so whats next?

[bunkum]

surely this is the beginning of the end for capitalism.

if the defining dynamic of 20th century geopolitics was the tension between communism and capitalism, then after the demise of both, what will the 21st century be about? its all open to play for.

so where are the big ideas?

are they out there? have i just not heard about them? or are our economists suffering from a serious collective failure of imagination? where's our marx of the moment?

until he gets here it might be fun to speculate what the future holds.

it makes me sound a bit tin-foil hat to say it, but if i had to plump for anything i'd imagine some sort of eco-techno-beaurocratic feudalism. on a very local and a very global scale. i forsee national governments in decline, while supra national structures and local collectives take precedence.

it might be a bit far out, but its interesting to speculate. so lets blue-sky some, folks. what do you reckon?

- contra, please don't turn this into the communist manifesto!!

[bunkum]

Originally Posted by bunkum

surely this is the beginning of the end for capitalism.

and if you're in any doubt, you know the games up when that institution-in-one-man jeremy paxman asks whether you're dead in the water. many a minister will attest to this truth.

newsnight: does capitalism still work?

[Neko]

I think it would depend what you mean by capitalism. In the strict marxist sense I'd say it's been over (or at least modified into something very different) for years, at least since the information age began. In the sense of just buying and selling stuff and getting rich, I can't imagine that it'll ever be over.

[contracycle]

Originally Posted by Neko

I think it would depend what you mean by capitalism. In the strict marxist sense I'd say it's been over (or at least modified into something very different) for years, at least since the information age began. In the sense of just buying and selling stuff and getting rich, I can't imagine that it'll ever be over.

Capitalism has never been "just" buying and selling stuff; you couldn't distinguish between Capitalism and Mercantilism on that basis, for example. It is not merely "exchange", or even "exchange for profit".

[Gilles de Rais]

Originally Posted by bunkum

surely this is the beginning of the end for capitalism.

Surely? I've think i've heard that one before...

Well, if it does collapse, i recommend stock-piling canned food, water and weapons...

[Gilles de Rais]

Originally Posted by contracycle

You couldn't distinguish between Capitalism and Mercantilism on that basis, for example.

There is a difference??

Sorry, sorry, it's just i always found the difference a bit arbitrary... And, as i said, i always thought that your idea of communism and capitalism were roughly identical...

[bunkum]

Originally Posted by Neko

I think it would depend what you mean by capitalism. In the strict marxist sense I'd say it's been over (or at least modified into something very different) for years, at least since the information age began.

i think its very interesting you should say that. george osbourne effectively said exactly the same thing on newsnight (although i should fess up i didn't see the whole report)

as i understand it, he said - "this isn't captialism's fault. what we have now is not capitalism" (and by implication, thats what he considers to be the problem i suppose)

but by this count as well capitalism is trying to have its cake and eat it. it dismissed communism on the basis that although the ideology might be broadly sound, is application was inevitably and irretrievably flawed.

so by that reasoning, we now we have no more imperative to persist with capitalism than we did with communism.

hoist by its own petard (whatever that is)

[bunkum]

Originally Posted by Gilles de Rais

Surely? I've think i've heard that one before...

Well, if it does collapse, i recommend stock-piling canned food, water and weapons...

t'weren't me, my friend. was my mate jeremy. and people *listen* to him.

and to standard and poors - who just said that the american government's AAA rating was not cast in stone.

if the US government, bastion and stronghold of all capitalism holds dear, can't be relied upon to fly its flag, who can?

[contracycle]

Originally Posted by bunkum

hoist by its own petard (whatever that is)

A petard is a bomb made of gunpowder in a barrel to be set against fortifications IIRC.

[bunkum]

Originally Posted by contracycle

A petard is a bomb made of gunpowder in a barrel to be set against fortifications IIRC.

and there was i thinking it was some sort of reference to one's intestine.

thanks contra

[contracycle]

Originally Posted by Gilles de Rais

There is a difference??

There are massive differences. Mercantilism is trade driven by the state and in state interests, with stock-holding companies as extensions of national policy. It is thus necessarily protectionist, and considers that the pie cannot be grown but that states can only fight over slices.

Capitalism is characterised by concentrations of capital that operated independently of national interests, are held in private hands, expand internationally, and fetishises "growth" of the economy as the solution to all ills.

Sorry, sorry, it's just i always found the difference a bit arbitrary... And, as i said, i always thought that your idea of communism and capitalism were roughly identical...

Modern capitalism has, inevitably, attempted to rationalise itself as natural and inevitable, and thus tends to imply that all trade is capitalism. This is totally bogus; the temple based economies frex also exhibited trade but were very different. Trade and exchange are trade and exchange; they are universal and not characteristic to any one economic model; to do so renders all economic models into meaningless terms.

[Gilles de Rais]

Fair enough. I always thought we hould stick with Fear and Greed, thus being pretty universal but i guess it doesn't make for too many economic models.

[ktp]

Erm... One solution, revolution!!!

[bunkum]

which begs the question: who'll be first against the wall?

[Underhill]

There is regulated capitalism and unregulated capitalism.

I see this as a short term end to unregulated capitalism. It will bounce back in another 10-20 yrs however. Economist seem to have shit for memory.

One of the biggest problems I see is not just the practices of these massive companies, but their size. We used to worry about monopolies and companies having too much power over markets. For the last 20 yrs. we seemed to throw those concerns out the window.

It isn't right that a few faltering companies could affect 3/5ths of the consumers in America. But that is whats being reported.

[Neko]

There's always a tendancy to think that just because something's happening now it must be important, when actually most of the time ten years later no one'll even remember it.

Personally I reckon things'll just keep going as they are, only more so.

[Gilles de Rais]

Originally Posted by Neko

Personally I reckon things'll just keep going as they are, only more so.

Yep... But i do agree that we will see calls for more effective regulations of huge companies, banks esp. I don't expect them to be able to get away with "off-balance sheet" stuff anymore. Unless the risks have really really been transfered...

[Neko]

Probably, but then I bet that this'll be countered as more companies move into public sector work, and establish ever cosier relationships with government.

[Gilles de Rais]

Well, for a while, esp. in the US, it seems huge chunks of companies are going to be in the public sector, that's true

[potter]

Curious me found:

The word remains in modern usage in the phrase to be hoist by one's own petard, which means "to be harmed by one's own plan to harm someone else" or "to fall in one's own trap ...

Word History: The French used pétard, "a loud discharge of intestinal gas," for a kind of infernal engine for blasting through the gates of a city. "To be hoist by one's own petard," a now proverbial phrase apparently originating with Shakespeare's Hamlet (around 1604) not long after the word entered English (around 1598), means "to blow oneself up with one's own bomb, be undone by one's own devices." The French noun pet, "fart," developed regularly from the Latin noun pditum, from the Indo-European root *pezd-, "fart."

Sometimes it just best to leave well enough alone......