Saving Capitalism from the Capitalists: Unleashing the Power of Financial Markets to Create Wealth and Spread Opportunity

Product Details

Saving Capitalism from the Capitalists is a groundbreaking book that will radically change our understanding of the capitalist system, particularly the role of financial markets. They are the catalyst for inspiring human ingenuity and spreading prosperity. The perception of many, especially in the wake of never-ending corporate scandals, is that financial markets are parasitic institutions that feed off the blood, sweat, and tears of the rest of us. The reality is far different.

This book breaks free of traditional ideological arguments of the Right and Left and points to a new way of understanding and spreading the extraordinary wealth-generating capabilities of capitalism.

Customer Reviews ::

I wonder what the authors think now, after the meltdown? - S. Kaphan - Seattle, WA USA
I learned of this book because it is referred to in the excellent How Markets Fail: The Logic of Economic Calamities by John Cassidy.

It was interesting to read this book in 2010, since it was written and published before the great meltdown of the past couple of years. The authors are big fans of the free market. They recognize that their conception of a free market does not exist in the real world and has probably never existed. It is an idealization. Yet unlike the idealization of pure socialism, which they recognize also never existed in the real world, they think that it is possible, in the real world, to achieve a pure free market system. This might have something to do with the water in Chicago where they are professors. It seems like most economists from there believe the same thing.

The idea of free market expounded in this book is not what one might think: they are not suggesting a "wild west" or "jungle" style of free market would work (and it seems the evidence is in that is *hasn't* done that great of a job lately...) but are suggesting one with a significant role for government in setting and enforcing rules of the road, and providing a safety net for those who are "dislocated" by the actions of globalization and "creative destruction." So at least they are realistic about the human cost of capitalism and the tendency of markets, when left completely on their own, to favor incumbents at the expense of competition and the rest of society. One of the more interesting themes explored in this book is the way in which incumbents can influence government policy in order to coopt reforms in times of great change, and also tend to form cynical alliances of convenience with those who are dislocated during those times (cf corporate support for tea party movement)

All in all, this is a very intelligently written and thoughtful book. Nevertheless, I do feel it has a lot more of that Chicago-flavored free market fundamentalism than I would have liked. Just when I was getting comfortable that the book was written from a relatively non-ideological point of view, they'd throw in some market worship for good measure. Of course market forces are powerful and they have to be taken into account and intelligently used by economic policy makers, but especially in light of the past couple of years, it seems naive to believe that markets solve all problems of allocation all by themselves. At least the authors recognize that markets are not inherently stable and require social and governmental institutions to function, and they do a great job of explaining some of the failure modes, however they seem slightly too smitten with markets as a panacea for my taste, and then there's that recurring belief that seems to keep cropping up that pure free markets are even possible, or would be desirable in all areas even if they were.

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