How the Poor Can Save Capitalism

How the Poor Can Save Capitalism
Author: John Hope Bryant
Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers
Total Pages: 177
Release: 2014-06-02
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1626560331

This book has a simple message for business leaders: you help yourselves by helping the poor. Instead of feeling as if the economy is working against them, the poor need to feel they have a stake in it so they will buy your products and put money in the bank. Supporting poor people's efforts to move into the middle class is the only way to enrich everyone, rich and poor alike.

Creating a World Without Poverty

Creating a World Without Poverty
Author: Muhammad Yunus
Publisher: Public Affairs
Total Pages: 322
Release: 2009-01-06
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1586486675

The author describes his vision for an innovative business model that would combine the power of free markets with a quest for a more humane, egalitarian world that could help alleviate world poverty, inequality, and other social problems.

The Inequality Trap

The Inequality Trap
Author: William Watson
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Total Pages: 239
Release: 2015-09-15
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1442624957

US President Barack Obama has called economic inequality the “defining issue of our time.” It has inspired the “Occupy” movements, made a French economist into a global celebrity, and given us a new expression – the “one percent.” But is our preoccupation with inequality really justified? Or wise? In his new book, William Watson argues that focusing on inequality is both an error and a trap. It is an error because much inequality is “good,” the reward for thrift, industry, and invention. It is a trap because it leads us to fixate on the top end of the income distribution, rather than on those at the bottom who need help most. In fact, if we respond to growing inequality by fighting capitalism rather than poverty, we may end up both poorer and less equal. Explaining the complexities of modern economics in a clear, accessible style, The Inequality Trap is the must-read rejoinder to the idea that fighting inequality should be our top policy priority.

The Future of Capitalism

The Future of Capitalism
Author: Paul Collier
Publisher: HarperCollins
Total Pages: 369
Release: 2018-12-04
Genre: History
ISBN: 0062748661

Bill Gates's Five Books for Summer Reading 2019 From world-renowned economist Paul Collier, a candid diagnosis of the failures of capitalism and a pragmatic and realistic vision for how we can repair it. Deep new rifts are tearing apart the fabric of the United States and other Western societies: thriving cities versus rural counties, the highly skilled elite versus the less educated, wealthy versus developing countries. As these divides deepen, we have lost the sense of ethical obligation to others that was crucial to the rise of post-war social democracy. So far these rifts have been answered only by the revivalist ideologies of populism and socialism, leading to the seismic upheavals of Trump, Brexit, and the return of the far-right in Germany. We have heard many critiques of capitalism but no one has laid out a realistic way to fix it, until now. In a passionate and polemical book, celebrated economist Paul Collier outlines brilliantly original and ethical ways of healing these rifts—economic, social and cultural—with the cool head of pragmatism, rather than the fervor of ideological revivalism. He reveals how he has personally lived across these three divides, moving from working-class Sheffield to hyper-competitive Oxford, and working between Britain and Africa, and acknowledges some of the failings of his profession. Drawing on his own solutions as well as ideas from some of the world’s most distinguished social scientists, he shows us how to save capitalism from itself—and free ourselves from the intellectual baggage of the twentieth century.

Capitalism, Alone

Capitalism, Alone
Author: Branko Milanovic
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 305
Release: 2021-09-07
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0674260309

For the first time in history, the globe is dominated by one economic system. Capitalism prevails because it delivers prosperity and meets desires for autonomy. But it also is unstable and morally defective. Surveying the varieties and futures of capitalism, Branko Milanovic offers creative solutions to improve a system that isn’t going anywhere.

Moral Capitalism

Moral Capitalism
Author: Steven Pearlstein
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
Total Pages: 197
Release: 2018-09-25
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1250185998

The Pulitzer Prize–winning economics journalist explains how America’s capitalist system is broken and how it can be repaired. With a new introduction by the author Thirty years ago, “greed is good” and “maximizing shareholder value” became the new mantras woven into the fabric of our economy, politics, and business culture. Free market capitalism has lifted more than a billion people from poverty around the world. But in the United States, most of its benefits have been captured by the richest ten percent, and it has provided justification for squeezing workers, cheating customers, avoiding taxes, and leaving communities in the lurch. As a result, Americans are losing faith in the free market—and the democratic institutions that support it. In Moral Capitalism, Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Steven Pearlstein chronicles our descent and challenges the theories being taught in business schools and exercised in boardrooms nationwide. Missing from our current model are vital elements recognized long ago by Adam Smith and Charles Darwin—the mutual trust and cooperation necessary for capitalism to survive and thrive. Pearlstein shows how rising inequality of incomes and opportunity have eroded that social capital, and how restoring fairness need not come at the expense of economic growth. He concludes with bold steps to create a shared prosperity and revive our faith in American capitalism. Previously published as Can American Capitalism Survive? Praise for Moral Capitalism “If anyone can save capitalism from the capitalists, it’s Steven Pearlstein. This lucid, brilliant book refuses to abandon capitalism to those who believe morality and justice irrelevant to an economic system.” —Ezra Klein, founder and editor-at-large, Vox “This book delivers a trenchant critique of the ravages of inequality and a passionate cry for greater balance. [A] powerful, idealistic book.” —The Washington Post

