Capitalism
Discussion on “Bankers: The real Terrorists?”
Social Europe Chief Editor Stephen Haseler took part in a discussion with Jagdish Bhagwati (Columbia University) and Peter Ghavami (Troika Dialogue Investment Bank) on Russia Today’s Crosstalk programme discussing the subject: “Bankers: The real Terrorists?”
Apart from the rather strange title it was a lively discussion.
Good Capitalism… and what would need to change for that
The ongoing financial crisis points unmistakably to the glaring weaknesses of the present economic system. An event that seemed relatively manageable in economic terms – the real estate bubble in the United States – has brought the globalised economy to the brink of a new depression, reawakening memories of the world economic crisis of 1929.
The [...]
Can The State Still Be Saved?
After eleven years in government, the German Social Democratic Party are now having to cope with their greatest electoral defeat in the post-war period. On the day of the election there was a feeling almost of unbelief about what was happening, not just among party members but also among many supporters. How was it possible [...]
We need a Patient Explanation of Sensible Keynesianism
The political debate in the UK is now all about the size of the state. A recession kicked off by the greed and risk taking of the bankers and financiers has been allowed to flip into a war between the parties about how much public services can and should be cut as we look down [...]
Towards a Reformed Conservatism? I don’t think so.
The big political event in Britain over the last week was the launch of Phillip Blonds’ new Tory think tank ResPublica. I’ve known Phillip for a few years – since he was a humble academic in far flung Cumbria – and have watched him move at incredible speed to the centre of debate under the [...]
The Future of Social Democracy
In spite of their rhetoric, the right’s solutions to the crisis will lead to ordinary people paying the costs.
This past year has been overshadowed by the dark clouds of economic crisis. Ordinary people have taken many hard knocks. Unemployment is rising. Businesses are going bust. Homes have been repossessed. Pensions have been decimated by stock [...]
The Social Democratic Challenge
Social democracy, in any meaningful sense of the word, has been in crisis for decades. Even amongst the Nordics the game for years has been accommodation to capital and not leadership of it. In the immediate post-war years social democracy set the agenda, next came a period of capital accommodating itself to our social agenda [...]
Capitalism and Christian Ethics
I. As recently as 2003, in a – purportedly critical – introduction to neoliberalism, we read the following: “The left/socialist and church-based critiques of neoliberalism are in agreement that the market encourages a ‘destructive egoism’. Resistant to learning, the churches cultivate the idea of the fundamentally good, socially responsible individual, and look with biblical [...]
The Ethics of Capitalism
In the last couple of years, the world economy has been rocked by uncontrollable increases in agricultural commodities worldwide, the rollercoaster ride of crude oil prices and the global credit crunch that has led to the global economic crisis, plunging into negative growth even the most robust economies.
The EU economy has not been shielded against [...]
Morality and Capitalism in Sociological Perspective
Whether neoliberals can claim that their form of free-market capitalism is a moral force is debatable (which from a deontological viewpoint is very debatable), but they certainly claim it is superior to all other forms capitalism as well as socialism.
This stands in contrast to social democratic and Christian democratic conceptions of capitalism which regard [...]
Capitalism and Ethical Life
In the park across the road the boys hang out on the benches. Throughout the day and long into the night, when the call comes in one will cycle off up the road and return with the small wrap. It’s a just in time, overheads free, networked, post post-fordist economy of primitive accumulation. A life [...]