@ChrisMayLA6

The contention in Sullivan & Hickel's 'Capitalism & Extreme Poverty' - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X22002169 - that 'the rise of capitalism... is associated with a decline in wages to below subsistence, a deterioration in human stature, and an upturn in premature mortality', and that 'significant improvements in human welfare began only... with the rise of anti-colonial and socialist political movements' - seems to me confirmed by similar evidence of current decline in the 'developed' world.

Bernie Sanders pointed out in the inquest on Trump's election that real wages in the US are lower than 50 years ago, and Kenan Malik recently made the same point about welfare benefits in the UK. The rise in life expectancy that was such a feature of the 20th century has now reversed in the most neoliberal countries like the US and UK.

The 'developing' world is, in fact, just partially recovering from an extreme form of capitalism (slavery and colonialism); the 'developed' world did so over the ''Trente Glorieuses' - the 30 years or so after the war when it built welfare states with 90% marginal tax rates - then has gone backwards, back into the more extreme form of capitalism we know doesn't work.

@KimSJ @GeofCox

Indeed; capitalism is a system focussed on finding ways to make a surplus on economic activity, before then directing that surplus towards the richest, which is what Marx pointed out in C19th.

The big Q. is are there forms of capitalism that are less like that & from which greater balanced social welfare can be derived, or is capitalism (in all forms) an engine of increasing inequality & enrichment of the powerful elite?

And if the latter how do we replace it?

@ChrisMayLA6 @KimSJ @GeofCox

Public ownership of land and natural resources along with nationalised provision of essential services would go a long way towards stifling capitalist exploitation without regulating everything to the point of stagnation.

Making shareholders directly responsible for the actions of the companies they own would also help, as would closing loopholes on financial trusts and offshore savings.

100% IHT would probably be too vindictive.

@ReggieHere @KimSJ @GeofCox

Interestingly, one of the key 'shining examples' of the ultra-capitalists, Singapore, is much nearer this than they might realise (as the vast majority of housing is state/city owned)

@ChrisMayLA6 @KimSJ @GeofCox

Good point. Telecoms too (or at least it was)

@ReggieHere @ChrisMayLA6 @KimSJ @urlyman
@thegarbagebird

Ah yes - Singapore, the model small-state-free-market economy of the brexiteers - remember "Singapore on Thames" ? - Singapore, where almost all the land and 85% of housing are in public ownership, and nearly a quarter of national output is from state-owned enterprises...

I have what may be an unusual view of economic systems and how to replace them - which is not to worry about it. They change. All real economies, whatever they call themselves, are mixed - so the task of politics is to change the mix. For me, the core problem confronting us has two main aspects: inequality and climate-ecological breakdown - but at bottom these are the same problem: the over-exploitation (of people and environment) and overconsumption (by the relatively wealthy).

The remedy also has two main aspects: making tax fairer and making big business more socially and environmentally responsible. Pursuing these aims will in effect end capitalism (but not free enterprise - small business will be taxed and regulated differently, but in many ways stay as it is) - but we don't need to talk about ending capitalism, just about the harm that big business and billionaires are doing.

@GeofCox @ReggieHere @KimSJ @urlyman @thegarbagebird

Completely agree; there is no one capitalism, or even a pure form to which 'we' might aspire - there are only varieties of capitalism, and depending on how fine grained ones analytical approach, there are either some large groupings or a wide range of different mixtures.... and of course we shouldn't forget the Braudelian & Polanyian points that markets as a economic mechanism far predate modern capitalism!

@ChrisMayLA6

There's an account on here that - without irony - claims that all criticisms of capitalism are meaningless because 'pure' free market capitalism has never been tried.

@GeofCox @KimSJ @urlyman @thegarbagebird

@thegarbagebird @ReggieHere @ChrisMayLA6

There are at least two scary errors in the idea that we don't know how capitalism works because 'pure capitalism' has never been tried: (1) that we have to try something to see if it's a good idea, and (2) that it's possible to impose a 'pure' blueprint on the messy reality of diverse human societies.

(The latter is the mistake of those revolutionaries - of both left and right - whose abstract idealism turns to terror. They want to change everything all at once, but not everybody - even 'fellow travelers' - will go along with every change, and since the precious blueprint is more important than human lives...)

On 'pure free-market capitalism' I would make observations in two areas: (1) capitalism can't work even in theory - for example it has no effective built-in incentives for socially and environmentally responsible behaviour - there is no market mechanism that would mitigate disasters (like climate breakdown) that are decades or centuries in the making; and (2) we do know that the nearer capitalism gets to a 'pure' form - ie. less regulation, less public ownership, less state education, lesser welfare state, etc - the worse it gets, even in its own terms (eg. as a matter of factual economic history, high growth is associated with precisely the above 'socialist' policies, whereas neoliberalism is associated with low growth).

@KimSJ @urlyman

@GeofCox @thegarbagebird @ReggieHere @KimSJ @urlyman

Agreed; this is why I've always been a supporter of 'regulatory capitalism' - capitalism kept within bounds where it can be useful, and excluded from those aspects of society where other methods enhance social welfare