Future Of Capitalism Research Articles

The Future of Capitalism: Does Capitalism Represent the Best Humanity Can Ever Hope To Achieve?

A few years ago, someone referred to period we're living in as the end of history. What he meant was that there had been fundamental changes in economic and social systems in past, but this would no longer be case. The collapse of communism signalled that capitalism would now be here forever—some tinkering here and there of course, but no fundamental change.This article can also be found at Monthly Review website, where most recent articles are published in full.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at Monthly Review website.

World, Trade since 1431: Geography, Technology, and Capitalism by Peter J. Hugill

170 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE technocracy movement in the 1920s (as Bailes has argued), and, if so, what was its program and agenda? In their political compliance and willingness to serve state power, did not Palchinsky and his generation set the stage for the generations to follow? And why do we hear only of failures? If, as Thomas Parke Hughes has argued, the Manhattan Project was a result of the American system of production, was not the Soviet system of production equally implicated in such triumphs as Sputnik and the world’s first deliverable H-bomb? Such nagging questions aside, Graham’s story is a fine read, and a paperback edition will find a welcome place on many college reading lists. With the opening of the Soviet archives, many fascinating studies are now possible. It is hoped that this readable and humane book will encourage a new generation of scholars to do them. Mark B. Adams Dr, Adams is a professor in the Department of the History and Sociology ofScience at the University of Pennsylvania. He has lectured and written widely on the history of biology, the Soviet scientific system, genetic engineering, and the history of science fiction. His books include The Wellborn Science (Oxford, 1990) and The Evolution of Theodosius Dobzhansky (Princeton, N.J., 1994). World, Trade since 1431: Geography, Technology, and Capitalism. By Peter J. Hugill. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993. Pp. xxiii+376; illustrations, tables, references, indexes. $59.95. Spurred by frustration at “the unwillingness of non-Marxist social scientists to address large-scale questions in the history of our culture, in particular that of the origins and progress of capitalism” and by “the quite remarkable unwillingness of historians to engage in anything approaching a theoretical debate” (p. xix), geographer Peter Hugill set out to make good the deficiency. The result is a wide-ranging work of synthesis, far broader in scope than the title implies, examining the origins, progress, and, in a tightly reasoned conclusion, possible futures of capitalism. Social scientist to the bone, Hugill begins by defining the process under investigation as progress rather than development since, as he notes, economic activity need not always intensify (p. xviii). He informs his investigation with the idea of recurring “waves of enterprise” driven by technology (p. 11). These waves apply not only to economics but to geopolitical considerations as well, notably, war, and are, he says, expressed in five world leadership cycles, each corresponding to paired Kondratiev cycles of about a century. Each cycle has produced a clear world hegemon: Portugal, Holland, commercial England, industrial Britain, and America, in turn. Drawing on the work of Lewis Mumford, Hugill further divides human interaction with the environment into three eras: the Eotechnic, in which production was mainly agricultural TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 171 and the only efficient bulk movers of goods were wind-driven ships of wood; the Paleotechnic, fueled by coal and marked by the dominance first of iron and then steel as premier structural materials; and the Neotechnic, driven by petroleum and markedly by the steadily increas­ ing importance of synthetic materials. The correlation between the three technic eras and the five world-leadership cycles is the book’s organizing principle. Correlation is not causation, and I approach long-wave theory with skepticism; that having been said, Hugill is convincing. At the very least, he has constructed a powerful analytical framework to which this brief review cannot do justice. Chapters 3-5 are the core of the narrative, and their richly descriptive titles hint at the substance within: “The Triumph of the Ship”; “The Problem of Overland Transportation: Canals, Rivers and Railroads”; “Aviation and the First Global System.” Throughout, a clear understand­ ing of geographic, economic, and social considerations informs Hugill’s analysis of the technologies by which goods and services are produced and distributed and of how the way in which those technologies evolved—and where—shaped the progress of capitalism. Methodological elaboration notwithstanding, the book is exceedingly well-reasoned and written. The text is supported by numerous and informative tables and charts, some of them reproductions of vintage documents with their own fascinating stories to tell; line drawings; and well-chosen photographs...

Marx and modern economic analysis: v.1: Values, prices and exploitations; v.2: The future of capitalism and the history of thought

Marx and modern economic analysis: v.1: Values, prices and exploitations; v.2: The future of capitalism and the history of thought

The future of capitalism I

The future of capitalism I

Capitalism and Democracy

Joseph Schumpeter, a great economist and social scientist of the last generation, whose career was almost equally divided between Central European and American universities, and who lived close to the crises of the 1930s and '40s, published a book in 1942 under the title, Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy. The book has had great influence, and can be read today with profit. It was written in the aftergloom of the great depression, during the early triumphs of Fascism and Nazism in 1940 and 1941, when the future of capitalism, socialism, and democracy all were in doubt. Schumpeter projected a future of declining capitalism, and rising socialism. He thought that democracy under socialism might be no more impaired and problematic than it was under capitalism.He wrote a concluding chapter in the second edition which appeared in 1946, and which took into account the political-economic situation at the end of the war, with the Soviet Union then astride a devastated Europe. In this last chapter he argues that we should not identify the future of socialism with that of the Soviet Union, that what we had observed and were observing in the first three decades of Soviet existence was not a necessary expression of socialism. There was a lot of Czarist Russia in the mix. If Schumpeter were writing today, I don't believe he would argue that socialism has a brighter future than capitalism. The relationship between the two has turned out to be a good deal more complex and intertwined than Schumpeter anticipated.

Capitalism and Democracy

Joseph Schumpeter, a great economist and social scientist of the last generation, whose career was almost equally divided between Central European and American universities, and who lived close to the crises of the 1930s and '40s, published a book in 1942 under the title, Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy. The book has had great influence, and can be read today with profit. It was written in the aftergloom of the great depression, during the early triumphs of Fascism and Nazism in 1940 and 1941, when the future of capitalism, socialism, and democracy all were in doubt. Schumpeter projected a future of declining capitalism, and rising socialism. He thought that democracy under socialism might be no more impaired and problematic than it was under capitalism.He wrote a concluding chapter in the second edition which appeared in 1946, and which took into account the political-economic situation at the end of the war, with the Soviet Union then astride a devastated Europe. In this last chapter he argues that we should not identify the future of socialism with that of the Soviet Union, that what we had observed and were observing in the first three decades of Soviet existence was not a necessary expression of socialism. There was a lot of Czarist Russia in the mix. If Schumpeter were writing today, I don't believe he would argue that socialism has a brighter future than capitalism. The relationship between the two has turned out to be a good deal more complex and intertwined than Schumpeter anticipated.

Flexible Specialization: What’s that got to do with the price of fish?

There is general agreement among crisis theorists that capitalism was in crisis during the 1970s and is currently undergoing a process of restructuring. However, they have offered divergent explanations for that crisis and arrive at different conclusions as to the significance of the current restructuring process for the future of capitalism and society as a whole.

Puzzling Out the Post-Fordist Debate: Technology, Markets and Institutions

This paper is an attempt to unravel the post-Fordist debate. This is perceived as a recurrent debate about the future of capitalism which rages especially fiercely during periods of crisis and transition. Three different perspectives on post-Fordism are identified and explored, each one evolving out of a particular tradition within classical political economy and stressing different driving-forces behind the historical development of capitalism. An underlying theme within the paper is the existence of significantly contrasting views about the openness of the new phase of capitalist development: disagreement over whether post-Fordism is primarily about the inevitable diffusion of a pervasive new discipline or the formation of strategic initiatives and the making of history.

Introduction to Marx and Engels: A Critical Reconstruction.

* Introduction * Human Nature * Against Individualism * History * The Dialectic * Historical Materialism * Materialism and Idealism * Ideology * Capitalism * Capitalism and Exploitation * Alienation * The Future of Capitalism and Its Failures * What Are Classes? * Class Struggles * The State * Utopian and Scientific Socialism * Socialism

Schumpeter and Galbraith: A Comparative Analysis on the Modern Corporate Economy

This investigation reveals certain modifications and extensions pertaining primarily to the disintegration of the social fabric of capitalist society developed by Schumpeter, with special emphasis on his writings between the years 1942 and 1949, just prior to his death in 1950. Three publications during the period which hold particular significance are Prime and Henderson (1975), “Schumpeter on Preserving Private Enterprise” (an address by Schumpeter to a group of Quebec businessmen in November 1945); J.A. Schumpeter, “The March into Socialism,” AER, May 1950 (a paper presented on December 30, 1949); and J.A. Schumpeter, notes on “American Institutions and Economic Progress,” (late 1949). These more recent views are exposed and compared with Galbraith's rationalizations on the contemporary corporate economy. It is well known that Schumpeter, the theorist, was willing to express tendencies but was hesitant to relate the specific outcome of the future of capitalism. However, Galbraith was quite precise in his interpretation of the transition to modern capitalism.

