What do you think?
Rate this book
Against Capitalism
Capitalism is hegemonic today not because it is the best we fallible humans can do but because it supports, and is supported by, special interests of immense power. This book argues that Economic Democracy, a competitive economy of democratically run enterprises that replaces capitalist financial markets with more suitable institutions, will be more efficient than capitalism, more rational in its growth, more democratic, more egalitarian, and less alienating.Against Capitalism is an ambitious book, drawing on philosophical analysis, economic theory, and considerable empirical evidence to advance its controversial thesis. It examines both conservative and liberal forms of capitalism; it compares Economic Democracy to other models of socialism; and it considers the transition to Economic Democracy from advanced capitalist societies, from economies built on the Soviet model, and from conditions of underdevelopment. The book concludes with some unconventional reflections on historical materialism, ideal communism, and the future of Marxism.
408 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1993
3 people are currently reading
296 people want to read
About the author
David Schweickart
18 books25 followers David Schweickart is an activist, mathematician & philosopher. He holds a Mathematics BS from the Univ. of Dayton, a Mathematics PhD from the Univ. of Virginia & a Philosophy PhD from Ohio State Univ. He's currently a Philosophy Professor at Loyola University Chicago.
He's taught at Loyola since 1975. He was Visiting Professor of Mathematics at the Univ. of Kentucky from 1969 to 1970 & Visiting Professor of Philosophy at the Univ. of New Hampshire from 1986 to 1987. He's lectured in Spain, Cuba, El Salvador, Italy & the Czech Republic, as well as throughout the USA. He's a contributing writer to & editor of an online journal dedicated to Economic Democracy: SolidarityEconomy.net. He was Loyola's Faculty Member of the Year in 1999.
In After Capitalism & other works Schweickart has developed a market socialism model termed Economic Democracy. It embodies: 1/Workplace self-management, including election of supervisors; 2/Democratic management of capital investment by a form of public banking; 3/A free market for most goods, raw materials, instruments of production etc; 4/Socialist protectionism to enforce trade equality between nations. Firms & factories are socially owned & worker managed. These enterprises compete in markets to sell their goods. Profit is shared by the workers. Each enterprise is taxed for the capital employed. That tax is distributed to public banks, who fund expansion of existing industries & create new ones.
Publications inclued:
>After Capitalism (Rowman & Littlefield 2002) ISBN 0742513009
>Market Socialism: The Debate Among Socialists, coauthored with Bertell Ollman, Hillel Ticktin & James Lawler (Routledge 1998)
>Against Capitalism (Cambridge Univ. Press 1993) Spanish ed., 1997; Chinese ed., 2003
>Capitalism or Worker Control? An Ethical & Economic Appraisal (Praeger 1980)
He's taught at Loyola since 1975. He was Visiting Professor of Mathematics at the Univ. of Kentucky from 1969 to 1970 & Visiting Professor of Philosophy at the Univ. of New Hampshire from 1986 to 1987. He's lectured in Spain, Cuba, El Salvador, Italy & the Czech Republic, as well as throughout the USA. He's a contributing writer to & editor of an online journal dedicated to Economic Democracy: SolidarityEconomy.net. He was Loyola's Faculty Member of the Year in 1999.
In After Capitalism & other works Schweickart has developed a market socialism model termed Economic Democracy. It embodies: 1/Workplace self-management, including election of supervisors; 2/Democratic management of capital investment by a form of public banking; 3/A free market for most goods, raw materials, instruments of production etc; 4/Socialist protectionism to enforce trade equality between nations. Firms & factories are socially owned & worker managed. These enterprises compete in markets to sell their goods. Profit is shared by the workers. Each enterprise is taxed for the capital employed. That tax is distributed to public banks, who fund expansion of existing industries & create new ones.
Publications inclued:
>After Capitalism (Rowman & Littlefield 2002) ISBN 0742513009
>Market Socialism: The Debate Among Socialists, coauthored with Bertell Ollman, Hillel Ticktin & James Lawler (Routledge 1998)
>Against Capitalism (Cambridge Univ. Press 1993) Spanish ed., 1997; Chinese ed., 2003
>Capitalism or Worker Control? An Ethical & Economic Appraisal (Praeger 1980)
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
January 12, 2015
David Schweickart, Ph.d. in Mathematics, Ph.d. in Philosophy, was my favorite teacher at Loyola University Chicago. He was, and still is, the favorite of many there. Like Woody Guthrie in the Phil Ochs song, he was always ready to help any student initiative to lessen the degree of unnecessary human suffering in the world. He is personable, unpretentious, clear-headed.
Back in the eighties his speciality was Political Economy, the old name for what folks call Economics today. His math background gave him a certain deserved authority, an authority most pointy-headed humanists lack when critiquing contemporary faiths in utilitarian ethics equated with market operations and finance capitalism equated with the godhead. He was good at demystification, good at getting the big concepts across concretely, comprehensively and clearly.
This book is a critique of capitalist faiths, economic and ethical, contrasting claims against evidence, and defense of the author's own model of a kind of market socialism. While theoretical, he references cases of actually existing systems (Yugoslavian, Spanish, domestic) comparable to his, demonstrating their records of performance. While well footnoted, the text is unusually accessible to the nonspecialist.
I had the fortune of being asked to do a close editing job on the typescript for this book while visiting my mother in Spain during the early nineties, an activity which occupied my days there for a couple of weeks. Mysteriously, this extensive critique was misplaced and never used. Whether or not this was for the good remains a question.
Back in the eighties his speciality was Political Economy, the old name for what folks call Economics today. His math background gave him a certain deserved authority, an authority most pointy-headed humanists lack when critiquing contemporary faiths in utilitarian ethics equated with market operations and finance capitalism equated with the godhead. He was good at demystification, good at getting the big concepts across concretely, comprehensively and clearly.
This book is a critique of capitalist faiths, economic and ethical, contrasting claims against evidence, and defense of the author's own model of a kind of market socialism. While theoretical, he references cases of actually existing systems (Yugoslavian, Spanish, domestic) comparable to his, demonstrating their records of performance. While well footnoted, the text is unusually accessible to the nonspecialist.
I had the fortune of being asked to do a close editing job on the typescript for this book while visiting my mother in Spain during the early nineties, an activity which occupied my days there for a couple of weeks. Mysteriously, this extensive critique was misplaced and never used. Whether or not this was for the good remains a question.
September 7, 2012
Whether or not you are against capitalism, this book provides great insights on various alternative economic structures and offers undeniably strong arguments in favor of worker managed firms in a democratic society.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews