Capitalism

Beschreibung

This book analyzes how capitalism and democracy are both mutually supportive and antagonistic. It addresses key issues of poverty and the inequalities of income and power, and it develops alternative societal models based on the degree of those inequalities.
Two systems of governance, capitalism and democracy, prevail in the world today. Operating simultaneously in partially distinct domains, these systems rely on indirect governance through regulated competition to coordinate actors; inevitably, these systems influence and transform each other. This book rejects the simple equation of capitalism with markets in favor of a three-level system, a model which recognizes that markets are administered by regulators through institutions and governed by a political authority with the power to regulate behavior, punish transgressors, and redesign institutions. This system's emergence required the sovereign to relinquish some power in order to release the energies of economic actors. Rather than spreading through an unguided natural process like trade, capitalism emerged where competitive pressures forced political authorities to take risks in order to achieve increased revenues by permitting markets for land, labor, and capital.
This book looks at the emergence of capitalism and democracy as systems of economic and political governance and considers how these two systems may be both mutually supportive and antagonistic. In mapping out the balance between capitalism and democracy, the book details the theory and history of these systems that challenge the assumption that their spread will bring about a convergence of incomes either among countries or within them. Inequalities of income and power emerge as a major societal issue alongside poverty, and the book develops alternative societal models based upon the degree of inequality in wealth and power. Since 1980, Anglo-American style capitalism has been a cause of increased inequality in a number of rich countries and threatens to duplicate itself in many developing countries. The book argues that the increasing integration of markets (globalization) will not solve these problems of inequality, they require political solutions.

Autor*in

Bruce R. Scott

Themen in »Capitalism«

Antagonistic Symbiosis Capitalism Democracy Globalization Governance Inequality Institutional Economics Regulated Competition

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