 28, 127–30, 132, 141–53, 156–66, 256–57, 261, 266–69, 273, 308n19; income distribution and, 4–8, 12, 74; inequality and, 133–35, 141, 148, 163–65, 223; J-1 program and, 154, 161, 273; job displacement and, 222, 316n4; manufacturing and, 77, 122, 162, 174, 185–86, 190, 279; markets and, 255–60, 265–66, 268–69, 273–74, 280, 285; mercantilism and, 131–32; 136, 243; monopsony and, 190, 199–201, 223, 234, 238–41, 255; optimality and, 231, 243; pensions and, 157, 181; prices and, 132, 156, 207, 212, 221, 235, 243–44; productivity and, 9–10, 16, 38, 57, 73, 123, 240–41, 247, 254–55, 258, 278; programmers and, 163, 208–9, 214, 217, 219, 224; Radical Markets and, 132, 147, 158, 199–201, 243, 246–49; Red Queen phenomenon and, 176–77; reform and, 129, 153, 240, 247, 255; resale price maintenance and, 201; retirement and, 171–72, 260, 274; rise of data work and, 209–13; robots and, 222, 248, 251, 254, 287; serfs and, 35, 48, 231–32, 236, 255; skilled, 130, 144–47, 154, 159, 161–63, 180, 279; slave, xiv, 1, 19, 23, 37, 96, 136, 255, 260; socialism and, 137, 299n24; Stolper-Samuelson Theorem and, 142–43; technology and, 210–13, 219, 222–23, 236–41, 244, 251, 253–59, 265, 293, 316n4; unemployment and, 9–11, 190, 200, 209, 223, 239, 255–56; unions and, 23, 94, 118, 200, 240–45, 316n4; unpaid, 210, 233–39, 248–49; unskilled, 163, 266; visas and, 158 (see also visas); wages and, 5 (see also wages); wealth and, 130–43, 146, 148, 159–66, 209, 226, 239, 246; women’s work and, 209, 313n4; Workers International and, 45 Labor Party, 45 laissez-faire, 45, 250, 253, 277 landlords, 37, 43, 70, 136, 201–2 landowners, 31–33, 38–39, 41, 68, 105, 173 Lange, Oskar, 47, 277, 280, 282, 286–88, 298n13 Lanier, Jaron, 208, 220–24, 233, 237, 313n2, 315n48 land value taxation, 31, 42–44, 56, 61 Latin America, 10, 57, 130, 138, 140 Law of the Sea Authority, 267 Ledyard, John, 100 Lenin, Vladimir, 46 Lerner, Abba, 280 liberalism: capitalism and, 3, 17, 22–27; central planning and, 19–20; competition and, 6, 17, 20–28; conflict and, 12–16; crisis in, 1–29; democracy and, 3–4, 25, 80, 86, 90; efficiency and, 17, 24, 28; elitism and, 3, 15–16, 25–28; equality and, 4, 8, 24, 29; globalization and, 255; governance and, 3, 16; growth and, 3–11, 23–24, 29; industry and, 19, 22, 24; inequality and, 2–11, 22–25; labor and, 5–12, 21–23, 26, 28, 141, 164; markets and, 16–29; monopolies and, 6, 16, 21–23, 28; neoliberalism and, 5, 9, 11, 24, 255; ownership and, 17–19, 26–27; prices and, 7, 8, 17–22, 25–27; profits and, 6–7, 17–18; property and, 17–18, 25–28; Quadratic Voting (QV) and, 268; reform and, 2–4, 23–25, 255; regulations and, 3, 9, 18, 24; stagnation and, 8–11; taxes and, 5, 9, 23–24; values of, 1, 18; wages and, 5, 7, 10, 19; wealth and, 4–17, 22–24, 255–56 Ligett, Katrina, 306n52 Likert, Rensis, 111 Likert surveys, 111–16, 120, 306n53 LinkedIn, 202 liquidity, 31, 69, 177–79, 194, 301n49 living standards, 3, 11, 13, 133, 135, 148, 153, 254, 257–58 lobbying, 98–99, 189–90, 198, 203, 262, 312n50 Locke, John, 86 Lyft, xxi, 117 McAfee, Preston, 50 machine learning (ML), 315n48; algorithms and, 208, 214, 219, 221, 281–82, 289–93; automated video editing and, 208; consumers and, 238; core idea of, 214; data evaluation by, 238; diamond-water paradox and, 224–25; diminishing returns and, 229–30; distribution of complexity and, 228; facial recognition and, 208, 216–19; factories for thinking machines and, 213–20; humanproduced data for, 208–9; marginal value and, 224–28, 247; neural networks and, 214–19; overfitting and, 217–18; payment systems for, 224–30; productivity and, 208–9; Radical Markets for, 247; siren servers and, 220–24, 230–41, 243; technofeudalism and, 230–33; technooptimists and, 254–55, 316n2; techno-pessimists and, 254–55, 316n2; Vapnik and, 217; worker displacement and, 222 McKelvey, Richard, 94 Macron, Emmanuel, 129 Madison, James, 87 Magie, Elizabeth, 43 majority rule, 27, 83–89, 92–97, 100–101, 121, 306n51 Malkiel, Burton G., 309n14 managers, 40, 129, 157, 171–72, 178–81, 193, 209, 266, 279, 284, 311n27 manufacturing, 77, 122, 162, 174, 185–86, 190, 279 Mao Tse-tung, 46 marginal cost, 101–3, 107, 109 marginal revolution, 41, 47, 224 marginal value, 103, 224–28, 247, 304n35 Market Fundamentalists, xix, xvi–xvii markets; as antiquated computers, 286–88; auctions and, xv–xix, 49–51, 70–71, 97, 99, 147–49, 156–57; border issues and, 22–23, 25, 28, 130, 133, 139–40, 142, 144, 161, 164–65, 242, 256, 264–66; capitalism and, 278, 288, 304n36; central planning and, 277–85, 288–93; Coase on, 40, 48–51, 299n26; for collective decisions, 97–105; colonialism and, 8, 131; common ownership self-assessed tax (COST) and, 270, 286; competition and, 25–28, 109 (see also competition); computers and, 277, 280–93; concentration of, 186, 204; consumers and, 19, 47, 117, 172, 175, 186, 190–91, 197–98, 220, 238, 242–43, 247–48, 256, 262, 270, 280, 287–91; control and, 178–81, 183–85, 193, 198, 235; democracy and, 97–105, 262, 276; discontents and, 16–19; diversification and, 171–72, 180–81, 185, 191–92, 194–96, 310n22, 310n24; dot-com bubble and, 211; efficiency and, 180, 277–85; equilibrium and, 293, 305n40; expansion of, 256; exports and, 46, 132; Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and, 176, 186; feudalism and, 16, 34–35, 37, 41, 61, 68, 136, 230–33, 239; free trade and, 23, 131–33, 136, 266; General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and, 138; globalization and, 265 (see also globalization); Great Depression and, 3, 17, 46, 176; Great Recession and, 181–82; immigrants and, 132–37; imports and, 132; international trade and, 14, 22, 132, 138, 140, 142, 265, 270; Internet and, 211; labor and, 255–60, 265–69, 273–74, 280, 285; liberalism and, 16–29; liquidity and, 31, 69, 177–79, 194, 301n49; manufacturing and, 77, 122, 162, 174, 185–86, 190, 279; marginal value and, 103, 224–28, 247; mercantilism and, 131–32; mergers and, 176, 178, 186–90, 197, 200, 202–3; monopsony and, 190, 199–201, 223, 234, 238–41, 255; open, 21–22, 24; as parallel processors, 282–86; passivity and, 171–72, 192, 196–97, 272, 274; Philosophical Radicals and, 4, 16, 20, 22–23, 95; power and, 6–8, 21, 25–28, 186, 190, 200, 234, 241, 255–56, 261, 271, 316n3; prices and, 278–80, 284–85; property and, 282; public goods and, 271; Quadratic Voting (QV) and, 122–23, 256, 272, 286, 304n36; Red Queen phenomenon and, 176–77, 184; scope of trade and, 122–23; sea power and, 131; Smith on, 16–17, 21–22; socialism and, 277–78, 281; stock, 8, 78, 171, 179, 181, 193, 211, 275; Stolper-Samuelson Theorem and, 142–43; tariffs and, 138, 266; technology and, 203, 286–87, 292; trade barriers and, 14; tragedy of the commons and, 44; without property, 40–45 Marx, Karl, 2, 19, 39, 46, 78, 137, 239–40, 277, 297n25 Means, Gardiner, 177–78, 183, 193–94 Mechanical Turk, 230–31, 234 Menger, Karl, 41, 47, 224 mercantilism, 96, 131–32 mergers, 176, 178, 186–90, 197, 200, 202–3 Mexico, 15, 139–41, 143, 148 micropayments, 210, 212 Microsoft, 2, 202, 209, 211, 219, 231, 238–39, 315n46 Milgrom, Paul, 50, 71 Mill, James, 35, 96 Mill, John Stuart, 4, 20, 96, 137 minorities: democracy and, 85–90, 93–97, 101, 106, 110; inequality and, 12, 14–15, 19, 23–27, 85–90, 93–97, 101, 106, 110, 181, 194, 273, 303n14, 304n36; religious, 87–88; tyrannies and, 23, 25, 88, 96–100, 106, 108; voting and, 303n14 mixed constitution, 84–85 Modern Corporation and Private Property, The (Berle and Means), 177–78 Modiface, 318n10 Mohammad, 131 monarchies, 85–86, 91, 95, 160 monopolies: American Tobacco Company and, 174; antitrust policies and, 23, 48, 174–77, 180, 184–86, 191, 197–203, 242, 255, 262, 286; Aristotle on, 172; capitalism and, 22–23, 34–39, 44, 46–49, 132, 136, 173, 177, 179, 199, 258, 262; Clayton Act and, 176–77, 197, 311n25; common ownership self-assessed tax (COST) and, 256–61, 270, 300n43; competition and, 174; consumers and, 175, 186, 197–98; corporate control and, 168–204; deadweight loss and, 173; democracy and, 125; Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and, 176, 186; feudalism and, 16, 34–35, 37, 41, 61, 68, 136, 230–33, 239; Gilded Age and, 174, 262; labor and, 132, 136, 243; land monopolization and, 42–43; legal issues and, 173–77, 196–99, 262; liberalism and, 6, 16, 21–23, 28; mergers and, 176, 178, 186–90, 197, 200, 202–3; natural, 48; prices and, 58–59, 179, 258, 300n43; problem of, 6, 34, 38–42, 48–52, 57, 66, 71, 196, 199, 298n7, 298n9, 299n28; property and, 34–39; Quadratic Voting (QV) and, 272; Radical Markets and, 172–79, 185, 190, 196, 199–204, 272; Red Queen phenomenon and, 176–77; resale price maintenance and, 200–201; robber barons and, 175, 199–200; Section 7 and, 196–97, 311n25; Sherman Antitrust Act and, 174, 262; Smith on, 173; Standard Oil Company and, 174–75; United States v.


pages: 337 words: 101,440

Revolution Française: Emmanuel Macron and the Quest to Reinvent a Nation by Sophie Pedder

"World Economic Forum" Davos, Airbnb, Berlin Wall, Bernie Sanders, bike sharing, carbon tax, centre right, clean tech, DeepMind, disruptive innovation, Donald Trump, Downton Abbey, driverless car, Erik Brynjolfsson, eurozone crisis, failed state, fake news, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Future Shock, ghettoisation, growth hacking, haute couture, Jean Tirole, knowledge economy, liberal capitalism, mass immigration, mittelstand, new economy, post-industrial society, public intellectual, rent-seeking, ride hailing / ride sharing, Second Machine Age, sharing economy, Sheryl Sandberg, Silicon Valley, Tony Fadell, Travis Kalanick, urban planning, éminence grise

During the summer of 2015, the mood in the minister’s office was one of frustration. Macron felt increasingly humiliated, and marginalized within government. He had lost his parliamentary battle with Manuel Valls, over the bill to deregulate Sunday trading. He was considered an agent of ultra-liberal capitalism by the left wing of the Socialist Party. But was he so out of touch with public opinion? In July the team organized a town-hall debate, open to the public and publicized on Macron’s Facebook page. ‘We had no idea whether we would have just 50 people, or more than that,’ recalls one of the coordinators.


pages: 846 words: 250,145

The Cold War: A World History by Odd Arne Westad

Able Archer 83, Albert Einstein, American ideology, anti-communist, Ayatollah Khomeini, Berlin Wall, Bolshevik threat, Bretton Woods, British Empire, capital controls, collective bargaining, colonial rule, continuous integration, cuban missile crisis, Deng Xiaoping, disinformation, Dissolution of the Soviet Union, energy security, European colonialism, facts on the ground, failed state, Fall of the Berlin Wall, financial deregulation, full employment, Great Leap Forward, household responsibility system, imperial preference, Internet Archive, land reform, Les Trente Glorieuses, liberal capitalism, long peace, means of production, Mikhail Gorbachev, military-industrial complex, mutually assured destruction, Nelson Mandela, new economy, Nixon shock, Nixon triggered the end of the Bretton Woods system, oil shock, out of africa, post-industrial society, Ronald Reagan, Ronald Reagan: Tear down this wall, South China Sea, special economic zone, Strategic Defense Initiative, Suez crisis 1956, union organizing, urban planning, War on Poverty, women in the workforce, Yom Kippur War, young professional, zero-sum game

Even those who did not support the tsar felt that natural, direct, genuine forms of personal interaction were being lost, and might be replaced by inauthentic and foreign ways of living. All of this fueled anticapitalist resistance in Russia both on the Right and the Left in the years before World War I. The few who believed in the ideas of liberal capitalism were often lost in the melee. In this anticapitalist chorus in Russia, the Social Democratic Party stood out as one of the movements that linked the empire to broader trends in Europe. Founded in 1898, the party’s background was in Marxist thinking, which of course connected it to significant parts of the labor movement in Germany, France, and Italy.