Una lettera italiana di J.A. Schumpeter

Abstract This article refers to a letter written in 1931 by J. A. Schumpeter to an Italian professor, Celestino Arena, on the subject of the Italian edition of the Theory of Economic Growth. 1931 was the last year spent by Schumpeter in Europe. The year after, he moved from Germany to the United States, where the New Deal environment would have profoundly changed his views about the role of the entrepreneur in modern society and, by consequence, about the future of capitalism.

The Future of Capitalism

The Future of Capitalism

Crisis and Continuity in the International System

What are the determinants of change within a society? Are we, as social scientists, able to forecast the direction a society will take? Is the future predetermined or unpredictable? These are some of the important questions that have been raised by social scientists and philosophers for many years. In order to fully understand and appreciate different approaches and perspectives on these questions, the works of two authors have been chosen for review: Immanuel Wallerstein and Stephen Rousseas. Their particular perspectives on the future of capitalism are analyzed and the implications of their different conclusions are discussed.

Consumer Asset Formation and the Future of Capitalism

Consumer Asset Formation and the Future of Capitalism

Legal Marxism and the “Fate of Capitalism in Russia”

In the eighteen-nineties there took place in Russia, at a time of rapid industrial advance under the “Witte System,” one of those great debates which seem to catch hold of the basic problems shaping the destiny of generations. In those years a group of narodnik writers led by Vasilii Vorontsov and Nikolai Daniel'son disputed with a young generation of Marxists the future of capitalism in Russia. By capitalism these writers understood the current process of industrialization, which had been started after the Crimean War and had reached such extraordinary proportions by the mid-nineties. In surveying and evaluating the effects of this unprecedented development these writers, both narodnik and Marxist, laid bare an intricate fabric of economic difficulties and hostile emotional responses, which has accompanied, if not altogether determined the course of industrialization in Russia. And not in Russia alone: this great debate had its counterparts in backward countries all over the world. Its echoes are still heard in the discussions of Point Four projects and United Nations publications on the industrialization of underdeveloped areas.

Deficit Financing and the Future of Capitalism

The primary aim of current economic planning is the creation and maintenance of full employment of productive resources-especially labor.' Many of the plans aimed at achieving this objective come sooner or later to the proposition that deficit financing2 must play an important rBle in their fulfillment. The proponents of this instrument insist that the solution of the problem of unemployment is a prerequisite to the maintenance of the capitalistic system.3 According to this reasoning, the system has failed to show that it can, per se, provide the employment opportunities necessary for its continuation because (a) it has reached maturity4 or (b) the tenets of the classical system upon which

Hopes and Fears: The Shape of Things to Come

ECONOMISTS, Napoleon is represented as saying, blockheads who make to stop the running sores of the body politic. They do not even know that a nation may have a sick soul. 1 writer quotes this opinion not because he agrees with it for he does not -nor to imply anything invidious regarding the authors under review in the present paper,2 nor yet, as will be seen later, to question the value of the financial plasters themselves, but because the statement nevertheless sums up an aspect of the case too often overlooked today and sharply brought into relief by the volumes under consideration. five books here assembled form one of the best collections of short essays on basic issues of the modern crisis so far published in this country. Dr. Lorwin's study is a sober and objective but intensely interesting non-technical summary of postwar planning throughout the allied world. essays collected by Professor Harris, together with Professor Slichter's independent study, give an excellent cross-section, from a rather more professional standpoint, of what the experts are thinking about such issues as inflation, deflation, foreign trade, public works, unemployment, the future of capitalism, etc., etc. Finally, Stuart Chase and Robert Nathan have set out to reach the public and in forceful and appealing language expound certain essentials of what might be called the new economics. Yet the over-all picture shows little agreement. The sponsors of most plans, Dr. Lorwin writes, in the throes of an economic dualism. They see an opening ahead for a new upsurge of industrial energy and of economic growth. But this outlook is darkened by the lingering memories of the aftermath of the First World War and the great depression. 3