The mistaken Assault On Capitalism

Blaming Capitalism for Corporatism - Edmund S. Phelps and Saifedean Ammous - Project Syndicate

The future of capitalism is again a question. Will it survive the ongoing crisis in its current form? If not, will it transform itself or will government take the lead?

The term “capitalism” used to mean an economic system in which capital was privately owned and traded; owners of capital got to judge how best to use it, and could draw on the foresight and creative ideas of entrepreneurs and innovative thinkers. This system of individual freedom and individual responsibility gave little scope for government to influence economic decision-making: success meant profits; failure meant losses. Corporations could exist only as long as free individuals willingly purchased their goods – and would go out of business quickly otherwise.

This is the firts paragraph of a terrific article from Edmund S Phelps and Saifedean Ammous. I suggest you follow the ble link above and read the whole thing. They make the important point that that the current economic problems were not caused by runaway capitalism but by the run away from capitalism to nanny state corporatism.