Overall capitalism had a very bad run in the first half of the twentieth century. It was easy to inflame world opinion against it and in favor of ideals of social justice and defense of local communities, even when such values were presented by thugs and murderers. The Soviet Union was not the only collectivist challenger to liberal capitalism in the interwar years. In Italy, the Fascists, headed by Benito Mussolini, claimed that their combination of nationalism and socialism was the way forward. In Munich in 1923, just four years after the defeat of the Bavarian Soviet Republic, a young German extremist, Adolf Hitler, tried to grab power on behalf of his Nazi Party.


pages: 405 words: 109,114

Unfinished Business by Tamim Bayoumi

Alan Greenspan, algorithmic trading, Asian financial crisis, bank run, banking crisis, Basel III, battle of ideas, Bear Stearns, behavioural economics, Ben Bernanke: helicopter money, Berlin Wall, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, book value, Bretton Woods, British Empire, business cycle, buy and hold, capital controls, Celtic Tiger, central bank independence, collapse of Lehman Brothers, collateralized debt obligation, credit crunch, currency manipulation / currency intervention, currency peg, Doha Development Round, facts on the ground, Fall of the Berlin Wall, financial deregulation, floating exchange rates, full employment, Glass-Steagall Act, Greenspan put, hiring and firing, housing crisis, inflation targeting, junk bonds, Just-in-time delivery, Kenneth Rogoff, liberal capitalism, light touch regulation, London Interbank Offered Rate, Long Term Capital Management, market bubble, Martin Wolf, moral hazard, oil shale / tar sands, oil shock, price stability, prisoner's dilemma, profit maximization, quantitative easing, race to the bottom, random walk, reserve currency, Robert Shiller, Rubik’s Cube, Savings and loan crisis, savings glut, technology bubble, The Great Moderation, The Myth of the Rational Market, the payments system, The Wisdom of Crowds, too big to fail, trade liberalization, transaction costs, value at risk

International Monetary Fund (2009): “The State of Public Finances: Outlook and Medium-Term Policies After the 2008 Crisis”, International Monetary Fund Policy Paper, March 2009. International Monetary Fund (2011): “The United States: Spillover Report”, IMF Country Report No. 11/203, July 2011. International Monetary Fund (2012a): “Liberalizing Capital Flows and Managing Outflows”, International Monetary Fund Policy Paper, March 2012. International Monetary Fund (2012b): “The Liberalization and Management of Capital Flows: An Institutional View”, International Monetary Fund, November 2012. International Monetary Fund (2015): “Monetary Policy and Financial Stability”, International Monetary Fund, August 2015.


pages: 372 words: 107,587

The End of Growth: Adapting to Our New Economic Reality by Richard Heinberg

3D printing, agricultural Revolution, Alan Greenspan, Anthropocene, Apollo 11, back-to-the-land, banking crisis, banks create money, Bear Stearns, biodiversity loss, Bretton Woods, business cycle, carbon footprint, Carmen Reinhart, clean water, cloud computing, collateralized debt obligation, computerized trading, credit crunch, Credit Default Swap, credit default swaps / collateralized debt obligations, currency manipulation / currency intervention, currency peg, David Graeber, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, degrowth, dematerialisation, demographic dividend, Deng Xiaoping, Elliott wave, en.wikipedia.org, energy transition, falling living standards, financial deregulation, financial innovation, Fractional reserve banking, full employment, Gini coefficient, Glass-Steagall Act, global village, green transition, happiness index / gross national happiness, I think there is a world market for maybe five computers, income inequality, intentional community, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), invisible hand, Isaac Newton, Jevons paradox, Kenneth Rogoff, late fees, liberal capitalism, low interest rates, mega-rich, military-industrial complex, Money creation, money market fund, money: store of value / unit of account / medium of exchange, mortgage debt, naked short selling, Naomi Klein, Negawatt, new economy, Nixon shock, offshore financial centre, oil shale / tar sands, oil shock, peak oil, Ponzi scheme, price stability, private military company, quantitative easing, reserve currency, ride hailing / ride sharing, rolling blackouts, Ronald Reagan, short selling, special drawing rights, systems thinking, The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus, Thorstein Veblen, too big to fail, trade liberalization, tulip mania, WikiLeaks, working poor, world market for maybe five computers, zero-sum game

Those with privilege will no doubt struggle to maintain it, while the poor, driven to desperation by generally worsening economic conditions, may in increasing numbers of instances organize or even revolt in order to increase their share of a shrinking pie. In her 2008 book The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, Canadian anti-globalization author and activist Naomi Klein argued that modern neo-liberal capitalism thrives on disasters, in that politicians and corporate leaders take advantage of natural calamities and wars to ram though programs for privatization, free trade, and slashed social spending — programs that are inherently unpopular and would have little chance of adoption in ordinary times.51 Klein’s thesis seems confirmed in the present instance: the end of growth is presenting societies with an ongoing economic crisis, and we have already seen how, in the US, well-heeled investors and executives have benefited from government bailouts while millions of workers have lost jobs and homes.


pages: 408 words: 108,985

Rewriting the Rules of the European Economy: An Agenda for Growth and Shared Prosperity by Joseph E. Stiglitz

"World Economic Forum" Davos, accelerated depreciation, Airbnb, Alan Greenspan, balance sheet recession, bank run, banking crisis, barriers to entry, Basel III, basic income, behavioural economics, benefit corporation, Berlin Wall, bilateral investment treaty, business cycle, business process, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, carbon tax, central bank independence, collapse of Lehman Brothers, collective bargaining, corporate governance, corporate raider, corporate social responsibility, creative destruction, credit crunch, deindustrialization, discovery of DNA, diversified portfolio, Donald Trump, eurozone crisis, Fall of the Berlin Wall, financial engineering, financial intermediation, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, full employment, gender pay gap, George Akerlof, gig economy, Gini coefficient, Glass-Steagall Act, hiring and firing, housing crisis, Hyman Minsky, income inequality, independent contractor, inflation targeting, informal economy, information asymmetry, intangible asset, investor state dispute settlement, invisible hand, Isaac Newton, labor-force participation, liberal capitalism, low interest rates, low skilled workers, market fundamentalism, mini-job, moral hazard, non-tariff barriers, offshore financial centre, open economy, Paris climate accords, patent troll, pension reform, price mechanism, price stability, proprietary trading, purchasing power parity, quantitative easing, race to the bottom, regulatory arbitrage, rent-seeking, Robert Shiller, Ronald Reagan, selection bias, shareholder value, Silicon Valley, sovereign wealth fund, TaskRabbit, too big to fail, trade liberalization, transaction costs, transfer pricing, trickle-down economics, tulip mania, universal basic income, unorthodox policies, vertical integration, zero-sum game

However, the aggressive free-market approach of Margaret Thatcher and the fall of the Berlin Wall resulted in a major change in this balance, based on an excessive confidence in markets. In the clash between two competing systems, Communism and capitalism, the latter seemed to have triumphed absolutely. Some, like Francis Fukuyama, went so far as to proclaim “the end of history,” prophesying that the entire world would eventually appreciate the wisdom of liberalism, capitalism, and democracy. This triumphalism paved the way for a shrinking role for the state. This confidence in the market has taken more than a few body blows since 1989. Above all, the 2008 financial crisis laid bare deep structural shortcomings. In the West, even in the decades before the financial crisis, few economic gains have accrued to the bottom half of households, or even the bottom 90 percent.


pages: 332 words: 106,197

The Divide: A Brief Guide to Global Inequality and Its Solutions by Jason Hickel

"World Economic Forum" Davos, Alan Greenspan, Andrei Shleifer, Asian financial crisis, Atahualpa, Bartolomé de las Casas, Bernie Sanders, Bob Geldof, Bretton Woods, British Empire, Cape to Cairo, capital controls, carbon credits, carbon footprint, carbon tax, clean water, collective bargaining, colonial rule, Cornelius Vanderbilt, David Attenborough, David Graeber, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, declining real wages, degrowth, dematerialisation, Doha Development Round, Elon Musk, European colonialism, falling living standards, financial deregulation, flying shuttle, Fractional reserve banking, Francisco Pizarro, full employment, Glass-Steagall Act, Global Witness, Hans Rosling, happiness index / gross national happiness, Howard Zinn, income inequality, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), investor state dispute settlement, James Watt: steam engine, laissez-faire capitalism, land reform, land value tax, liberal capitalism, Live Aid, Mahatma Gandhi, Money creation, Monroe Doctrine, Mont Pelerin Society, moral hazard, Naomi Klein, negative emissions, Nelson Mandela, offshore financial centre, oil shale / tar sands, out of africa, Phillips curve, planned obsolescence, plutocrats, purchasing power parity, race to the bottom, rent control, road to serfdom, Ronald Reagan, Scramble for Africa, shareholder value, sharing economy, Silicon Valley, Simon Kuznets, structural adjustment programs, TED Talk, The Chicago School, The Spirit Level, trade route, transatlantic slave trade, transfer pricing, trickle-down economics, Washington Consensus, WikiLeaks, women in the workforce, Works Progress Administration

As the historian Mike Davis puts it: We are not dealing, in other words, with ‘lands of famine’ becalmed in stagnant backwaters of world history, but with the fate of tropical humanity at the precise moment (1870–1914) when its labour and products were being dynamically conscripted into a London-centred world economy.40 Millions died, not outside the ‘modern world system’, but in the very process of being forcibly incorporated into its economic and political structures. They died in the golden age of Liberal Capitalism. Of course, there was nothing ‘free’ about the free-market system that the British imposed. It was brought in by force, and the rules of trade were rigged by London. The peasants who switched to cash cropping did so under the duress of debt and taxes – including taxes on local irrigation systems and even on the construction of new wells.


Reset by Ronald J. Deibert

23andMe, active measures, air gap, Airbnb, Amazon Web Services, Anthropocene, augmented reality, availability heuristic, behavioural economics, Bellingcat, Big Tech, bitcoin, blockchain, blood diamond, Brexit referendum, Buckminster Fuller, business intelligence, Cal Newport, call centre, Cambridge Analytica, carbon footprint, cashless society, Citizen Lab, clean water, cloud computing, computer vision, confounding variable, contact tracing, contact tracing app, content marketing, coronavirus, corporate social responsibility, COVID-19, crowdsourcing, data acquisition, data is the new oil, decarbonisation, deep learning, deepfake, Deng Xiaoping, disinformation, Donald Trump, Doomsday Clock, dual-use technology, Edward Snowden, Elon Musk, en.wikipedia.org, end-to-end encryption, Evgeny Morozov, failed state, fake news, Future Shock, game design, gig economy, global pandemic, global supply chain, global village, Google Hangouts, Great Leap Forward, high-speed rail, income inequality, information retrieval, information security, Internet of things, Jaron Lanier, Jeff Bezos, John Markoff, Lewis Mumford, liberal capitalism, license plate recognition, lockdown, longitudinal study, Mark Zuckerberg, Marshall McLuhan, mass immigration, megastructure, meta-analysis, military-industrial complex, move fast and break things, Naomi Klein, natural language processing, New Journalism, NSO Group, off-the-grid, Peter Thiel, planetary scale, planned obsolescence, post-truth, proprietary trading, QAnon, ransomware, Robert Mercer, Sheryl Sandberg, Shoshana Zuboff, Silicon Valley, single source of truth, Skype, Snapchat, social distancing, sorting algorithm, source of truth, sovereign wealth fund, sparse data, speech recognition, Steve Bannon, Steve Jobs, Stuxnet, surveillance capitalism, techlash, technological solutionism, the long tail, the medium is the message, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, TikTok, TSMC, undersea cable, unit 8200, Vannevar Bush, WikiLeaks, zero day, zero-sum game

Consider Amazon, what anticompetition jurist Lina Khan calls “the titan of twenty-first century commerce.”450 Amazon started out as a mere online retailer but is now also a marketing firm; a global transportation, delivery and logistics supplier; a payment vendor; a credit lender; an auction network service; a book publisher; a producer of television programs and films; a streaming media service; a hardware manufacturer; a neighbourhood security service provider; a facial recognition service provider; one of the world’s leading cloud hosting providers; and a grocery retailer (thanks to its acquisition of Whole Foods), among others. Amazon employed a predatory pricing policy to undercut competitors and then expand to the point of becoming essential infrastructure for a large number of other businesses. It did so while craftily evading antitrust measures, which themselves had been watered down over time, thanks to neo-liberal capitalism. As Khan says, “It is as if Bezos charted the company’s growth by first drawing a map of antitrust laws, and then devising routes to smoothly bypass them.” And this has paid off in spades: Jeff Bezos was named by Forbes magazine the “richest man in modern history” after his net worth increased to $150 billion in July 2018 — though it’s declined somewhat since that time, thanks to some risky investments and a costly divorce settlement in 2019.451 (It’s worth underlining here that Amazon, Facebook, and Google spent nearly half a billion dollars on lobbying efforts in Washington, D.C., over the past ten years, no doubt in response to the creeping prospect of greater government regulation and to ward off antitrust initiatives.)452 Let’s face it, there may be an element of vengeance at play in the “let’s break them up” rallying cry.


pages: 370 words: 111,129

Inglorious Empire: What the British Did to India by Shashi Tharoor

"World Economic Forum" Davos, affirmative action, barriers to entry, Boris Johnson, British Empire, colonial exploitation, colonial rule, corporate raider, deindustrialization, European colonialism, global village, informal economy, Jeremy Corbyn, joint-stock company, land tenure, liberal capitalism, Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, night-watchman state, Parkinson's law, trade route

This, of course, is what Niall Ferguson does do. As we have seen, he sees in Empire cause for much that is good in the world, in particular the free movement of goods, capital and labour and the imposition of Western norms of law, order and governance. Without the spread of British rule around the planet, he argues, the success of liberal capitalism in so many economies today would not have been possible. Even if this were arguably a defensible proposition, however, it is not necessarily, as Ferguson would put it, a Good Thing. The continuity of today’s world with the world of the British empire, which he so celebrates, is most strikingly evident in the economic dependence of much of the postcolonial world on the former imperial states, a contemporary reality that hardly redounds to the credit of the colonizers.


pages: 405 words: 117,219

In Our Own Image: Savior or Destroyer? The History and Future of Artificial Intelligence by George Zarkadakis

3D printing, Ada Lovelace, agricultural Revolution, Airbnb, Alan Turing: On Computable Numbers, with an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem, animal electricity, anthropic principle, Asperger Syndrome, autonomous vehicles, barriers to entry, battle of ideas, Berlin Wall, bioinformatics, Bletchley Park, British Empire, business process, carbon-based life, cellular automata, Charles Babbage, Claude Shannon: information theory, combinatorial explosion, complexity theory, Computing Machinery and Intelligence, continuous integration, Conway's Game of Life, cosmological principle, dark matter, data science, deep learning, DeepMind, dematerialisation, double helix, Douglas Hofstadter, driverless car, Edward Snowden, epigenetics, Flash crash, Google Glasses, Gödel, Escher, Bach, Hans Moravec, income inequality, index card, industrial robot, intentional community, Internet of things, invention of agriculture, invention of the steam engine, invisible hand, Isaac Newton, Jacquard loom, Jacques de Vaucanson, James Watt: steam engine, job automation, John von Neumann, Joseph-Marie Jacquard, Kickstarter, liberal capitalism, lifelogging, machine translation, millennium bug, mirror neurons, Moravec's paradox, natural language processing, Nick Bostrom, Norbert Wiener, off grid, On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures, packet switching, pattern recognition, Paul Erdős, Plato's cave, post-industrial society, power law, precautionary principle, prediction markets, Ray Kurzweil, Recombinant DNA, Rodney Brooks, Second Machine Age, self-driving car, seminal paper, Silicon Valley, social intelligence, speech recognition, stem cell, Stephen Hawking, Steven Pinker, Strategic Defense Initiative, strong AI, Stuart Kauffman, synthetic biology, systems thinking, technological singularity, The Coming Technological Singularity, The Future of Employment, the scientific method, theory of mind, Turing complete, Turing machine, Turing test, Tyler Cowen, Tyler Cowen: Great Stagnation, Vernor Vinge, Von Neumann architecture, Watson beat the top human players on Jeopardy!, Y2K

The tension between totalitarian utopias and free-market idealism resulted in the destruction of the ancient imperial order, caused the violent death of tens of millions during two world wars and accelerated the development of new technologies – of which computers were perhaps the most important one. We now live at a time when the aftermath of the Cold War seems like a fading echo of the past. The apparent victory of liberal capitalism over communism, symbolised by the destruction of the Berlin Wall in November 1989, is nowadays doubted and challenged. The Great Recession that was set off in 2007 has demonstrated that unregulated financial markets create financial bubbles that can bring down the entire world economy. Millions of livelihoods have been destroyed in southern Europe, where double-digit unemployment has wiped out hope for the next two generations at least.


pages: 364 words: 112,681

Moneyland: Why Thieves and Crooks Now Rule the World and How to Take It Back by Oliver Bullough

Alan Greenspan, banking crisis, Bernie Madoff, bitcoin, blood diamond, Bretton Woods, Brexit referendum, BRICs, British Empire, capital controls, central bank independence, corporate governance, cryptocurrency, cuban missile crisis, dark matter, diversification, Donald Trump, energy security, failed state, financial engineering, Flash crash, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, full employment, Global Witness, high net worth, if you see hoof prints, think horses—not zebras, income inequality, joint-stock company, land bank, liberal capitalism, liberal world order, mass immigration, medical malpractice, Navinder Sarao, offshore financial centre, plutocrats, Plutonomy: Buying Luxury, Explaining Global Imbalances, rent-seeking, Richard Feynman, risk tolerance, Sloane Ranger, sovereign wealth fund, Suez crisis 1956, WikiLeaks

Much Western political thought envisages the liberal democracies of the ‘developed’ countries as the natural end point of a historical process, and refers to other societies as ‘developing’, as if they are trains on a track which will eventually deliver them to the terminal station where we now live. The political theorist Francis Fukuyama – who has given up on the idea that history has come to an end – argues in his 2011 book The Origins of Political Order that this is a damagingly wrong way of looking at the world. The liberal capitalism of Western Europe, the United States and the other Western countries is not only extremely unusual, but also just one of multiple kinds of government. Corruption, he writes, often emerges where a Western-style state and economic structure has been imposed through ignorance or arrogance on to a society with totally different traditions.


pages: 573 words: 115,489

Prosperity Without Growth: Foundations for the Economy of Tomorrow by Tim Jackson

"World Economic Forum" Davos, Alan Greenspan, bank run, banking crisis, banks create money, Basel III, basic income, biodiversity loss, bonus culture, Boris Johnson, business cycle, carbon footprint, Carmen Reinhart, Cass Sunstein, choice architecture, circular economy, collapse of Lehman Brothers, creative destruction, credit crunch, Credit Default Swap, critique of consumerism, David Graeber, decarbonisation, degrowth, dematerialisation, en.wikipedia.org, energy security, financial deregulation, Financial Instability Hypothesis, financial intermediation, full employment, Garrett Hardin, Glass-Steagall Act, green new deal, Growth in a Time of Debt, Hans Rosling, Hyman Minsky, impact investing, income inequality, income per capita, intentional community, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Internet of things, invisible hand, job satisfaction, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, Joseph Schumpeter, Kenneth Rogoff, Kickstarter, laissez-faire capitalism, liberal capitalism, low interest rates, Mahatma Gandhi, mass immigration, means of production, meta-analysis, Money creation, moral hazard, mortgage debt, Murray Bookchin, Naomi Klein, negative emissions, new economy, ocean acidification, offshore financial centre, oil shale / tar sands, open economy, paradox of thrift, peak oil, peer-to-peer lending, Philip Mirowski, Post-Keynesian economics, profit motive, purchasing power parity, quantitative easing, retail therapy, Richard Thaler, road to serfdom, Robert Gordon, Robert Solow, Ronald Reagan, science of happiness, secular stagnation, short selling, Simon Kuznets, Skype, smart grid, sovereign wealth fund, Steve Jobs, TED Talk, The Chicago School, The Great Moderation, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, The Spirit Level, The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thorstein Veblen, too big to fail, Tragedy of the Commons, universal basic income, Works Progress Administration, World Values Survey, zero-sum game

In fact, those inclined to question the consensus wisdom are swiftly denounced as cynical revolutionaries or modern-day Luddites. ‘We do not agree with the anti-capitalists who see the economic crisis as a chance to impose their utopia, whether of a socialist or ecofundamentalist kind’, roared one UK newspaper at the height of the crisis. ‘Most of us in this country enjoy long and fulfilling lives thanks to liberal capitalism: we have no desire to live in a yurt under a workers’ soviet.’36 With that confusingly attired bogey-man looming over the situation, rebuilding consumer confidence to boost high-street spending looked like a no-brainer. And internecine warfare was all saved for arguing over how this is to be achieved.


pages: 451 words: 115,720

Green Tyranny: Exposing the Totalitarian Roots of the Climate Industrial Complex by Rupert Darwall

1960s counterculture, active measures, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Albert Einstein, Bakken shale, Berlin Wall, Bernie Sanders, California energy crisis, carbon credits, carbon footprint, centre right, clean tech, collapse of Lehman Brothers, creative destruction, decarbonisation, deindustrialization, dematerialisation, disinformation, Donald Trump, electricity market, Elon Musk, energy security, energy transition, facts on the ground, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Garrett Hardin, gigafactory, Gunnar Myrdal, Herbert Marcuse, hydraulic fracturing, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), invisible hand, it's over 9,000, James Watt: steam engine, John Elkington, Joseph Schumpeter, Kenneth Rogoff, Kickstarter, liberal capitalism, market design, means of production, megaproject, Mikhail Gorbachev, mittelstand, Murray Bookchin, Neil Armstrong, nuclear winter, obamacare, oil shale / tar sands, Paris climate accords, Peace of Westphalia, peak oil, plutocrats, postindustrial economy, precautionary principle, pre–internet, recommendation engine, renewable energy transition, rent-seeking, road to serfdom, rolling blackouts, Ronald Reagan, shareholder value, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley billionaire, Solyndra, Strategic Defense Initiative, subprime mortgage crisis, tech baron, tech billionaire, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Tragedy of the Commons, women in the workforce, young professional

Lawaczeck was on the left wing of the party and associated with Feder, Julius Streicher, Heinrich Himmler, and Joseph Goebbels. Technology and the Economy is both an anticapitalist tract and a blueprint for a renewable energy future. Lawaczeck extolled the corporatist state that had been destroyed by egoistic liberal capitalism and denounced foreign trade as only benefitting traders.20 The capitalist system was an experiment in liberal thinking that had led Germany to catastrophe. The experiment was now over and everyone could see the consequences.21 Like many Nazis, Lawaczeck was impressed by Stalin’s Five Year Plans.


pages: 424 words: 119,679

It's Better Than It Looks: Reasons for Optimism in an Age of Fear by Gregg Easterbrook

affirmative action, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, air freight, Alan Greenspan, Apollo 11, autonomous vehicles, basic income, Bernie Madoff, Bernie Sanders, Black Lives Matter, Boeing 747, Branko Milanovic, Brexit referendum, business cycle, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, carbon tax, clean tech, clean water, coronavirus, Crossrail, David Brooks, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, deindustrialization, Dissolution of the Soviet Union, Donald Trump, driverless car, Elon Musk, Exxon Valdez, factory automation, failed state, fake news, full employment, Gini coefficient, Google Earth, Home mortgage interest deduction, hydraulic fracturing, Hyperloop, illegal immigration, impulse control, income inequality, independent contractor, Indoor air pollution, interchangeable parts, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), invisible hand, James Watt: steam engine, labor-force participation, liberal capitalism, longitudinal study, Lyft, mandatory minimum, manufacturing employment, Mikhail Gorbachev, minimum wage unemployment, Modern Monetary Theory, obamacare, oil shale / tar sands, Paul Samuelson, peak oil, plant based meat, plutocrats, Ponzi scheme, post scarcity, purchasing power parity, quantitative easing, reserve currency, rising living standards, Robert Gordon, Ronald Reagan, self-driving car, short selling, Silicon Valley, Simon Kuznets, Slavoj Žižek, South China Sea, Steve Wozniak, Steven Pinker, supervolcano, The Chicago School, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, the scientific method, There's no reason for any individual to have a computer in his home - Ken Olsen, Thomas Kuhn: the structure of scientific revolutions, Thomas Malthus, transaction costs, Tyler Cowen, uber lyft, universal basic income, War on Poverty, Washington Consensus, We are all Keynesians now, WikiLeaks, working poor, Works Progress Administration

From the attack on Pearl Harbor until that summer, American shipyards christened seventeen fleet-class aircraft carriers, the most valuable vessels of World War II, while Japanese shipyards produced six. In the same period, the United States launched almost one hundred escort carriers; Japan launched twelve. As the analyst Daniel Yergin has noted, when in 1926 Japan ended suffrage to become a fascist state, the Japanese upper class “rejected liberalism, capitalism and democracy as engines of weakness and decadence.” Japan was burned to the ground by a weak, decadent system that could build aircraft carriers with far greater efficiency. Free societies hold an edge in fostering inventions and inventiveness, which closed societies discourage. In an irony, free societies also are better at organization than closed societies.


The Economics Anti-Textbook: A Critical Thinker's Guide to Microeconomics by Rod Hill, Anthony Myatt

American ideology, Andrei Shleifer, Asian financial crisis, bank run, barriers to entry, behavioural economics, Bernie Madoff, biodiversity loss, business cycle, cognitive dissonance, collateralized debt obligation, credit crunch, Credit Default Swap, credit default swaps / collateralized debt obligations, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, different worldview, electricity market, endogenous growth, equal pay for equal work, Eugene Fama: efficient market hypothesis, experimental economics, failed state, financial innovation, full employment, gender pay gap, Gini coefficient, Glass-Steagall Act, Gunnar Myrdal, happiness index / gross national happiness, Home mortgage interest deduction, Howard Zinn, income inequality, indoor plumbing, information asymmetry, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), invisible hand, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, Joseph Schumpeter, Kenneth Arrow, liberal capitalism, low interest rates, low skilled workers, market bubble, market clearing, market fundamentalism, Martin Wolf, medical malpractice, military-industrial complex, minimum wage unemployment, moral hazard, Paradox of Choice, Pareto efficiency, Paul Samuelson, Peter Singer: altruism, positional goods, prediction markets, price discrimination, price elasticity of demand, principal–agent problem, profit maximization, profit motive, publication bias, purchasing power parity, race to the bottom, Ralph Nader, random walk, rent control, rent-seeking, Richard Thaler, Ronald Reagan, search costs, shareholder value, sugar pill, The Myth of the Rational Market, the payments system, The Spirit Level, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thorstein Veblen, ultimatum game, union organizing, working-age population, World Values Survey, Yogi Berra

Froot, K. A. and E. M. Dabora (1999) ‘How are stock prices affected by the location of trade?’, Journal of Financial Economics, 53(2): 189–216. Frydman, C. and R. E. Saks (2008) ‘Executive compensation: a new view from 279 Bibliography Eatwell, J. and L. Taylor (1998) ‘The performance of liberalized capital markets’, Center for Economic Policy Analysis Working Paper Series III, Working Paper no. 8, New School for Social Research, New York, September. Edlin, A. S. and P. Karaca-Mandic (2006) ‘The accident externality from driving’, Journal of Political Economy, 114(5): 931–55. Einstein, A. (1926) ‘Remarks on new quantum mechanics’, quoted in A.