On Capitalism and Inequality

On Capitalism and Inequality
Author: Robert U. Ayres
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 231
Release: 2020-05-29
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 3030396517

Capitalism is under attack. Defenders say that capitalism has raised billions of people from poverty. But a central activity of capitalism today, Wall Street style, is speculation (gambling), using other people’s money, and privatizing the profits while socializing the debts. Skeptics argue that capitalism has redistributed the wealth of the planet in favor of a very few, meanwhile leaving the planet in bad shape and leaving billions of people out in the cold. Wealth is now extremely mal-distributed, opportunity is far from equal, and upward social mobility has declined significantly in recent decades. This book reviews the evidence and arguments pro and con in considerable detail. The evidence is mixed. The main virtue of capitalism is its emphasis on competition as a driver of innovation and, thus, of economic growth. It is true that economic growth has accelerated in recent centuries, and it is true that billions of people have been lifted from poverty. But it is not necessarily true that intense “winner take all” competition in the marketplace is the explanation for growth. Neoclassical economic theory posits that self-interest is the primary motive for all economic decisions, leaving little room for cooperation and even less for altruism. The theory applies to an unrealistic “model” of human behavior, known as Homo economicus or “economic man”, whose characteristic activity is buying or selling. The reason for using the adjective word “social” – as in socialism” or “social service” or “social democracy” -- is, essentially, to deny those postulates of standard economic theory. Real humans are not rational utility maximizers (whatever that is) and very often do things that are not in their own personal best interests. This can happen because other interests, such as family loyalty, professional, religious, or patriotic duty, may take precedence. Real people rarely behave like Homo economicus, who has rivals but no friends. He (or she) does not trust anyone, hence cannot cooperate with others, and can never create, or live in, a viable social system (or marriage). Yet social systems, ranging from families and tribes to firms, cities, and nations do (and must) exist or civilization cannot exist. A viable social system must not allow “winner takes all”. It must reallocate some of the societal wealth being created by competitive activities to support the young, the old and the weak, because all of those people have equal rights, if not the same luck or the same skills. Both competition and cooperation have important roles to play. A hybrid capitalism involving both is the only viable solution. The book ends with a specific suggestion, namely Universal Basic Income, or UBI.

Foretelling the End of Capitalism

Foretelling the End of Capitalism
Author: Francesco Boldizzoni
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 337
Release: 2020-05-12
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0674919327

Intellectuals since the Industrial Revolution have been obsessed with whether, when, and why capitalism will collapse. This riveting account of two centuries of failed forecasts of doom reveals the key to capitalism’s durability. Prophecies about the end of capitalism are as old as capitalism itself. None have come true. Yet, whether out of hope or fear, we keep looking for harbingers of doom. In Foretelling the End of Capitalism, Francesco Boldizzoni gets to the root of the human need to imagine a different and better world and offers a compelling solution to the puzzle of why capitalism has been able to survive so many shocks and setbacks. Capitalism entered the twenty-first century triumphant, its communist rival consigned to the past. But the Great Recession and worsening inequality have undermined faith in its stability and revived questions about its long-term prospects. Is capitalism on its way out? If so, what might replace it? And if it does endure, how will it cope with future social and environmental crises and the inevitable costs of creative destruction? Boldizzoni shows that these and other questions have stood at the heart of much analysis and speculation from the early socialists and Karl Marx to the Occupy Movement. Capitalism has survived predictions of its demise not, as many think, because of its economic efficiency or any intrinsic virtues of markets but because it is ingrained in the hierarchical and individualistic structure of modern Western societies. Foretelling the End of Capitalism takes us on a fascinating journey through two centuries of unfulfilled prophecies. An intellectual tour de force and a plea for political action, it will change our understanding of the economic system that determines the fabric of our lives.

Savage Economics

Savage Economics
Author: David L. Blaney
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 556
Release: 2010-01-04
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1135265038

This innovative book challenges the most powerful and pervasive ideas concerning political economy, international relations, and ethics in the modern world. Rereading classical authors including Adam Smith, James Steuart, Adam Ferguson, Hegel, and Marx, it provides a systematic and fundamental cultural critique of political economy and critically describes the nature of the mainstream understanding of economics. Blaney and Inayatullah construct a powerful argument about how political economy and the capitalist market economy should be understood, demonstrating that poverty is a product of capitalism itself. They address the questions: Is wealth for some bought at the cost of impoverishing, colonizing, or eradicating others? What benefits of wealth might justify these human costs? What do we gain and lose by endorsing a system of wealth creation? Do even "savage cultures" contain values, critiques, and ways of life that the West still needs? Opening the way for radically different policies addressing poverty and demanding a rethink of the connections between political economy and international relations, this thought-provoking book is vital reading for students and scholars of politics, economics, IPE and international relations.