John Cassidy – Capitalism and Its Critics: A Battle of Ideas in the Modern World

Capitalism and government go hand in hand – one feeding the other

Some people think of economic history as a trifle dry, but how can you resist a book that includes quotes like these:

“The love of money (as a possession) is… a somewhat disgusting morbidity.” (Keynes).

“Capitalism is an economic system, but it’s also so much more than that. It’s become a sort of ideology, this all-encompassing force that rules over our lives and our minds.” (Rund Abdelfatah)

How many critics of Capitalism can you name? I bet you can only think of a very few. Marx and Engels, I suppose. Keynes. Maybe Thomas Picketty in recent years. But how about Rosa Luxemburg; Kondratiev if you have a smattering of economic history; and (in his own, deeply unhelpful way) Milton Friedman?

John Cassidy has put his mind to it and finds so many trenchant critics of Capitalism that he can’t find space for even Max Weber and J K Galbraith. But, as he says, they haven’t derailed the Capitalism juggernaut: it ploughs on, untroubled by the immiseration of the masses or the spoilation of the world we live in. He explains that criticisms of Capitalism are broadly of two kinds – baseball and zoo (you’ll hear what he means in the interview) and, in Capitalism and Its Critics he shows how this syndrome is nothing new.