pages: 471 words: 124,585

The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World by Niall Ferguson

Admiral Zheng, Alan Greenspan, An Inconvenient Truth, Andrei Shleifer, Asian financial crisis, asset allocation, asset-backed security, Atahualpa, bank run, banking crisis, banks create money, Bear Stearns, Black Monday: stock market crash in 1987, Black Swan, Black-Scholes formula, Bonfire of the Vanities, Bretton Woods, BRICs, British Empire, business cycle, capital asset pricing model, capital controls, Carmen Reinhart, Cass Sunstein, central bank independence, classic study, collateralized debt obligation, colonial exploitation, commoditize, Corn Laws, corporate governance, creative destruction, credit crunch, Credit Default Swap, credit default swaps / collateralized debt obligations, currency manipulation / currency intervention, currency peg, Daniel Kahneman / Amos Tversky, deglobalization, diversification, diversified portfolio, double entry bookkeeping, Edmond Halley, Edward Glaeser, Edward Lloyd's coffeehouse, equity risk premium, financial engineering, financial innovation, financial intermediation, fixed income, floating exchange rates, Fractional reserve banking, Francisco Pizarro, full employment, Future Shock, German hyperinflation, Greenspan put, Herman Kahn, Hernando de Soto, high net worth, hindsight bias, Home mortgage interest deduction, Hyman Minsky, income inequality, information asymmetry, interest rate swap, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Isaac Newton, iterative process, James Carville said: "I would like to be reincarnated as the bond market. You can intimidate everybody.", John Meriwether, joint-stock company, joint-stock limited liability company, Joseph Schumpeter, junk bonds, Kenneth Arrow, Kenneth Rogoff, knowledge economy, labour mobility, Landlord’s Game, liberal capitalism, London Interbank Offered Rate, Long Term Capital Management, low interest rates, market bubble, market fundamentalism, means of production, Mikhail Gorbachev, Modern Monetary Theory, Money creation, money market fund, money: store of value / unit of account / medium of exchange, moral hazard, mortgage debt, mortgage tax deduction, Myron Scholes, Naomi Klein, National Debt Clock, negative equity, Nelson Mandela, Nick Bostrom, Nick Leeson, Northern Rock, Parag Khanna, pension reform, price anchoring, price stability, principal–agent problem, probability theory / Blaise Pascal / Pierre de Fermat, profit motive, quantitative hedge fund, RAND corporation, random walk, rent control, rent-seeking, reserve currency, Richard Thaler, risk free rate, Robert Shiller, rolling blackouts, Ronald Reagan, Savings and loan crisis, savings glut, seigniorage, short selling, Silicon Valley, South Sea Bubble, sovereign wealth fund, spice trade, stocks for the long run, structural adjustment programs, subprime mortgage crisis, tail risk, technology bubble, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, The Wisdom of Crowds, Thomas Bayes, Thomas Malthus, Thorstein Veblen, tontine, too big to fail, transaction costs, two and twenty, undersea cable, value at risk, W. E. B. Du Bois, Washington Consensus, Yom Kippur War

I. 246 alleged insight on currency devaluation 107 on imperialist rivalries and war 304 and money 17 less-developed countries 14. see also emerging markets leveraging 4. lex mercatoria 186 liability: limited see limited-liability companies unlimited 187 liberal imperialism 294 liberalization: capital market 310-12 economic 333 trade 305 Liberal party 202 liberals 89-90 Libor 265 Lifan company 333 life annuities 74 life expectancy 188 Lima 277 limited-liability companies 120 Lincoln, Abraham 93 Lincoln Savings and Loan 258n. liquidity 6. crises 55; see also financial crises ratios 62 and First World War 297 Liverpool 94 Liverpool, Lord (Prime Minister) 83 Lloyd George, David 202 Lloyd’s (London) 186-7 Lloyds Bank 56 Loaisa, Rodrigo de 23 Lo, Andrew 348 loans: conditional 185 forced 71-3 liquidity of 51 see also debt loan sharks 13 London & Westminster Bank 56 London: City of 53 as financial centre 299 insurance market 186-7 life expectancy in 190 Medici bank in 43 London Assurance Corporation 198 Londonderry, Thomas Pitt, Earl of 148 London Inter-Bank Offered Rate (Libor) 265.


pages: 627 words: 127,613

Transcending the Cold War: Summits, Statecraft, and the Dissolution of Bipolarity in Europe, 1970–1990 by Kristina Spohr, David Reynolds

anti-communist, bank run, Berlin Wall, Bretton Woods, computer age, conceptual framework, cuban missile crisis, Deng Xiaoping, failed state, Fall of the Berlin Wall, guns versus butter model, Kickstarter, Kitchen Debate, liberal capitalism, Mikhail Gorbachev, military-industrial complex, mutually assured destruction, Nixon shock, oil shock, open borders, Ronald Reagan, Ronald Reagan: Tear down this wall, shared worldview, Strategic Defense Initiative, Thomas L Friedman, Yom Kippur War, zero-sum game

Bipolarity was not, however, confined to Europe. America and Russia had global reach and also global pretensions: each was not just a ‘country’ but a ‘cause’.7 As well as being rivals for power and territory, they also embodied opposing ideologies—political pluralism versus a one-party state, liberal capitalism versus a command economy. This ideological confrontation was a core feature of East-West competition in Europe ever since 1945. But although Europe was the cockpit of the Cold War, over the next two decades superpower rivalry for place and position, for hearts and minds, spread across the so-called Third World.


pages: 1,037 words: 294,916

Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus by Rick Perlstein

"there is no alternative" (TINA), affirmative action, Alan Greenspan, Alvin Toffler, anti-communist, anti-work, antiwork, Berlin Wall, bread and circuses, Bretton Woods, business climate, card file, collective bargaining, company town, cuban missile crisis, desegregation, distributed generation, Dr. Strangelove, Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, ending welfare as we know it, George Gilder, haute couture, Henry Ford's grandson gave labor union leader Walter Reuther a tour of the company’s new, automated factory…, Herman Kahn, index card, indoor plumbing, invisible hand, Joan Didion, liberal capitalism, Marshall McLuhan, means of production, military-industrial complex, mortgage debt, New Journalism, Norman Mailer, plutocrats, Project Plowshare, road to serfdom, Robert Bork, rolodex, Ronald Reagan, Rosa Parks, school vouchers, the medium is the message, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, transcontinental railway, union organizing, Upton Sinclair, upwardly mobile, urban renewal, War on Poverty, Watson beat the top human players on Jeopardy!, white picket fence, Works Progress Administration

It was an embodiment of the parable of the blind men poking the elephant, each one describing a different beast: here was Jacob Javits claiming that “when a composite of our Party is taken, the thinking is Eisenhower (modern) thinking”; there Chicago Republicans were convening a banquet called “Real Republicanism versus Modern Republicanism.” Each was correct. Abraham Lincoln’s party was formed in the 1850s to fight the spread of slavery, and also to fight for something: the ideal that would later be called liberal capitalism—every man making the best for himself through his own hard work, every farmhand aspiring to be a farmer, every factory hand aspiring to own a factory. On this much the Republican homesteaders of the West and the industrialists and artisans in the East could agree. America prospered under Republican rule through the Gilded Age.

A program to sell: John Kessel, The Goldwater Coalition: Republican Strategies in 1964 (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1968), 125. 158 “When a composite”: John Andrew III, The Other Side of the Sixties: Young Americans for Freedom and the Rise of Conservative Politics (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1997), 40. For the Chicago banquet, see George B. Russell, J. Bracken Lee: The Taxpayer’s Champion (New York: Robert Spellers and Sons, 1961), 154. My interpretation of liberal capitalism and the founding of the Republican Party is from Malcolm Moos, The Republicans: A History of Their Party (New York: Random House, 1956), 30; and Milton Viorst, Fall from Grace: The Republican Party and the Puritan Ethic (New York: New American Library, 1968), 37. 158 My sense of the development of the sectional split is from Nicol C.


pages: 369 words: 128,349

Beyond the Random Walk: A Guide to Stock Market Anomalies and Low Risk Investing by Vijay Singal

3Com Palm IPO, Andrei Shleifer, AOL-Time Warner, asset allocation, book value, buy and hold, capital asset pricing model, correlation coefficient, cross-subsidies, currency risk, Daniel Kahneman / Amos Tversky, diversified portfolio, endowment effect, fixed income, index arbitrage, index fund, information asymmetry, information security, junk bonds, liberal capitalism, locking in a profit, Long Term Capital Management, loss aversion, low interest rates, margin call, market friction, market microstructure, mental accounting, merger arbitrage, Myron Scholes, new economy, prediction markets, price stability, profit motive, random walk, Richard Thaler, risk free rate, risk-adjusted returns, risk/return, selection bias, Sharpe ratio, short selling, short squeeze, survivorship bias, Tax Reform Act of 1986, transaction costs, uptick rule, Vanguard fund

INCREASING AND VARYING CORRELATIONS Concern The key benefit from international investing arises because of low correlations between the domestic market and foreign markets. There are two criticisms of historical correlations. First, the correlations may be increasing due to greater global integration as evidenced by larger capital and trade flows. Moreover, as more and more emerging markets liberalize capital flows, the correlations will increase. If the correlations are increasing, the above analysis based on prior data overestimates the benefit from international investing. Reconsider the example in the preamble of “Evidence,” above. With a correlation of 0.60, the new portfolio’s risk fell from 18 percent to 16 percent.


pages: 442 words: 130,526

The Billionaire Raj: A Journey Through India's New Gilded Age by James Crabtree

"World Economic Forum" Davos, accounting loophole / creative accounting, Asian financial crisis, behavioural economics, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, Branko Milanovic, business climate, call centre, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, centre right, colonial rule, commodity super cycle, Cornelius Vanderbilt, corporate raider, creative destruction, crony capitalism, Daniel Kahneman / Amos Tversky, Deng Xiaoping, Donald Trump, facts on the ground, failed state, fake news, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, global supply chain, Gunnar Myrdal, income inequality, informal economy, Joseph Schumpeter, land bank, liberal capitalism, Mahatma Gandhi, McMansion, megacity, Meghnad Desai, middle-income trap, New Urbanism, offshore financial centre, open economy, Parag Khanna, Pearl River Delta, plutocrats, Ponzi scheme, post-truth, public intellectual, quantitative easing, rent-seeking, Rubik’s Cube, Shenzhen special economic zone , Silicon Valley, Simon Kuznets, smart cities, special economic zone, spectrum auction, tech billionaire, The Great Moderation, Thomas L Friedman, transaction costs, trickle-down economics, vertical integration, Washington Consensus, WikiLeaks, yellow journalism, young professional

But there was clearly a sizable portion of the Indian economy in rent-thick sectors operating “a unique Indian business model,” as one academic study put it, “in which cultivating political connections in Delhi became the core competence and the most important survival imperative for businesses.”30 Sinha, who later went on to win election as a member of parliament for the BJP and serve as a junior minister under Narendra Modi, blamed many of India’s difficulties at that time on the ruling left-wing Congress party and its weakness for corruption. But at a deeper level, he also pointed to a three-way split at the heart of Indian business. First, there was state capitalism, meaning those many companies that were still run by the government in areas like steel and mining. Second was liberal capitalism, meaning those sectors that tended to be most connected to the global economy, and which were also the most competitive and least corrupt. Finally, and most troublingly, there was crony capitalism: the sectors dominated by the Bollygarchs, most of whom enjoyed deep connections with the state.


pages: 497 words: 143,175

Pivotal Decade: How the United States Traded Factories for Finance in the Seventies by Judith Stein

1960s counterculture, accelerated depreciation, activist lawyer, affirmative action, airline deregulation, Alan Greenspan, anti-communist, Ayatollah Khomeini, barriers to entry, Berlin Wall, blue-collar work, Bretton Woods, business cycle, capital controls, centre right, collective bargaining, Credit Default Swap, crony capitalism, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, deindustrialization, desegregation, do well by doing good, Dr. Strangelove, energy security, Fall of the Berlin Wall, falling living standards, feminist movement, financial deregulation, floating exchange rates, full employment, Glass-Steagall Act, Gunnar Myrdal, guns versus butter model, Ida Tarbell, income inequality, income per capita, intermodal, invisible hand, knowledge worker, laissez-faire capitalism, Les Trente Glorieuses, liberal capitalism, Long Term Capital Management, low interest rates, manufacturing employment, market bubble, Martin Wolf, new economy, Nixon triggered the end of the Bretton Woods system, oil shale / tar sands, oil shock, open economy, Paul Samuelson, payday loans, post-industrial society, post-oil, price mechanism, price stability, Ralph Nader, RAND corporation, reserve currency, Robert Gordon, Robert Solow, Ronald Reagan, Savings and loan crisis, Simon Kuznets, strikebreaker, three-martini lunch, trade liberalization, union organizing, urban planning, urban renewal, War on Poverty, Washington Consensus, working poor, Yom Kippur War

Baker believed that the liquidity problems of debtor countries had structural causes. The solution was to shift to export-led growth, reduce the role of the state, and open up the economy to foreign capital. This was not simply a Washington project. The Europeans and IMF bureaucrats were equally enthusiastic and began encouraging developing countries to liberalize capital as well as trade accounts.93 The premise was that low savings and weak financial markets hampered development. Access to funds from abroad would boost investment and growth. After the demise of the Soviet Union, leaders of the developed and developing nations were giddy with expectations that free markets, global connections, and new technology could transform the world.


pages: 469 words: 146,487

Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World by Niall Ferguson

British Empire, Cape to Cairo, colonial rule, Corn Laws, death from overwork, European colonialism, imperial preference, income per capita, information security, John Harrison: Longitude, joint-stock company, Khartoum Gordon, Khyber Pass, land reform, land tenure, liberal capitalism, Livingstone, I presume, low interest rates, Mahatma Gandhi, mass immigration, military-industrial complex, night-watchman state, Panopticon Jeremy Bentham, profit motive, Scramble for Africa, spice trade, Suez canal 1869, Suez crisis 1956, The inhabitant of London could order by telephone, sipping his morning tea in bed, the various products of the whole earth, the new new thing, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus, three-masted sailing ship, trade route, transatlantic slave trade, undersea cable, union organizing, zero-sum game

