I've been reading his books for political economy classes and he's amazing. Gives an amazing insight into the world economy and will give any economy student a great critical outlook on neoclassical economics

agree

Do you perhaps have any interest in access to market opportunities in the South African economy. Maybe we can expound on this conversation via Skype or email.

+Ken Bell Bad Samaritans is all about that topic, same author.

+zombiesingularity thank you.

It really was a great book, and very enlightening.

zombiesingularity Yeah, I just got to know about it literally few minutes earlier. Read its preface (google books), looking forward to read it. So that I can balance my views.

Protectionism enriches some at the expense of others. In his book, "Protection or Free Trade," Henry George observed that even the elimination of all barriers to trade would enrich some at the expense of others. Landed interests would be enriched. Workers would find the costs of leasing or purchasing housing would climb because land prices would climb.

what kind of self delusion could bring one to the place where one can equate the failings of capitalism with the failings of communism?

Paul Halfpenny He is not equating the failings if either system. He is equating the attitutes of the "intellectual" supporters of both systems.

Paul Halfpenny what kind of self delusion could bring one to the place where one can equate the failings of capitalism with the failings of communism? Equating Neoliberalism with capitalism is another kind of self delusion. He didnt equate the failures of capitalism with the failures of communism. He said the failures of Neoliberalism because as Ha joon points out there are more than one kind of Capitalism that may work better than Neoliberal Freidmanite trickle down economics. It is a form of Zombie capitalism because it should have stayed dead after 2008 yet somehow its corpse is still walking around

@@paulhalfpenny1139 Well, what are the failures of each, and what causes those failures? You need to know those things in order to then compare the failures of capitalism against the failures of communism. You CAN obviously compare the size of the elite, decision-making class in each system. It's small in both cases. Decisions are being made by the powerful disproportionately to the people who are actually being directly affected by the decisions. Whether there are CEOs and corporate boards of wealthy stockholders, or party oligarchs and government committees of powerful bureaucrats... are the workers/consumers directly making any of the decisions? No. Decisions are centralized with a ruling class either way (increasingly so, as the major corporations command larger and larger market shares). What about in social democracies, which are being increasingly praised in modern politics? Power is more decentralized, because wealth is more decentralized, and there is more democraric control of the government. There is more economic equality. While major decisions are still being made by an elite class overall, there is more of a buffer against failure in the event of an economic downturn due to incompetence, because average people are not entirely reliant on their job OR on the government. They have some of their own money to continue their lives as normal, and the government works like a lifeboat in such a scenario, thowing out lifejackets. Even more successful might be if the working consumers directly participated in market decisions, with power to contribute in management at their workplaces, and if they democratically controlled the accumulated profits at businesses. That would allow the economy to be largely circular, as money would flow from worker to worker, without accumulating in off-shore bank accounts and being taken out of circulation, likely gathering interest the whole time. The government could still function as a lifeboat in such a system, although less intrusively, since it could potentially tax businesses instead of individuals. Obviously, that system is quite a bit different from communism. But, the workers do gain ownership of the means of production, which means it is a form of socialism. There seems to be no obvious reason for why it could not work. Power is sufficiently decentralized.

Yes. It's all about democracy. A synthesis between Marxism and anarchism is the key. We need to start organizing as soon as possible.

Capitalism is evil. You are better off reading books by Richard Wolff and Karl Marx.

Yep, capitalism's flaws are not fixable. It's an inherently unjust and unstable system. We should be talking about the most humane ways of moving beyond capitalism, because it doesn't look like it's gonna last much longer, and what comes after it could be MUCH WORSE than it.

He’s one of the economists who understands the issues, but prefers to ignore the elephant in the room, which is the fundermental cause of such issues.

@@mitchclark1532I don’t think you’re wrong, but what are some fatal flaws of capitalism that make it unfixable?

It actually does if they are not willing to fight back

Yes it does You just don't know how to works it You can buy politicians or insurgents

Do you see what people watch on TV or read in tabloids? We are barely above animals in the majority