Asia Times: The capitalist myth

[marmar]

The capitalist myth
By Dafydd Taylor


As the financial crisis rumbles on we are constantly told that what while there are a few problems, all the benefits of modernity are the unambiguous results of the capitalist system.

That the invisible hand famously documented by Adam Smith is what has brought us industrial progress from the factory system to the telegraph to the Internet. But in reality, the factory system inspired by Arkwright, more than a century before Henry Ford, grew up as a response to the effects of the Agricultural Revolution.

Vast pools of cheap labor created by the enclosure of common land coupled with mercantilist economic policies made especially effective by a growing empire allowed Britain to lead the process of industrialization. It was this interaction between state and private sector that was necessary for industrial development. These are lessons which may be lost to the West, but the current most economically successful country, China, takes heed.

Britain only adopted free trade as a policy in the later 19th century. By this time a fully industrialized nation seeking to defend an entrenched position, including limiting the development of competitors. The key driver for the development of the first electronic communications network, the telegraph, was the British Empire. ...........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/MK16Dj06.ht...

[lovuian]

1. Capitalism is a FAILED system with two Great Depressions on

its past history

it leads to World War
because its called survival of the fittest and take what your neighbor has and kill them

[Sentath]

6. What? No,

You repackage it and sell it back to them, less the good bits.

[redqueen]

2. Fantastic article. Favorite part:

So why is it a generally accepted conventional wisdom that capitalism encourages innovation? Conventional wisdom decrees that the private sector is good, and the public sector bad. That all regulation of the private, capitalist, sector stifles innovation. Yet it is unregulated capitalism that lies at the root of the current economic crisis.

There are direct parallels in the deregulation of the 1980s and 1990s with the 1920s, and in the current crisis with the great depression of the 1930s. Not least with the collapse of the gold standard and the current eurozone crisis.

In many ways, our current phase of globalization is a second phase, the first being in the 1920s. This is not the first time. Unregulated capitalism beings us to this same place, like it did before. The belief in capitalism is indeed a belief. A faith. Not only are markets not rational, neither are the proponents of the current system.

[malaise]

3. Brilliant

Great read

[PETRUS]

4. Good article. Touches on some important truths.

[xchrom]

5. Strong recommend. I guess I would only add - democracy has failed

Every bit as much as capitalism.

It's a twin failure.

[Hydra]

7. Democracy and Capitalism are like water and oil

Which is why we never really had a democracy. We had a republic formed by people who didn't believe that normal people were capable of governing themselves.

The big lie of course is that Capitalism is for the little people. It EATS the little people.

[xchrom]

8. The democracies of Europe have as surely Failed as have ours.

Republic or any other 'name' - they have failed in the extreme.

[Hydra]

9. I only disagree

Because there were rumors that votes were "adjusted" to allow the European Union to exist at all.

Is it a democracy when the banks call the votes?

[xchrom]

10. It's still a failure. Brussels has failed.

Greece,Portugal , etc have failed.

Swedish reforms are neo-liberal reforms.

There is NO controversy .

[Hydra]

11. Hopefully you're wrong as an overall statement

The people of Iceland were able to shut down the scam. Hopefully the Greeks will too...although I was dismayed to see a central bank person put in as a replacement.

The problem, of course, is that if real democracy can't work, then all we have is the oligarchs. Unpalatable, at best.

[xchrom]

12. Respectfully disagree - democracy as we have understood it isn't

The only solution.

I HOPE this is where the Indignados & OWS are leading us.

But the old has to die.