Sir Richard Turnbull, the penultimate Governor of Aden, once told Labour politician Denis Healey that ‘when the British Empire finally sank beneath the waves of history, it would leave behind it only two monuments: one was the game of Association Football, the other was the expression “Fuck off”.’ In truth, the imperial legacy has shaped the modern world so profoundly that we almost take it for granted. Without the spread of British rule around the world, it is hard to believe that the structures of liberal capitalism would have been so successfully established in so many different economies around the world. Those empires that adopted alternative models – the Russian and the Chinese – imposed incalculable misery on their subject peoples. Without the influence of British imperial rule, it is hard to believe that the institutions of parliamentary democracy would have been adopted by the majority of states in the world, as they are today.


pages: 447 words: 141,811

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari

Admiral Zheng, agricultural Revolution, Albert Einstein, Alfred Russel Wallace, An Inconvenient Truth, Apollo 11, Atahualpa, British Empire, cognitive dissonance, correlation does not imply causation, credit crunch, David Graeber, Easter island, Edmond Halley, European colonialism, Francisco Pizarro, glass ceiling, global village, Great Leap Forward, greed is good, income per capita, invention of gunpowder, Isaac Newton, joint-stock company, joint-stock limited liability company, Kickstarter, liberal capitalism, life extension, low interest rates, Mahatma Gandhi, megacity, Mikhail Gorbachev, military-industrial complex, Neil Armstrong, out of africa, personalized medicine, Ponzi scheme, Silicon Valley, South China Sea, stem cell, Steven Pinker, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, trade route, transatlantic slave trade, urban planning, zero-sum game

They were so successful that billions of people gradually adopted significant parts of that culture. Indians, Africans, Arabs, Chinese and Maoris learned French, English and Spanish. They began to believe in human rights and the principle of self-determination, and they adopted Western ideologies such as liberalism, capitalism, Communism, feminism and nationalism. The Imperial Cycle During the twentieth century, local groups that had adopted Western values claimed equality with their European conquerors in the name of these very values. Many anti-colonial struggles were waged under the banners of self-determination, socialism and human rights, all of which are Western legacies.


pages: 476 words: 139,761

Kleptopia: How Dirty Money Is Conquering the World by Tom Burgis

active measures, Anton Chekhov, banking crisis, Bear Stearns, Bernie Madoff, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, Boris Johnson, Brexit referendum, British Empire, collapse of Lehman Brothers, coronavirus, corporate governance, COVID-19, credit crunch, Credit Default Swap, cryptocurrency, disinformation, do-ocracy, Donald Trump, energy security, Etonian, failed state, fake news, Gordon Gekko, high net worth, Honoré de Balzac, illegal immigration, invisible hand, Julian Assange, liberal capitalism, light touch regulation, lockdown, Mark Zuckerberg, Martin Wolf, Michael Milken, Mikhail Gorbachev, Mohammed Bouazizi, Northern Rock, offshore financial centre, Right to Buy, Ronald Reagan, Skype, sovereign wealth fund, trade route, WikiLeaks

Seva could move anything across borders: art, crude, clothes, bootleg vodka and the belongings of emigrating Soviet Jews, gems, girls, gas, guns, heroin, nuclear material, hitmen and, naturally, himself. But he was best of all at smuggling money. He was swift to grasp the changes wrought by the triumph of liberal capitalism. Money could be seized by force and made to look like any other money. Cleansed of its past, it became what all the other money was: ‘a formal token of delayed reciprocal altruism’, as another brainy don, Richard Dawkins, had put it, a token denoting that you had done society a service and society owed you something in exchange.


pages: 535 words: 158,863

Superclass: The Global Power Elite and the World They Are Making by David Rothkopf

"World Economic Forum" Davos, airport security, Alan Greenspan, anti-communist, asset allocation, Ayatollah Khomeini, bank run, barriers to entry, Bear Stearns, Berlin Wall, Big Tech, Bob Geldof, Branko Milanovic, Bretton Woods, BRICs, business cycle, carried interest, clean water, compensation consultant, corporate governance, creative destruction, crony capitalism, David Brooks, Doha Development Round, Donald Trump, fake news, financial innovation, fixed income, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, Gini coefficient, global village, high net worth, income inequality, industrial cluster, informal economy, Internet Archive, Jeff Bezos, jimmy wales, John Elkington, joint-stock company, knowledge economy, Larry Ellison, liberal capitalism, Live Aid, Long Term Capital Management, Mahatma Gandhi, Mark Zuckerberg, market fundamentalism, Marshall McLuhan, Martin Wolf, mass immigration, means of production, Mexican peso crisis / tequila crisis, Michael Milken, Mikhail Gorbachev, military-industrial complex, Nelson Mandela, old-boy network, open borders, plutocrats, Ponzi scheme, price mechanism, proprietary trading, Savings and loan crisis, shareholder value, Skype, special economic zone, Steve Jobs, Thorstein Veblen, too big to fail, trade liberalization, trickle-down economics, upwardly mobile, vertical integration, Vilfredo Pareto, Washington Consensus, William Langewiesche

The interesting thing is that some markets, like Korea, do not need the money from Wall Street because their people have saved enough on their own. They’ve linked their market to the global system, so that the people in the country with money can move their money to Wall Street and the people from Wall Street can move the money into and out of the country freely. Liberalizing capital markets—making it easier for those on Wall Street to move their money in and out of the country—gives more voting power to Wall Street.” Schwarzman saw the consequences: “We have become more central to each economy we are in. We realize we have to be responsible players…We would expect not to have people react adversely because what we are doing is trying to develop companies and make them better, and usually we can make that sale almost everywhere in the world.”


pages: 632 words: 159,454

War and Gold: A Five-Hundred-Year History of Empires, Adventures, and Debt by Kwasi Kwarteng

accounting loophole / creative accounting, Alan Greenspan, anti-communist, Asian financial crisis, asset-backed security, Atahualpa, balance sheet recession, bank run, banking crisis, Bear Stearns, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, Bretton Woods, British Empire, business cycle, California gold rush, capital controls, Carmen Reinhart, central bank independence, centre right, collapse of Lehman Brothers, collateralized debt obligation, credit crunch, currency manipulation / currency intervention, Deng Xiaoping, discovery of the americas, Etonian, eurozone crisis, fiat currency, financial engineering, financial innovation, fixed income, floating exchange rates, foreign exchange controls, Francisco Pizarro, full employment, German hyperinflation, Glass-Steagall Act, guns versus butter model, hiring and firing, income inequality, invisible hand, Isaac Newton, it's over 9,000, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, joint-stock company, joint-stock limited liability company, Joseph Schumpeter, Kenneth Rogoff, labour market flexibility, land bank, liberal capitalism, low interest rates, market bubble, money: store of value / unit of account / medium of exchange, moral hazard, new economy, Nixon triggered the end of the Bretton Woods system, oil shock, plutocrats, Ponzi scheme, price mechanism, quantitative easing, rolodex, Ronald Reagan, South Sea Bubble, subprime mortgage crisis, Suez canal 1869, The inhabitant of London could order by telephone, sipping his morning tea in bed, the various products of the whole earth, the market place, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, too big to fail, War on Poverty, Yom Kippur War

By 1918–19 it was generating £285 million for the Treasury. This was almost a third of the government’s revenue for that year.21 The ‘excess profits duty’ also showed the single-mindedness with which Britain applied itself to winning the war. The London of 1914 had been the home of Lombard Street, of liberal capitalism, of the upper-class world depicted by writers like P. G. Wodehouse and John Galsworthy. Yet, in a sudden reversal, Britain would tax its capitalists more rigorously than any of the other belligerents. Despite the considerable demands on British finance, the British government felt confident enough to give loans to foreign governments, to a greater extent than it borrowed from them.


pages: 868 words: 147,152

How Asia Works by Joe Studwell

affirmative action, anti-communist, Asian financial crisis, bank run, banking crisis, barriers to entry, borderless world, Bretton Woods, British Empire, call centre, capital controls, central bank independence, collective bargaining, crony capitalism, cross-subsidies, currency manipulation / currency intervention, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, deindustrialization, demographic dividend, Deng Xiaoping, failed state, financial deregulation, financial repression, foreign exchange controls, Gini coefficient, glass ceiling, Great Leap Forward, high-speed rail, income inequality, income per capita, industrial robot, Joseph Schumpeter, Kenneth Arrow, land reform, land tenure, large denomination, liberal capitalism, low interest rates, market fragmentation, megaproject, non-tariff barriers, offshore financial centre, oil shock, open economy, passive investing, purchasing power parity, rent control, rent-seeking, Right to Buy, Ronald Coase, South China Sea, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, TSMC, urban sprawl, Washington Consensus, working-age population

The loudest and most evangelical message of these agencies was that deregulating the financial sector could put the development efforts of lagging countries back on track. States were encouraged to privatise existing banks and license new banks, to take a laissez-faire attitude to international flows of capital and to expand stock markets. The argument of the Washington Consensus was that liberated capital would then itself identify the right investments to spur economic progress. What actually happened, in 1997, was a financial catastrophe on a scale similar to that which afflicted Latin America after 1982. Financial sector liberalisation in south-east Asia led not to better allocation of capital, but to control of private banks by business entrepreneurs whose interests, because they were not required to manufacture and were not subject to export discipline, were not aligned with those of national development.


pages: 790 words: 150,875

Civilization: The West and the Rest by Niall Ferguson

Admiral Zheng, agricultural Revolution, Albert Einstein, Andrei Shleifer, Atahualpa, Ayatollah Khomeini, Berlin Wall, BRICs, British Empire, business cycle, clean water, collective bargaining, colonial rule, conceptual framework, Copley Medal, corporate governance, creative destruction, credit crunch, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, Dean Kamen, delayed gratification, Deng Xiaoping, discovery of the americas, Dissolution of the Soviet Union, Easter island, European colonialism, Fall of the Berlin Wall, financial engineering, Francisco Pizarro, full employment, Great Leap Forward, Gregor Mendel, guns versus butter model, Hans Lippershey, haute couture, Hernando de Soto, income inequality, invention of movable type, invisible hand, Isaac Newton, James Hargreaves, James Watt: steam engine, John Harrison: Longitude, joint-stock company, Joseph Schumpeter, Kickstarter, Kitchen Debate, land reform, land tenure, liberal capitalism, Louis Pasteur, Mahatma Gandhi, market bubble, Martin Wolf, mass immigration, means of production, megacity, Mikhail Gorbachev, new economy, Pearl River Delta, Pierre-Simon Laplace, power law, probability theory / Blaise Pascal / Pierre de Fermat, profit maximization, purchasing power parity, quantitative easing, rent-seeking, reserve currency, retail therapy, road to serfdom, Ronald Reagan, savings glut, Scramble for Africa, Silicon Valley, South China Sea, sovereign wealth fund, special economic zone, spice trade, spinning jenny, Steve Jobs, Steven Pinker, subprime mortgage crisis, Suez canal 1869, Suez crisis 1956, The Great Moderation, the market place, the scientific method, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas Kuhn: the structure of scientific revolutions, Thomas Malthus, Thorstein Veblen, total factor productivity, trade route, transaction costs, transatlantic slave trade, undersea cable, upwardly mobile, uranium enrichment, wage slave, Washington Consensus, women in the workforce, work culture , World Values Survey

As a result, Western civilization became a kind of template for the way the rest of the world aspired to organize itself. Prior to 1945, of course, there was a variety of developmental models – or operating systems, to draw a metaphor from computing – that could be adopted by non-Western societies. But the most attractive were all of European origin: liberal capitalism, national socialism, Soviet communism. The Second World War killed the second in Europe, though it lived on under assumed names in many developing countries. The collapse of the Soviet empire between 1989 and 1991 killed the third. To be sure, there has been much talk in the wake of the global financial crisis about alternative Asian economic models.


pages: 586 words: 159,901

Wall Street: How It Works And for Whom by Doug Henwood

accounting loophole / creative accounting, activist fund / activist shareholder / activist investor, affirmative action, Alan Greenspan, Andrei Shleifer, asset allocation, asset-backed security, bank run, banking crisis, barriers to entry, bond market vigilante , book value, borderless world, Bretton Woods, British Empire, business cycle, buy the rumour, sell the news, capital asset pricing model, capital controls, Carl Icahn, central bank independence, computerized trading, corporate governance, corporate raider, correlation coefficient, correlation does not imply causation, credit crunch, currency manipulation / currency intervention, currency risk, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, debt deflation, declining real wages, deindustrialization, dematerialisation, disinformation, diversification, diversified portfolio, Donald Trump, equity premium, Eugene Fama: efficient market hypothesis, experimental subject, facts on the ground, financial deregulation, financial engineering, financial innovation, Financial Instability Hypothesis, floating exchange rates, full employment, George Akerlof, George Gilder, Glass-Steagall Act, hiring and firing, Hyman Minsky, implied volatility, index arbitrage, index fund, information asymmetry, interest rate swap, Internet Archive, invisible hand, Irwin Jacobs, Isaac Newton, joint-stock company, Joseph Schumpeter, junk bonds, kremlinology, labor-force participation, late capitalism, law of one price, liberal capitalism, liquidationism / Banker’s doctrine / the Treasury view, London Interbank Offered Rate, long and variable lags, Louis Bachelier, low interest rates, market bubble, Mexican peso crisis / tequila crisis, Michael Milken, microcredit, minimum wage unemployment, money market fund, moral hazard, mortgage debt, mortgage tax deduction, Myron Scholes, oil shock, Paul Samuelson, payday loans, pension reform, planned obsolescence, plutocrats, Post-Keynesian economics, price mechanism, price stability, prisoner's dilemma, profit maximization, proprietary trading, publication bias, Ralph Nader, random walk, reserve currency, Richard Thaler, risk tolerance, Robert Gordon, Robert Shiller, Savings and loan crisis, selection bias, shareholder value, short selling, Slavoj Žižek, South Sea Bubble, stock buybacks, The inhabitant of London could order by telephone, sipping his morning tea in bed, the various products of the whole earth, The Market for Lemons, The Nature of the Firm, The Predators' Ball, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, transaction costs, transcontinental railway, women in the workforce, yield curve, zero-coupon bond

Given the ownership and management structure of U.S. industry, there's a conflict among stockholders, managers, and workers over how to manage these strains. Wall Street would like to withdraw capital from these industries — slim them down or eliminate them entirely — and pocket the money. In high market theory, Wall Street can be relied upon to redeploy this liberated capital beneficently, and the squeezed industries will either discover a fountain of youth under the discipline of debt or die. Since the last 200 pages of this book have argued that Wall Street isn't up to that task, the whole finance and governance structure is called into serious question. The great advantage of Jensenism is that, when combined with an uncritical acceptance of the efficient market religion, it amounts to a unified field theory of economic regulation: all-knowing financial markets will guide real investment decisions towards their optimum, and with the proper GOVERNANCE set of incentives, owner-managers will follow this guidance without reservation.


