The TIME at Davos Debate: Capitalism Under Fire
January 28, 2012
The TIME at Davos Debate: Capitalism Under Fire
http://business.time.com/2012/01/25/time-debate-is-capitalism-failing/
TIME International Editor Jim Frederick hosts a panel discussion on the future of capitalism: Can a system that came of age in the 20th century serve the needs of 21st? Joining Frederick tackling this question is:
- Sharan Burrow, General Secretary, International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), Brussels; Global Agenda Council on Employment & Social Protection
- Brian T. Moynihan, Chief Executive Officer, Bank of America
- Raghuram G. Rajan, Eric J. Gleacher Distinguished Service Professor of Finance, Booth School of Business, University of Chicago
- David M. Rubenstein, Co-Founder and Managing Director, Carlyle Group, USA
- Ben J. Verwaayen, Chief Executive Officer, Alcatel-Lucent
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Capitalism should not be under fire … because there is nothing much wrong with it. What should be on trial are those who have diverted it through political collusion.
Politicians are trying their level best to fend off any attempt to hold them accountable for the crisis. Even Obama is on it. In his State of the Union Address, he criticised those who extended loans despite knowing that those borrowing would not be able to pay back. But tellingly, he did not criticise politicians without whose knowledge the whole fraud would not have been possible.
Isa Manteqi - January 28, 2012 at 11:14 am
Capitalism is here to stay. For all its faults, it is the best economic system ever invented by man. Even Deng Xiao Ping was reported to have said ,”To get rich is glorious.”
I remember two quotes from Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations which are the underpinnings of capitalism (or market economy):
Self-Interest:
(1)” It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our necessities but of their advantages.”
Government:
(2) “It is the highest impertinence and presumption… in kings and ministers, to pretend to watch over the economy of private people, and to restrain their expense… They are themselves always, and without any exception, the greatest spendthrifts in the society. Let them look well after their own expense, and they may safely trust private people with theirs. If their own extravagance does not ruin the state, that of their subjects never will.”
dinobeano - January 28, 2012 at 6:48 pm
It is fundamentalism and political corruption that are on trial here. Our current woes may be economic but the underlying villains are the politicians.
Regulate the market as much as we like but unless politicians are regulated too, the curse will pop up again sooner or later.
To concentrate on capitalism is what politicians want. It neatly deflects attention from their shortcomings.
Isa Manteqi - January 28, 2012 at 11:09 pm
Go read Engel’s dialectics and Marx’s dialectical materialsm to understand what is happening to capitalism today. A system sows the seeds of its own destruction. We then move from one to another and it continues. Capitalism today is giving way to another system which has yet to emerge.
Mr Bean - January 28, 2012 at 11:29 pm
And it is not socialism. We already had that.
Mr Bean - January 28, 2012 at 11:31 pm
Neither capitalism nor socialism will give way. We shall just have a new and hopefully better understanding of both.
Socialism became a dirty word in the West because we were dazzled by the promise of Utopia under capitalism. (Remember the ‘…triumph of liberal capitalism…” and the equally inane “… end of History…?). Now capitalism (of an equally fundamentalist variety) too has fallen victim.
The Europeans had a damn good thing going… but then they ditched it for the markets. Now only the Scandinavians are left with sensible systems.
Isa Manteqi - January 28, 2012 at 11:46 pm
WTF is happening ?
http://www.eutimes.net/2012/01/massive-us-troop-movements-in-california-raise-russian-concerns/
Massive US Troop Movements In California Raise Russian Concerns
A disturbing report prepared by the Ministry of Defense circulating in the Kremlin today states that Russian Military Officials were rebuffed by NATO yesterday after questions were raised regarding massive troop and war equipment movements in the United States region of California and said to involve over 78,000 soldiers from various countries. Reports coming in from…
Tags: California, Herlong, Los Angeles, Massive, Morgon Hill, Moscow, NATO, Oxnard, Russia, Russian Concerns, Santa Cruz, Secret Military Exercises, Sierra Army Depot, Southbound, US Troop Movements, USA
http://youtu.be/OS-PmhhxPG4
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OS-PmhhxPG4&w=420&h=315
ocho onda - January 29, 2012 at 1:36 am
George Soros predicts Riots, Police State and Class War for America
http://www.eutimes.net/2012/01/george-soros-predicts-riots-police-state-and-class-war-for-america/
Billionaire investor George Soros has a new prediction for America. While it might be as dire as it gets for the financial wiz, this bet concerns more than just the value of the buck. According to Soros, there’s about to be an all-out class war
ocho onda - January 29, 2012 at 2:43 am
When so many of their citizens have been reduced to living in shelters and depending on soup kitchens while all their politicians are interested in is drumming up support on which country to attack next, what can we expect but a whole lot of trouble ahead?
David Cameron’s words in Davos ought to have increased the volume of the alarm bells… but is anyone listening? This was before Soros spoke.
Isa Manteqi - January 29, 2012 at 1:24 pm
“And it is not socialism. We already had that” MR.BEAN
Tuan : I think you are confusing socialism with its parasite offshoot communism. The latter’s self implosion is well-known, but socialism is alive and well. Nobody expects it to replace capitalism but socialism will always be necessary as a handy if embarrassing device to bail-out die-hard free market capitalists.
Isa Manteqi - January 29, 2012 at 4:15 pm
I am not. I am referring to concepts rather than ideology i.e. the concept of dialectics by Engels and later refined by Marx. That a system sows the seeds of its destruction. Whatever the system is.
Mr Bean - January 30, 2012 at 10:29 pm
ooops …. the seeds of its own destruction
Mr Bean - January 30, 2012 at 10:29 pm
A system sows the seeds of its own destruction.
Isn’t it better if we put it thus : An EXTREME form of any system sows the seeds of its own destruction? From which we get that communism went down as did liberal free market capitalism…. therefore proving another point that the middle-of-the road European Social Democratic model (pre the Euro fiasco) is a good happy medium.
Isa Manteqi - January 30, 2012 at 10:58 pm