Spodaj je dobra recenzija kontroverzne knjige Ruchirja Sharme, ki krizo zaupanja v ameriški kapitalziem pripisuje “veliki vladi” (“razbohotenju” javnih izdatkov), porastu monopolov in potuhi velikim podjetjem, da jih bo država reševala, če zabredejo:

Ruchir Sharma has a book out called What went wrong with capitalism?Ruchir Sharma is an investor, author, fund manager and columnist for the Financial Times. He is the head of Rockefeller Capital Management‘s international business, and was an emerging markets investor at Morgan Stanley Investment Management.

With those credentials of being ‘inside the beast’ or even ‘one of the beasts’, he ought to know the answer to his question.  In a review of his book in the Financial Times, Sharma outlines his argument.  First, he tells us that “I worry about where the US is leading the world now. Faith in American capitalism, which was built on limited government that leaves room for individual freedom and initiative, has plummeted.”  He notes that now most Americans don’t expect to be “better off in five years” — a record low since the Edelman Trust Barometer first asked this question more than two decades ago. Four in five doubt that life will be better for their children’s generation than it has been for theirs, also a new low. And according to the latest Pew polls, support for capitalism has fallen among all Americans, particularly Democrats and the young. In fact, among Democrats under 30, 58 per cent now have a “positive impression” of socialism; only 29 per cent say the same thing of capitalism.

This is bad news for Sharma as a strong supporter of capitalism.  What has gone wrong?  Sharma says that it’s the rise of big government, monopoly power and easy money to bail out the big boys.  This has led to stagnation, low productivity growth and rising inequality.

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You see, capitalists, if left alone to exploit the labour force, and freed of the burden of regulations and for having to pay for welfare spending, will naturally flourish. “The real sciences explain life as a cycle of transformation, ashes to ashes, yet political leaders still listen to advisers claiming they know how to generate constant growth. Their overconfidence needs to be contained before it does more damage.”  So, according to Sharma, capitalism will be fine again, if we let the capitalist cycles of boom and slump play out naturally and not try to manage them. 

“Capitalism is still the best hope for human progress, but only if it has enough room to work.” Well, capitalism has had plenty of room to work for over 250 years with its booms and slumps; its rising inequalities globally; and now its environmental threat to the planet; and the increasing risk of geopolitical conflict.  No wonder 58% of young Democrats in the US would prefer socialism.

What went wrong with capitalism?