Globalists: The End of Empire and the Birth of Neoliberalism by Quinn Slobodian

"World Economic Forum" Davos, Alan Greenspan, Asian financial crisis, Berlin Wall, bilateral investment treaty, borderless world, Bretton Woods, British Empire, business cycle, capital controls, central bank independence, classic study, collective bargaining, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, Deng Xiaoping, desegregation, Dissolution of the Soviet Union, Doha Development Round, eurozone crisis, Fall of the Berlin Wall, floating exchange rates, full employment, Garrett Hardin, Greenspan put, Gunnar Myrdal, Hernando de Soto, invisible hand, liberal capitalism, liberal world order, Mahbub ul Haq, market fundamentalism, Martin Wolf, Mercator projection, Mont Pelerin Society, Norbert Wiener, offshore financial centre, oil shock, open economy, pattern recognition, Paul Samuelson, Pearl River Delta, Philip Mirowski, power law, price mechanism, public intellectual, quantitative easing, random walk, rent control, rent-seeking, road to serfdom, Ronald Reagan, special economic zone, statistical model, Suez crisis 1956, systems thinking, tacit knowledge, The Chicago School, the market place, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, theory of mind, Thomas L Friedman, trade liberalization, urban renewal, Washington Consensus, Wolfgang Streeck, zero-sum game

A W o r l d of C o n stit u tio n s 217 By the end of the 1960s, neoliberals saw an EEC that “­violated GATT rules more and more openly as it advanced.”218 How did they react? Chapter 7 shows that they borrowed a page from the Eu­ro­pean playbook to find a solution by extending the economic constitution beyond Eu­rope itself. As challenges to the uniform rules of liberal capitalism mounted from the Global South in the 1970s, Eu­rope and its laws became a countermodel to the demands for a New International Economic Order. The universalist and constitutionalist position found a synthesis in the plans to reform the GATT of the 1970s and 1980s. The idea of the economic constitution was set to go global. 7 A World of Signals Order is not an object.


pages: 543 words: 147,357

Them And Us: Politics, Greed And Inequality - Why We Need A Fair Society by Will Hutton

Abraham Maslow, Alan Greenspan, Andrei Shleifer, asset-backed security, bank run, banking crisis, Bear Stearns, behavioural economics, Benoit Mandelbrot, Berlin Wall, Bernie Madoff, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, Blythe Masters, Boris Johnson, bread and circuses, Bretton Woods, business cycle, capital controls, carbon footprint, Carmen Reinhart, Cass Sunstein, centre right, choice architecture, cloud computing, collective bargaining, conceptual framework, Corn Laws, Cornelius Vanderbilt, corporate governance, creative destruction, credit crunch, Credit Default Swap, debt deflation, decarbonisation, Deng Xiaoping, discovery of DNA, discovery of the americas, discrete time, disinformation, diversification, double helix, Edward Glaeser, financial deregulation, financial engineering, financial innovation, financial intermediation, first-past-the-post, floating exchange rates, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, Frank Levy and Richard Murnane: The New Division of Labor, full employment, general purpose technology, George Akerlof, Gini coefficient, Glass-Steagall Act, global supply chain, Growth in a Time of Debt, Hyman Minsky, I think there is a world market for maybe five computers, income inequality, inflation targeting, interest rate swap, invisible hand, Isaac Newton, James Dyson, James Watt: steam engine, Japanese asset price bubble, joint-stock company, Joseph Schumpeter, Kenneth Rogoff, knowledge economy, knowledge worker, labour market flexibility, language acquisition, Large Hadron Collider, liberal capitalism, light touch regulation, Long Term Capital Management, long term incentive plan, Louis Pasteur, low cost airline, low interest rates, low-wage service sector, mandelbrot fractal, margin call, market fundamentalism, Martin Wolf, mass immigration, means of production, meritocracy, Mikhail Gorbachev, millennium bug, Money creation, money market fund, moral hazard, moral panic, mortgage debt, Myron Scholes, Neil Kinnock, new economy, Northern Rock, offshore financial centre, open economy, plutocrats, power law, price discrimination, private sector deleveraging, proprietary trading, purchasing power parity, quantitative easing, race to the bottom, railway mania, random walk, rent-seeking, reserve currency, Richard Thaler, Right to Buy, rising living standards, Robert Shiller, Ronald Reagan, Rory Sutherland, Satyajit Das, Savings and loan crisis, shareholder value, short selling, Silicon Valley, Skype, South Sea Bubble, Steve Jobs, systems thinking, tail risk, The Market for Lemons, the market place, The Myth of the Rational Market, the payments system, the scientific method, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, three-masted sailing ship, too big to fail, unpaid internship, value at risk, Vilfredo Pareto, Washington Consensus, wealth creators, work culture , working poor, world market for maybe five computers, zero-sum game, éminence grise

When viewed in these terms, the mind-boggling scale and cost of the credit crunch – in total governments worldwide have so far spent $14 trillion on supporting their banking systems – is almost as big a crisis for market fundamentalism and financial capitalism as the collapse of the Soviet Union was for economic planning and communism. What happened between 1989 and 1992 did not just represent the triumph of liberal capitalism; it was claimed as the triumph of the market fundamentalist ideologues who believed that they had engineered it. If communism was the logical conclusion of left thinking, it had collapsed. Some twenty years later the same can be said of market fundamentalism, the logical conclusion of right thinking.


pages: 585 words: 165,304

Trust: The Social Virtue and the Creation of Prosperity by Francis Fukuyama

Alvin Toffler, barriers to entry, Berlin Wall, blue-collar work, business climate, business cycle, capital controls, classic study, collective bargaining, corporate governance, corporate raider, creative destruction, deindustrialization, Deng Xiaoping, deskilling, double entry bookkeeping, equal pay for equal work, European colonialism, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, Frederick Winslow Taylor, full employment, George Gilder, glass ceiling, Glass-Steagall Act, global village, Gunnar Myrdal, hiring and firing, industrial robot, Jane Jacobs, job satisfaction, joint-stock company, joint-stock limited liability company, Joseph Schumpeter, Kanban, Kenneth Arrow, land reform, liberal capitalism, liberation theology, low skilled workers, manufacturing employment, mittelstand, price mechanism, profit maximization, RAND corporation, rent-seeking, Ronald Coase, scientific management, Silicon Valley, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, The Nature of the Firm, the scientific method, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, transaction costs, transfer pricing, traveling salesman, union organizing, vertical integration, W. E. B. Du Bois

The keiretsu’s brand names, for instance, can be used in new product markets to establish credibility. One very important function that the keiretsu played in the 1960s and 1970s was to block or otherwise control the degree of direct foreign investment in Japan. When the Japanese government agreed to liberalize capital markets in the late 1960s, many Japanese companies feared an influx of foreign, mostly U.S., competition as outside multinationals bought stakes in Japanese businesses. The importance of foreign direct investment to exports has typically been insufficiently appreciated; it is often very difficult for a multinational corporation to market in a foreign country unless it also manufactures its products there.24 As Mark Mason has shown, the level of intra-keiretsu cross-shareholding increased dramatically in anticipation of capital market liberalization, so as to make it more difficult for foreigners to acquire majority ownership of Japanese corporations.25 This tactic proved quite successful: few American multinationals were able to purchase more than minority interests in Japanese companies, even after they were legally permitted to do so.


pages: 566 words: 163,322

The Rise and Fall of Nations: Forces of Change in the Post-Crisis World by Ruchir Sharma

"World Economic Forum" Davos, Asian financial crisis, backtesting, bank run, banking crisis, Berlin Wall, Bernie Sanders, BRICs, business climate, business cycle, business process, call centre, capital controls, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, Carmen Reinhart, central bank independence, centre right, colonial rule, commodity super cycle, corporate governance, creative destruction, crony capitalism, currency peg, dark matter, debt deflation, deglobalization, deindustrialization, demographic dividend, demographic transition, Deng Xiaoping, Doha Development Round, Donald Trump, driverless car, Edward Glaeser, Elon Musk, eurozone crisis, failed state, Fall of the Berlin Wall, falling living standards, financial engineering, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, Freestyle chess, Gini coefficient, global macro, Goodhart's law, guns versus butter model, hiring and firing, hype cycle, income inequality, indoor plumbing, industrial robot, inflation targeting, Internet of things, Japanese asset price bubble, Jeff Bezos, job automation, John Markoff, Joseph Schumpeter, junk bonds, Kenneth Rogoff, Kickstarter, knowledge economy, labor-force participation, Larry Ellison, lateral thinking, liberal capitalism, low interest rates, Malacca Straits, Mark Zuckerberg, market bubble, Mary Meeker, mass immigration, megacity, megaproject, Mexican peso crisis / tequila crisis, middle-income trap, military-industrial complex, mittelstand, moral hazard, New Economic Geography, North Sea oil, oil rush, oil shale / tar sands, oil shock, open immigration, pattern recognition, Paul Samuelson, Peter Thiel, pets.com, plutocrats, Ponzi scheme, price stability, Productivity paradox, purchasing power parity, quantitative easing, Ralph Waldo Emerson, random walk, rent-seeking, reserve currency, Ronald Coase, Ronald Reagan, savings glut, secular stagnation, Shenzhen was a fishing village, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley startup, Simon Kuznets, smart cities, Snapchat, South China Sea, sovereign wealth fund, special economic zone, spectrum auction, Steve Jobs, tacit knowledge, tech billionaire, The Future of Employment, The Wisdom of Crowds, Thomas Malthus, total factor productivity, trade liberalization, trade route, tulip mania, Tyler Cowen: Great Stagnation, unorthodox policies, Washington Consensus, WikiLeaks, women in the workforce, work culture , working-age population

The fact that crisis and revolt can force even reluctant elites to reform has been clear at least since the early critiques of Marx, who thought capitalist societies would collapse in a series of increasingly violent attempts to defend the upper classes. Instead, facing the economic depressions of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, political leaders proved capable of reforming liberal capitalism, deflecting popular revolt with the creation of the welfare state, starting in Germany and Britain. The link between boom times and political complacency is equally well documented, for example, in the cases of modern Japan and Europe, which are often described as too comfortably rich to push tough reform.


pages: 780 words: 168,782

Strange Rebels: 1979 and the Birth of the 21st Century by Christian Caryl

Alvin Toffler, anti-communist, Ayatollah Khomeini, Berlin Wall, Boeing 747, Bretton Woods, British Empire, colonial rule, Deng Xiaoping, disinformation, export processing zone, financial deregulation, financial independence, friendly fire, full employment, Future Shock, Great Leap Forward, household responsibility system, income inequality, industrial robot, Internet Archive, Kickstarter, land reform, land tenure, Les Trente Glorieuses, liberal capitalism, liberation theology, Mahatma Gandhi, means of production, Mikhail Gorbachev, Mohammed Bouazizi, Mont Pelerin Society, Neil Kinnock, new economy, New Urbanism, oil shock, open borders, open economy, Pearl River Delta, plutocrats, price stability, rent control, road to serfdom, Ronald Reagan, Shenzhen special economic zone , single-payer health, special economic zone, The Chicago School, union organizing, upwardly mobile, Winter of Discontent, Xiaogang Anhui farmers, Yom Kippur War

At Oxford, Thatcher did not make a name for herself as a radical enthusiast of the values that would later be associated with her name. The Toryism of the time was very much under the sway of the period’s progressive mainstream. Just before the 1945 election, Oxford’s student conservatives published a paper declaring that “Liberal Capitalism is as dead as Aristocratic Feudalism,” and welcoming “a state without privilege where each shall enrich himself through the enrichment of all.”16 No one can recall Margaret Roberts taking up a stand that radically differed from this stance. She later claimed to have read Friedrich von Hayek’s Road to Serfdom during her last year at Oxford.


