Capitalism

Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing has just published a brilliant book on the global trade in a certain kind of mushroom. As much as I’d like to report on it, I feel like I have to get my head around a previous landmark work of hers before attempting it. Here I’m thinking of her book Friction: An Ethnography of Global Connection (Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ, 2005). 

Tsing: “Capitalism, science, and politics all depend on global connections….

If you’re unfamiliar with the advertising firm of Ogilvy & Mather, consider this: What James Madison did for the US Constitution, Ogilvy did for advertising. Ogilvy was a champion of pragmatism and a fierce romantic, a combination that made for advertising that reflected the cultural fantasies of the moment while remaining accessible to consumers. Ogilvy built an empire on giving consumers precisely what his advertising made them want: “In the modern world of business,” he proclaimed, “it is useless to be a creative, original thinker unless you can also sell what you create.”

If we analyze historic ad campaigns to discover why they were successful, we probably would hear the Marlboro Man speaking to us from beyond the grave (though quite likely through a voice box). …

The Brazilian Federal Constitution speaks of a “free market” (Art. 170) and describes the state as a “normative and regulating agent of economic activity” (Art. 174). Unfortunately, reality is completely different. We have two worlds in Brazil: the first is the naïve utopia of the legislator; the other is the crude practice of political gangsters. Life as it is differs substantially from life as it should be.

As pointed out by Professor Douglass North, economic growth is directly linked to the quality of a nation’s institutions. Prosperous countries are buttressed by strong, serious and efficient institutions; poor countries are infected by weak, dishonest and exploitative ones. 

The fact is that we do not have capitalism in Brazil. Our free market is state-directed, while our “free competition” favors powerful…

The current situation in the United States presents a seeming paradox. On the one hand, the US economy is about to enter its eighth consecutive year of recovery, and in the first months of 2016, the unemployment rate fell below 5%, its lowest level since the beginning of the economic crisis of 2007–2009. On the other hand, there seems to be general discontent about the state of the economy. For example, according to various public opinion polls, the principal concern of voters in this year’s presidential primaries has been “economy/jobs”. This concern has been a main — if not, the main — factor behind upsets in both races.

However, if we look a little closer, the paradox resolves. Figure 1 depicts the path of real GDP from the trough to the peak of each post–World War II economic recovery, at quarterly frequency. …

This video was shown at ‘The G20 of Philosophy and Economics’ in Amsterdam on April1, 2016. The event coincided with the publication of the Dutch translation of Paul Mason’s recent book ‘Post-Capitalism: A Guide to Our Future’ and the opening session was a discussion on it. After Mason’s presentation, there were short invited comments and responses to it. …