Capitalism

by Bowles, Paul

• ISBN13: 9781408269220
• ISBN10: 1408269228
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2012-04-13
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Capitalism stands unrivalled as the most enduring economic system of our-times. Since the collapse of the Soviet bloc the world has become a new stage for capitalism, and yet despite this dominance, it is still not widely understood. It remains a subject of enduring interest that is discovered and rediscovered over time by each successive generation of students.

Author Biography

Paul Bowles is Professor of Economics and International Studies at the University of Northern British Columbia. He has published on the history of ideas, on contemporary globalisation, and on China. He draws on all three of these areas in this book to analyses capitalism as an historical process and as a site of contemporary contestation.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	p. xi
Chronology	p. xiii
Who's who	p. xv
Glossary	p. xviii
Analysis and Assessment	p. 1
How to Think About Capitalism	p. 3
Introduction	p. 3
Outline of the book	p. 6
The capitalist system: a simple definition and some not-so-simple issues arising from it	p. 8
Identifying changes in the capitalist system over time	p. 12
Capitalism as a System: 'Natural' and 'Free'	p. 17
Introduction	p. 17
Adam Smith: markets are natural for humans...but not for dogs	p. 18
Milton Friedman on markets, freedom and Alka Seltzer	p. 20
More from Adam Smith: markets feed us because of self-interest	p. 21
Is private property 'natural' as well?	p. 23
The State as impartial rule enforcer	p. 24
Some states are better rule enforcers than others - and so sometimes capitalism fails	p. 25
Capitalism is also the most economically productive system	p. 25
Capitalism - the most economically productive system and therefore the 'end of history'	p. 27
Does capitalism lead to democracy?	p. 30
Capitalism as equal and just	p. 34
Capitalism as a friend of the environment	p. 35
Capitalism as a System: 'Unjust and 'Unstable'	p. 38
Introduction	p. 38
Unjust and unstable: Keynes and reformist critics	p. 38
Unjust and unstable: Marx and radical critics	p. 42
The importance of labour - or why workers are alienated but apes aren't	p. 45
Capitalism's contradiction: poverty amidst plenty	p. 47
Capitalism and crises	p. 49
Capitalism as anti-Nature	p. 49
Capitalism and gender inequality	p. 51
The capitalist state: to be captured or replaced?	p. 54
The capitalist state and education: enforcing the rules of American football or those of the treadmill?	p. 57
Empire and Crises 1870-1945	p. 59
Capitalism unfolds	p. 59
The curse of capitalism: late nineteenth-century crises	p. 60
Overseas expansion as the response to crises	p. 60
The curse of capitalism: The Great Depression of the 1930s	p. 65
The human cost: riding the rails, searching for work and the crime of vagrancy	p. 66
National responses to the Depression: Swedish social democracy, the 'New Deal' in the US and the spread of fascism in Europe	p. 67
Post-1945 Capitalism: Variations Across Countries	p. 71
National capitalisms	p. 71
How capitalisms differ: state-capital-labour relations	p. 73
The Anglo-American model: decentralized wage bargaining and stock markets	p. 75
The northern European or corporatist model: consensus decision-making and a large welfare state	p. 76
Japanese (or East Asian) developmental capitalism: guiding the market and controlling labour	p. 77
National varieties of capitalism as rivals	p. 79
Varieties of capitalism: a matter of choice or history?	p. 80
Varieties of capitalism: Asia, China, Russia and Latin America	p. 82
Post-1945 Capitalism: Variations Over Time	p. 86
Introduction	p. 86
1945-70: the 'golden age'... hot economies, warm capital-labour relations, and the Cold War	p. 87
The 'golden age' in the South: postcolonial capitalist states seek modernity and industrialization	p. 90
The 1970s: oil shocks the system...and Keynesian policy responses	p. 92
A new international division of labour: the lure of cheap labour in the South	p. 93
The 1980s and 1990s: the rise of neoliberalism...capital strikes back	p. 93
Neoliberalism in the South: open those doors, be 'market friendly'!	p. 100
Global turbulence: financial crises in the 1990s	p. 102
'Crony capitalism' blamed for the Asian crises	p. 103
Lessons not learned: The Global Financial Crisis of 2008	p. 104
Global Capitalism	p. 106
All the world's a stage...	p. 106
Are nation states still important actors?	p. 108
The 'globalization weakness the nation state' view	p. 108
The 'globaloney' or 'states are still powerful' view	p. 114
The 'some states are still powerful' or 'new imperialism' view	p. 115
The 'regionalism is more important' view	p. 117
As the curtain falls: what drama is unfolding on the capitalist world stage?	p. 119
Documents	p. 121
Adam Smith and the invisible hand	p. 122
Friedman on economic freedom and political freedom	p. 122
Marx and Engels on capitalism and class conflict	p. 126
Capitalism and class conflict in China today	p. 128
Keynes on Casino capitalism	p. 131
The formation of the Bretton Woods institutions	p. 135
The Washington Concensus	p. 137
Wolf's cry for more globalization not less	p. 138
World Social Forum Charter of Principles	p. 139
Guide to Further Reading	p. 142
References	p. 149
Index	p. 157
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