Money and Government: The Past and Future of Economics by Robert Skidelsky

"Friedman doctrine" OR "shareholder theory", Alan Greenspan, anti-globalists, Asian financial crisis, asset-backed security, bank run, banking crisis, banks create money, barriers to entry, Basel III, basic income, Bear Stearns, behavioural economics, Ben Bernanke: helicopter money, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, book value, Bretton Woods, British Empire, business cycle, capital controls, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, Carmen Reinhart, central bank independence, cognitive dissonance, collapse of Lehman Brothers, collateralized debt obligation, collective bargaining, constrained optimization, Corn Laws, correlation does not imply causation, credit crunch, Credit Default Swap, credit default swaps / collateralized debt obligations, David Graeber, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, debt deflation, Deng Xiaoping, Donald Trump, Eugene Fama: efficient market hypothesis, eurozone crisis, fake news, financial deregulation, financial engineering, financial innovation, Financial Instability Hypothesis, forward guidance, Fractional reserve banking, full employment, Gini coefficient, Glass-Steagall Act, Goodhart's law, Growth in a Time of Debt, guns versus butter model, Hyman Minsky, income inequality, incomplete markets, inflation targeting, invisible hand, Isaac Newton, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, John Maynard Keynes: technological unemployment, Joseph Schumpeter, Kenneth Rogoff, Kondratiev cycle, labour market flexibility, labour mobility, land bank, law of one price, liberal capitalism, light touch regulation, liquidationism / Banker’s doctrine / the Treasury view, liquidity trap, long and variable lags, low interest rates, market clearing, market friction, Martin Wolf, means of production, Meghnad Desai, Mexican peso crisis / tequila crisis, mobile money, Modern Monetary Theory, Money creation, Mont Pelerin Society, moral hazard, mortgage debt, new economy, Nick Leeson, North Sea oil, Northern Rock, nudge theory, offshore financial centre, oil shock, open economy, paradox of thrift, Pareto efficiency, Paul Samuelson, Phillips curve, placebo effect, post-war consensus, price stability, profit maximization, proprietary trading, public intellectual, quantitative easing, random walk, regulatory arbitrage, rent-seeking, reserve currency, Richard Thaler, rising living standards, risk/return, road to serfdom, Robert Shiller, Ronald Reagan, savings glut, secular stagnation, shareholder value, short selling, Simon Kuznets, structural adjustment programs, technological determinism, The Chicago School, The Great Moderation, the payments system, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus, Thorstein Veblen, tontine, too big to fail, trade liberalization, value at risk, Washington Consensus, yield curve, zero-sum game

It was to this kind of politics that Keynesian thinking offered an antidote, by providing a rationale for keeping banking under national control. Few paused to ponder the political consequences of releasing finance from national regulation in the 1980s and 1990s. Keynes’s theory could have become the basis of policy only under conditions of social balance. His was the economics of the middle way; the best deal that liberal capitalism could expect in a world veering towards the political extremes. He thought of his economics as the economics of the general interest, for it encompassed, while transcending, the sectional interests of both capital and labour. This is true: it was the least ideological of all economic doctrines, the least dependent on class interest.


pages: 823 words: 206,070

The Making of Global Capitalism by Leo Panitch, Sam Gindin

accounting loophole / creative accounting, active measures, airline deregulation, Alan Greenspan, anti-communist, Asian financial crisis, asset-backed security, bank run, banking crisis, barriers to entry, Basel III, Bear Stearns, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, bilateral investment treaty, book value, Branko Milanovic, Bretton Woods, BRICs, British Empire, business cycle, call centre, capital controls, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, carbon credits, Carmen Reinhart, central bank independence, classic study, collective bargaining, continuous integration, corporate governance, creative destruction, Credit Default Swap, crony capitalism, currency manipulation / currency intervention, currency peg, dark matter, democratizing finance, Deng Xiaoping, disintermediation, ending welfare as we know it, eurozone crisis, facts on the ground, financial deregulation, financial innovation, Financial Instability Hypothesis, financial intermediation, floating exchange rates, foreign exchange controls, full employment, Gini coefficient, Glass-Steagall Act, global value chain, guest worker program, Hyman Minsky, imperial preference, income inequality, inflation targeting, interchangeable parts, interest rate swap, Kenneth Rogoff, Kickstarter, land reform, late capitalism, liberal capitalism, liquidity trap, London Interbank Offered Rate, Long Term Capital Management, low interest rates, manufacturing employment, market bubble, market fundamentalism, Martin Wolf, means of production, military-industrial complex, money market fund, money: store of value / unit of account / medium of exchange, Monroe Doctrine, moral hazard, mortgage debt, mortgage tax deduction, Myron Scholes, new economy, Nixon triggered the end of the Bretton Woods system, non-tariff barriers, Northern Rock, oil shock, precariat, price stability, proprietary trading, quantitative easing, Ralph Nader, RAND corporation, regulatory arbitrage, reserve currency, risk tolerance, Ronald Reagan, Savings and loan crisis, scientific management, seigniorage, shareholder value, short selling, Silicon Valley, sovereign wealth fund, special drawing rights, special economic zone, stock buybacks, structural adjustment programs, subprime mortgage crisis, Tax Reform Act of 1986, The Chicago School, The Great Moderation, the payments system, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, too big to fail, trade liberalization, transcontinental railway, trickle-down economics, union organizing, vertical integration, very high income, Washington Consensus, We are all Keynesians now, Works Progress Administration, zero-coupon bond, zero-sum game

The report still repeatedly stressed that the role of international agencies was to provide “a mechanism for countries to make external commitments, making it more difficult to back-track on reforms,” including on the international treaties through which states committed themselves to “self-restricting rules, which precisely specify the content of policy and lock it into mechanisms that are costly to reverse.”78 This was what the IMF especially had done, although by the mid 1990s it had also started to take up the governance theme and apply it broadly to the institutional “reform” of states, albeit in terms that hewed closely to the language of neoclassical economics, designed to “enhance market confidence in a context of increasingly liberalized capital accounts.”79 Notably, however, while the G7 countries wanted the IMF to be given a larger surveillance role in ensuring that emerging markets adopted legal and institutional changes to facilitate not only capital flows but also market discipline, little progress was made on the European states’ proposal to amend the IMF articles of agreement so as to prohibit all restrictions on capital mobility.


pages: 700 words: 201,953

The Social Life of Money by Nigel Dodd

"hyperreality Baudrillard"~20 OR "Baudrillard hyperreality", accounting loophole / creative accounting, bank run, banking crisis, banks create money, behavioural economics, Bernie Madoff, bitcoin, Bitcoin Ponzi scheme, blockchain, borderless world, Bretton Woods, BRICs, business cycle, capital controls, capitalist realism, cashless society, central bank independence, collapse of Lehman Brothers, collateralized debt obligation, commoditize, computer age, conceptual framework, credit crunch, cross-subsidies, currency risk, David Graeber, debt deflation, dematerialisation, disintermediation, Dogecoin, emotional labour, eurozone crisis, fiat currency, financial engineering, financial exclusion, financial innovation, Financial Instability Hypothesis, financial repression, floating exchange rates, Fractional reserve banking, gentrification, German hyperinflation, Goldman Sachs: Vampire Squid, Herbert Marcuse, Hyman Minsky, illegal immigration, informal economy, interest rate swap, Isaac Newton, John Maynard Keynes: Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, joint-stock company, Joseph Schumpeter, Kickstarter, Kula ring, laissez-faire capitalism, land reform, late capitalism, liberal capitalism, liquidity trap, litecoin, London Interbank Offered Rate, M-Pesa, Marshall McLuhan, means of production, mental accounting, microcredit, Minsky moment, mobile money, Modern Monetary Theory, Money creation, money market fund, money: store of value / unit of account / medium of exchange, mortgage debt, National Debt Clock, Neal Stephenson, negative equity, new economy, Nixon shock, Nixon triggered the end of the Bretton Woods system, Occupy movement, offshore financial centre, paradox of thrift, payday loans, Peace of Westphalia, peer-to-peer, peer-to-peer lending, Ponzi scheme, post scarcity, post-Fordism, Post-Keynesian economics, postnationalism / post nation state, predatory finance, price mechanism, price stability, quantitative easing, quantitative trading / quantitative finance, remote working, rent-seeking, reserve currency, Richard Thaler, risk free rate, Robert Shiller, Satoshi Nakamoto, scientific management, Scientific racism, seigniorage, Skype, Slavoj Žižek, South Sea Bubble, sovereign wealth fund, special drawing rights, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, too big to fail, trade liberalization, transaction costs, Veblen good, Wave and Pay, Westphalian system, WikiLeaks, Wolfgang Streeck, yield curve, zero-coupon bond

Our primary interest is in their implications for Marx’s theory of money and credit. The most significant contributions toward revising Marxist theory in light of the changes just mentioned came from Hilferding and Lenin. In Finance Capital (originally published in 1910, 2007 cited here), Hilferding sought to capture the transition from a competitive and pluralistic “liberal” capitalism toward a monopolistic form of capitalism in which finance had a crucial role. In particular, he focused on the merger, which he saw taking place in Germany, between banking capital and industrial capital. Hilferding suggested that the ultimate outcome of such a merger would be the formation of a general cartel through which capitalist production would be regulated, as by a “single body which could determine the volume of production in all the branches of industry” (Hilferding 2007: 304).


pages: 691 words: 203,236

Whiteshift: Populism, Immigration and the Future of White Majorities by Eric Kaufmann

4chan, Abraham Maslow, affirmative action, Amazon Mechanical Turk, anti-communist, anti-globalists, augmented reality, battle of ideas, behavioural economics, Berlin Wall, Bernie Sanders, Boris Johnson, Brexit referendum, British Empire, centre right, Chelsea Manning, cognitive dissonance, complexity theory, corporate governance, correlation does not imply causation, critical race theory, crowdsourcing, Daniel Kahneman / Amos Tversky, data science, David Brooks, deindustrialization, demographic transition, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, en.wikipedia.org, facts on the ground, failed state, fake news, Fall of the Berlin Wall, first-past-the-post, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, gentrification, Great Leap Forward, Haight Ashbury, Herbert Marcuse, illegal immigration, immigration reform, imperial preference, income inequality, it's over 9,000, Jeremy Corbyn, knowledge economy, knowledge worker, liberal capitalism, longitudinal study, Lyft, mass immigration, meta-analysis, microaggression, moral panic, Nate Silver, New Urbanism, Norman Mailer, open borders, open immigration, opioid epidemic / opioid crisis, Overton Window, phenotype, postnationalism / post nation state, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Republic of Letters, Ronald Reagan, Scientific racism, Silicon Valley, Social Justice Warrior, statistical model, Steve Bannon, Steven Pinker, the built environment, the scientific method, The Wisdom of Crowds, transcontinental railway, twin studies, uber lyft, upwardly mobile, urban sprawl, W. E. B. Du Bois, Washington Consensus, white flight, working-age population, World Values Survey, young professional

The Bushes’ string of victories produced an optimistic mindset in which the Republican elite felt they could win Latino votes with a package emphasizing conservative social values and the work ethic. Ideologically, the fall of the Berlin Wall gave rise to an optimistic ‘End of History’ spirit among American neoconservatives and interventionist liberals, symbolized by Francis Fukuyama’s iconic book of 1992.40 With communism defeated, liberalism, capitalism and democracy, under American tutelage, could finally become universal. A global framework based on the Pax Americana and the shared values of the ‘Washington Consensus’ would revolutionize humanity. Here was a classic form of liberal-democratic missionary nationalism in keeping with the country’s ‘City on a Hill’ traditions.


pages: 669 words: 226,737

The True and Only Heaven: Progress and Its Critics by Christopher Lasch

affirmative action, agricultural Revolution, Alvin Toffler, Ayatollah Khomeini, bank run, British Empire, Charles Lindbergh, collective bargaining, colonial exploitation, company town, complexity theory, delayed gratification, desegregation, disinformation, equal pay for equal work, Frederick Winslow Taylor, full employment, Future Shock, gentrification, George Santayana, ghettoisation, Gunnar Myrdal, Herbert Marcuse, informal economy, invisible hand, job satisfaction, Joseph Schumpeter, land reform, Lewis Mumford, liberal capitalism, liberation theology, mass immigration, means of production, military-industrial complex, Norman Mailer, Panopticon Jeremy Bentham, planned obsolescence, post-industrial society, Post-Keynesian economics, profit motive, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ronald Reagan, Rosa Parks, school vouchers, scientific management, scientific worldview, sexual politics, the market place, the scientific method, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thorstein Veblen, urban renewal, Vilfredo Pareto, wage slave, War on Poverty, work culture , young professional

The story of American politics, as seen by Hartz, Richard Hofstadter, and others—not necessarily a success story, in their eyes—was the unchallenged ascendancy of liberalism, the triumph of capitalism, and the failure of conservatism and socialism alike. Thus Andrew Jackson, once deified as the tribune of the people, emerged in Hofstadter's American Political Tradition as an exponent of "liberal capitalism" and Abraham Lincoln, the Great Emancipator, as the foremost ideologist of the "self-made myth." Whether the intention behind such interpretations was to deplore the absence of a social democratic tradition (as it seemed to be, initially at least, in the case of Hofstadter and Hartz) or to celebrate the absence of ideological division (as in the case of Daniel Boorstin), the assumption of a broad liberal "consensus"—stifling or comforting, as the case might be— dominated historical scholarship in the forties and fifties.


pages: 920 words: 233,102

Unelected Power: The Quest for Legitimacy in Central Banking and the Regulatory State by Paul Tucker

"Friedman doctrine" OR "shareholder theory", Alan Greenspan, Andrei Shleifer, bank run, banking crisis, barriers to entry, Basel III, battle of ideas, Bear Stearns, Ben Bernanke: helicopter money, Berlin Wall, Bretton Woods, Brexit referendum, business cycle, capital controls, Carmen Reinhart, Cass Sunstein, central bank independence, centre right, conceptual framework, corporate governance, diversified portfolio, electricity market, Fall of the Berlin Wall, financial innovation, financial intermediation, financial repression, first-past-the-post, floating exchange rates, forensic accounting, forward guidance, Fractional reserve banking, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, full employment, George Akerlof, Greenspan put, incomplete markets, inflation targeting, information asymmetry, invisible hand, iterative process, Jean Tirole, Joseph Schumpeter, Kenneth Arrow, Kenneth Rogoff, liberal capitalism, light touch regulation, Long Term Capital Management, low interest rates, means of production, Money creation, money market fund, Mont Pelerin Society, moral hazard, Northern Rock, operational security, Pareto efficiency, Paul Samuelson, price mechanism, price stability, principal–agent problem, profit maximization, public intellectual, quantitative easing, regulatory arbitrage, reserve currency, risk free rate, risk tolerance, risk-adjusted returns, road to serfdom, Robert Bork, Ronald Coase, seigniorage, short selling, Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits, stochastic process, subprime mortgage crisis, tail risk, The Chicago School, The Great Moderation, The Market for Lemons, the payments system, too big to fail, transaction costs, Vilfredo Pareto, Washington Consensus, yield curve, zero-coupon bond, zero-sum game

The gradual and cumulative internationalization of policy making could unobtrusively hand the reality of power, if not its formal accoutrements, to a new transnational meritocratic elite. Rodrik’s trilemma of internationalism, described in chapter 12, was not news to international economists and policy makers. It had long been recognized that a country could not combine national control over domestic monetary policy, a fixed exchange rate, and liberalized capital flows. Each country had to choose two out of three. After World War II, most countries more or less surrendered domestic monetary autonomy, tying themselves to a de facto dollar standard. To police the rules of the game agreed at the famous Bretton Woods conference in New Hampshire’s White Mountains, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank were created.


