Is Capitalism Obsolete?: A Journey through Alternative Economic Systems

by Giacomo G Corneo, Daniel Steuer (Translator)

After communism collapsed in the former Soviet Union, capitalism seemed to many observers like the only game in town, and questioning it became taboo for academic economists. But the financial crisis, chronic unemployment, and the inexorable rise of inequality have resurrected the question of whether there is a feasible and desirable alternative to capitalism. Against this backdrop of growing disenchantment, Giacomo Corneo presents a refreshingly antidogmatic review of economic systems, taking as his launching point a fictional argument between a daughter indignant about economic injustice and her father, a professor of economics.

Is Capitalism Obsolete? begins when the daughter’s angry complaints prompt her father to reply that capitalism cannot responsibly be abolished without an alternative in mind. He invites her on a tour of tried and proposed economic systems in which production and consumption obey noncapitalistic rules. These range from Plato’s Republic to diverse modern models, including anarchic communism, central planning, and a stakeholder society. Some of these alternatives have considerable strengths. But daunting problems arise when the basic institutions of capitalism―markets and private property―are suppressed. Ultimately, the father argues, all serious counterproposals to capitalism fail to pass the test of economic feasibility. Then the story takes an unexpected turn. Father and daughter jointly come up with a proposal to gradually transform the current economic system so as to share prosperity and foster democratic participation.

An exceptional combination of creativity and rigor, Is Capitalism Obsolete? is a sorely needed work about one of the core questions of our times.

Genres: Economics

312 pages, Hardcover

Published October 17, 2017

Reviews

[Brooke Salaz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Informative look at a few different ways of organizing economic life recognizing that capitalism has many flaws, chiefly too much inequality and lack of recognition of environmental costs. Found the discussion of the universal guaranteed income interesting and thought Corneo demonstrated fairly convincingly its problems aside from the simplistic why should people be paid for loafing. His final solution seems a good one, a hybrid of capitalism and socialism that keeps what he sees as the main function of capitalist systems in rationally scaling values and recognizing and encouraging efficiencies and profit maximizing in ways that enhance the public good and can be steered in that direction far better than we do currently, and the human dignity that is supported when socialism does what it's best at in evening the playing field and allowing workers to share in profits. Public funds used to invest in companies foreign and domestic and profits shared throughout the population in addition to, not replacing other social programs that are allocated preferentially. Appreciated his clear presentation of the various options he mostly decides won't work better than what we have now before reaching the idea that he supports as offering improvements and unlike most of the alternatives could fairly easily be introduced gradually without committing immediately to its final form before knowing whether a public representative body,"federal shareholder", is truly capable of influencing large enterprises to behave more responsibly and efficiently than self-interested capitalists, as he suspects.

[Christopher · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author Giacomo Corneo gives a brief tour through various economic systems imagined and practiced. He acknowledges the criticism of capitalism and explores whether other systems can overcome those weaknesses.

Everything from Plato's imaginary Republic, Sir Thomas Moore's Utopia, to fully planned economies, semi-planned economies, no markets, some markets, a fully market economy with a "public option" in the finance sector, universal basic incomes, and then finally the modern European style welfare capitalist state.

He lands on our current system as being the only viable thing we've thought or practiced in our thousands of years of history and experimentation. Of course, there's always room to tweak it or to shore up the social safety net.

Many of the other systems simply rely on humans being kinder, more generous, and nicer. Yes, we should be better people. If we never got jealous, or overly ambitious, then yes, we probably could live in a sharing economy or abandon principles of private property or have government planners make altruistic choices.

However, saints are called saints for a reason. They're better than us. We seek to aspire to their behavior. It's not a description of the median human.

He's probably right about his conclusion. But I had already arrived at the conclusion before starting the book. While published by Harvard University Press, the author makes a conscious choice not to fill it up with footnotes. He wanted a casual conversion. ... But he didn't write a casual book. Better footnotes, more empirical comparison would allow us to better test how each system works in the real world.

[Mills College Library]

330.12 C8149 2017