We stand at a pivotal point in history – one that contains the opportunity to replace the equality-in-prosperity formula of progressive politics with a new one: solidarity-in-wellbeing. For the past 100 years, the critique of capitalism has centred on unfair distributive outcomes (economic inequality), as well as the damage that consumerism and the commitment to […]
Beyond Capitalism
Today’s capitalism is in a deep crisis. Neither does it fulfil on its promise of generalised prosperity, nor is it environmentally sustainable. Human suffering in the wake of the Covid-19 crisis continues, with people losing their lives and others their sources of income. At the same time, stock markets seem to continue indicating healthy growth levels. But what kind of growth are we talking about?
The idea of ‘growth’ has never been to indicate access to a fulfilled live for the many, nor to measure whether the planet is able to sustain the ‘growth’ that is produced. But if any healthy economy is to arise from the post-Covid-19 recovery plans, these need to be the top priorities.
With this second wave of articles on ‘beyond capitalism’, the Progressive Post continues its reflection on the quality of growth, on state intervention and recovery policies. Again, we feature some of Europe’s most prominent thinkers in this second edition of a larger debate on the objectives of economic, social, digital, and environmental policy. And we’re still after the same aim: a paradigm-change to overcome the dominant neo-liberal approach.
Carlota Perez, from the University College London, reminds us that the shaping of technological revolutions makes all the difference: technology provides the options, but it is society – and hence politics – that chooses the future and actively shapes it. Albena Azmanova, from the University of Kent’s Brussels School of International Studies, advocates for a double paradigm shift: from equality to solidarity, from prosperity to wellbeing. And Dirk Bezemer, from Groningen University, calls for a reform of the financial structures of today’s capitalism, at least on three levels: labour market regulation and wage growth, credit guidance, as well as taxation.
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We live in an advanced form of what the US economist Hyman Minsky had termed ‘money manager capitalism’ 25 years ago. Today, the dominant role played by the captains of industry in the area of industrial capitalism falls to the money managers in charge of hedge funds and pension funds. By identifying this new incarnation […]
The beginning of the year 2021 feels like a crossroads. We have now been through three major crises in the last 20 years, each worse than the last: the dotcom bubble of 2000, the Great Recession of 2008, and the global recession triggered by the Covid pandemic, bringing what might be the biggest economic downturn […]
The Covid-19 pandemic has revealed a simple truth: today’s model of globalised, financialised capitalism, teetering on a shaky foundation of vast debts and costly credit, cannot deliver human well-being. In order to reverse the course, a safe ecological load has to be fixed – a ‘Plimsoll line’, like the white line on vessels that shows […]
The time for adjustments and tinkering is over. Well before the ongoing Covid-19 crisis, inequalities and social injustice had mounted in most Western countries to a point where they produced widespread resentment and triggered an ‘authoritarian dynamic’: a rejection of diversity, a call for sanctioning outlying behaviour and for building walls to defend closed communities. […]
Populism is on the rise all over the developed world. In many parts of Europe, populist parties have seen their share of votes multiply in recent years. The analysis of these movements often concentrates on the motivations of individual voters. But one crucial factor has largely remained under the radar: the long-term economic decline of […]
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