pages: 903 words: 235,753

The Stack: On Software and Sovereignty by Benjamin H. Bratton

1960s counterculture, 3D printing, 4chan, Ada Lovelace, Adam Curtis, additive manufacturing, airport security, Alan Turing: On Computable Numbers, with an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem, algorithmic trading, Amazon Mechanical Turk, Amazon Robotics, Amazon Web Services, Andy Rubin, Anthropocene, augmented reality, autonomous vehicles, basic income, Benevolent Dictator For Life (BDFL), Berlin Wall, bioinformatics, Biosphere 2, bitcoin, blockchain, Buckminster Fuller, Burning Man, call centre, capitalist realism, carbon credits, carbon footprint, carbon tax, carbon-based life, Cass Sunstein, Celebration, Florida, Charles Babbage, charter city, clean water, cloud computing, company town, congestion pricing, connected car, Conway's law, corporate governance, crowdsourcing, cryptocurrency, dark matter, David Graeber, deglobalization, dematerialisation, digital capitalism, digital divide, disintermediation, distributed generation, don't be evil, Douglas Engelbart, Douglas Engelbart, driverless car, Edward Snowden, Elon Musk, en.wikipedia.org, Eratosthenes, Ethereum, ethereum blockchain, Evgeny Morozov, facts on the ground, Flash crash, Frank Gehry, Frederick Winslow Taylor, fulfillment center, functional programming, future of work, Georg Cantor, gig economy, global supply chain, Google Earth, Google Glasses, Guggenheim Bilbao, High speed trading, high-speed rail, Hyperloop, Ian Bogost, illegal immigration, industrial robot, information retrieval, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), intermodal, Internet of things, invisible hand, Jacob Appelbaum, James Bridle, Jaron Lanier, Joan Didion, John Markoff, John Perry Barlow, Joi Ito, Jony Ive, Julian Assange, Khan Academy, Kim Stanley Robinson, Kiva Systems, Laura Poitras, liberal capitalism, lifelogging, linked data, lolcat, Mark Zuckerberg, market fundamentalism, Marshall McLuhan, Masdar, McMansion, means of production, megacity, megaproject, megastructure, Menlo Park, Minecraft, MITM: man-in-the-middle, Monroe Doctrine, Neal Stephenson, Network effects, new economy, Nick Bostrom, ocean acidification, off-the-grid, offshore financial centre, oil shale / tar sands, Oklahoma City bombing, OSI model, packet switching, PageRank, pattern recognition, peak oil, peer-to-peer, performance metric, personalized medicine, Peter Eisenman, Peter Thiel, phenotype, Philip Mirowski, Pierre-Simon Laplace, place-making, planetary scale, pneumatic tube, post-Fordism, precautionary principle, RAND corporation, recommendation engine, reserve currency, rewilding, RFID, Robert Bork, Sand Hill Road, scientific management, self-driving car, semantic web, sharing economy, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley ideology, skeuomorphism, Slavoj Žižek, smart cities, smart grid, smart meter, Snow Crash, social graph, software studies, South China Sea, sovereign wealth fund, special economic zone, spectrum auction, Startup school, statistical arbitrage, Steve Jobs, Steven Levy, Stewart Brand, Stuxnet, Superbowl ad, supply-chain management, supply-chain management software, synthetic biology, TaskRabbit, technological determinism, TED Talk, the built environment, The Chicago School, the long tail, the scientific method, Torches of Freedom, transaction costs, Turing complete, Turing machine, Turing test, undersea cable, universal basic income, urban planning, Vernor Vinge, vertical integration, warehouse automation, warehouse robotics, Washington Consensus, web application, Westphalian system, WikiLeaks, working poor, Y Combinator, yottabyte

New Left Review, no. 61 (January/February 2010): 45, http://newleftreview.org/II/61/mike-davis-who-will-build-the-ark: “Tackling the challenge of sustainable urban design for the whole planet, and not just for a few privileged countries or social groups, requires a vast stage for the imagination, such as the arts and sciences inhabited in the May Days of Vkhutemas and the Bauhaus. It presupposes a radical willingness to think beyond the horizon of neo-liberal capitalism toward a global revolution that reintegrates the labour of the informal working classes, as well as the rural poor, in the sustainable reconstruction of their built environments and livelihoods.” 15.  Martin Heidegger interview with Der Spiegel by Rudolf Augstein and Georg Wolff, September 23, 1966, published May 31, 1976. 16. 


pages: 1,016 words: 283,960

Aftermath: Following the Bloodshed of America's Wars in the Muslim World by Nir Rosen

Ayatollah Khomeini, failed state, glass ceiling, Google Earth, liberal capitalism, Parag Khanna, selection bias, Seymour Hersh, unemployed young men, urban sprawl, éminence grise

Many Iraqis were driven from towns back to a rural and agricultural life, and the power of feudal landlords increased. A stated goal of the American occupation was to transform Iraq into a free-market economy. One of the first measures taken by the American occupation was to impose laws that liberalized capital accounts, currency trading, and investment regulations, and lifted price regulations and most state subsidies. An important principle guiding the occupation was not to invest in any state institution that could be privatized in the future, in anticipation of the liquidation of state assets.


EuroTragedy: A Drama in Nine Acts by Ashoka Mody

Alan Greenspan, Andrei Shleifer, asset-backed security, availability heuristic, bank run, banking crisis, Basel III, Bear Stearns, Berlin Wall, book scanning, book value, Bretton Woods, Brexit referendum, call centre, capital controls, Carmen Reinhart, Celtic Tiger, central bank independence, centre right, credit crunch, currency risk, Daniel Kahneman / Amos Tversky, debt deflation, Donald Trump, eurozone crisis, Fall of the Berlin Wall, fear index, financial intermediation, floating exchange rates, forward guidance, George Akerlof, German hyperinflation, global macro, global supply chain, global value chain, hiring and firing, Home mortgage interest deduction, income inequality, inflation targeting, Irish property bubble, Isaac Newton, job automation, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Johannes Kepler, Kenneth Rogoff, Kickstarter, land bank, liberal capitalism, light touch regulation, liquidity trap, loadsamoney, London Interbank Offered Rate, Long Term Capital Management, low interest rates, low-wage service sector, Mikhail Gorbachev, mittelstand, money market fund, moral hazard, mortgage tax deduction, neoliberal agenda, offshore financial centre, oil shock, open borders, pension reform, precautionary principle, premature optimization, price stability, public intellectual, purchasing power parity, quantitative easing, rent-seeking, Republic of Letters, Robert Gordon, Robert Shiller, Robert Solow, short selling, Silicon Valley, subprime mortgage crisis, The Great Moderation, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, too big to fail, total factor productivity, trade liberalization, transaction costs, urban renewal, working-age population, Yogi Berra

In downplaying the role of the nation-​state, European leaders had unwittingly but inescapably embraced the principles of free movement of capital and labor. While European leaders were publicly contemptuous of the heartless Anglo-​Saxon model of unbridled competition, they had—​in their bid to build a supranational state—​created a system that featured all of the downsides of “ultra-​liberal” capitalism. For European citizens, more European integration had understandably become associated with “hyper-​globalization,” with all its ills. And despite Europe’s promise to honor its “social model” and provide greater social protection, its institutions and policies offered little hope for those who were being left behind by the competitive forces unleashed.


pages: 872 words: 259,208

A History of Modern Britain by Andrew Marr

air freight, Albert Einstein, anti-communist, battle of ideas, Beeching cuts, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, Bletchley Park, Bob Geldof, Bretton Woods, British Empire, Brixton riot, clean water, collective bargaining, computer age, congestion charging, cuban missile crisis, deindustrialization, Etonian, falling living standards, fear of failure, Fellow of the Royal Society, financial independence, floating exchange rates, full employment, gentleman farmer, Herbert Marcuse, housing crisis, illegal immigration, Kickstarter, liberal capitalism, Live Aid, loadsamoney, market design, mass immigration, means of production, Mikhail Gorbachev, millennium bug, Neil Kinnock, Nelson Mandela, new economy, North Sea oil, Northern Rock, offshore financial centre, open borders, out of africa, Parkinson's law, Piper Alpha, post-war consensus, Red Clydeside, reserve currency, Right to Buy, road to serfdom, Ronald Reagan, Silicon Valley, strikebreaker, upwardly mobile, Winter of Discontent, working poor, Yom Kippur War

But Joseph was different, a former cabinet minister with close and direct experience of government. With his Centre for Policy Studies, he was the rain-maker, the storm-bringer, the Old Testament prophet denouncing his tribe. Joseph argued that Britain by the mid-seventies had a fundamental choice to make between a socialist siege economy or a breakaway into proper liberal capitalism – in effect, Benn or Joseph. He could not have formed his ideas without the libertarian and monetarist thinkers of the fifties and sixties, men we met earlier. During the Tories’ years in opposition from 1964 to 1970 he had educated himself in free-market economics and was soon using as his speechwriter the violently spoken, irrepressible Alfred Sherman, an East End boy from a left-wing family who had fought as a machine-gunner in the Spanish Civil War before swinging right round later and becoming an insistent right-wing critic of the British way.


From Peoples into Nations by John Connelly

Albert Einstein, anti-communist, bank run, Berlin Wall, Cass Sunstein, centre right, collective bargaining, colonial exploitation, colonial rule, crony capitalism, cuban missile crisis, disinformation, facts on the ground, Fall of the Berlin Wall, financial independence, German hyperinflation, Gini coefficient, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, joint-stock company, laissez-faire capitalism, land bank, land reform, land tenure, liberal capitalism, means of production, Mikhail Gorbachev, moral hazard, oil shock, old-boy network, open borders, Panopticon Jeremy Bentham, Peace of Westphalia, profit motive, purchasing power parity, Ronald Reagan, strikebreaker, the built environment, The Chicago School, trade liberalization, Transnistria, union organizing, upwardly mobile, wikimedia commons, women in the workforce

Czechoslovak President Beneš forcefully articulated this new spirit. His country could no longer tolerate minorities, he said, because the system of minority treaties had failed. Germans and Magyars had proved incapable of acting as loyal Czechoslovak citizens. Thus, Europe was dividing not only between liberal capitalism and people’s democracy, but also between the new internationalism in the West and nation-statism in the East, frozen beneath the power of the Soviet hegemon, which began imposing its own order on the people’s democracies from late 1947.42 Yet the state that modeled itself from the start on the Soviet Union—“federal” Yugoslavia, which claimed to transcend ethnic nationalism—was also the state that first challenged Soviet hegemony in 1948—in the name of nationalism!


pages: 1,351 words: 404,177

Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America by Rick Perlstein

Aaron Swartz, affirmative action, Alistair Cooke, Alvin Toffler, American ideology, Apollo 11, Apollo 13, Bay Area Rapid Transit, Berlin Wall, Bretton Woods, cognitive dissonance, company town, cuban missile crisis, delayed gratification, desegregation, Dr. Strangelove, East Village, European colonialism, false flag, full employment, Future Shock, Golden Gate Park, guns versus butter model, Haight Ashbury, Herbert Marcuse, immigration reform, In Cold Blood by Truman Capote, index card, indoor plumbing, Joan Didion, Kitchen Debate, liberal capitalism, Mahatma Gandhi, Marshall McLuhan, military-industrial complex, Monroe Doctrine, moral panic, Neil Armstrong, New Urbanism, Norman Mailer, Own Your Own Home, Paul Samuelson, plutocrats, price mechanism, Ralph Nader, RAND corporation, rolodex, Ronald Reagan, sexual politics, Seymour Hersh, systematic bias, the medium is the message, traveling salesman, upwardly mobile, urban planning, urban renewal, W. E. B. Du Bois, walking around money, War on Poverty, white picket fence, Whole Earth Catalog

Now history had caught them in a bind: with the boom they had helped build, ordinary laborers were becoming ever less reliably downtrodden, vulnerable to appeal from the Republicans. The pollster Samuel Lubell was the first to recognize it: “The inner dynamics of the Roosevelt coalition have shifted from those of getting to those of keeping.” Their liberal champions developed a distaste for them. One of the ways it manifested itself was in matters of style. The liberal capitalism that had created this mass middle class created, in its wake, a mass culture of consumption. And the liberals whose New Deal created this mass middle class were more and more turning their attention to critiquing the degraded mass culture of cheap sensation and plastic gadgets and politicians who seemed to cater to this lowest common denominator—public-relations-driven politicians who catered to only the basest and most sentimental emotions in men.


pages: 1,445 words: 469,426

The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money & Power by Daniel Yergin

anti-communist, Ascot racecourse, Ayatollah Khomeini, bank run, Berlin Wall, book value, British Empire, Carl Icahn, colonial exploitation, Columbine, continuation of politics by other means, cuban missile crisis, disinformation, do-ocracy, energy security, European colonialism, Exxon Valdez, financial independence, fudge factor, geopolitical risk, guns versus butter model, Ida Tarbell, informal economy, It's morning again in America, joint-stock company, junk bonds, land reform, liberal capitalism, managed futures, megacity, Michael Milken, Mikhail Gorbachev, Monroe Doctrine, new economy, North Sea oil, oil rush, oil shale / tar sands, oil shock, old-boy network, postnationalism / post nation state, price stability, RAND corporation, rent-seeking, Ronald Reagan, shareholder value, stock buybacks, Suez canal 1869, Suez crisis 1956, Thomas Malthus, tontine, vertical integration, Yom Kippur War

When the League of Nations condemned Japan for its actions in Manchuria, it stalked out of the League and embarked on its own path—one that would eventually lead to ruin.[3] The New Order in Asia Over the next few years, as Tokyo elaborated its claims to a "mission" and "special responsibilities in East Asia," Japanese politics seethed with conspiracies, ideological movements, and secret societies that rejected liberalism, capitalism, and democracy as engines of weakness and decadence. It was thought that there was nothing more noble than to die in battle for the Emperor. Yet some elements in the Japanese military were also, by the mid-1930s, focusing on the more practical question of how to wage modern warfare. Promulgating a doctrine of total war, they sought to establish a "national defense state" in which the industrial and military resources of the country would all be built up and harnessed for that grim eventuality.