Is Capitalism Broken?

by Yanis Varoufakis

'We need to organise politically to defend the weak, empower the many and prepare the ground for reversing the absurdities of capitalism.' Yanis Varoufakis 'Capitalism over the past twenty-five years has been an incredible moral good.' David Brooks The Munk debate on capitalism There is a growing belief that the capitalist system no longer works. Inequality is rampant. The environment is being destroyed for profits. In some western nations, life expectancy is even falling. Political power is wielded by wealthy elites and big business, not the people. But for proponents of capitalism, it is the engine of progress, not just making all of us materially better off, but helping to address everything from womens rights to political freedoms. We seem to stand at a do we need to fix the system as a matter of urgency, or would it be better to hold our nerve

Genres: Economics, Politics, Nonfiction

118 pages, Paperback

Published November 1, 2020

About the author

Ioannis "Yanis" Varoufakis is a Greek-Australian economist and politician. A former academic, he has been Secretary-General of MeRA25, a left-wing political party, since he founded it in 2018. A former member of Syriza, he served as Minister of Finance from January to July 2015 under Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras.

Reviews

[Keen Reader · Rating 4 out of 5]

“The United Nations is a joke. The G7, The G20-they are just gathering places where people exchange insults.”

This is another transcribed account from a Munk lecture, with Varoufakis and Vanden Heuvel on the left side and the Brooks boys on the right. Both sides are fairly well-behaved and neither hold extreme views, and all seemed relatively open minded which makes for engaging and at times entertaining reading.

At one point one of the Brooks boys says about capitalism “The surprises per se are kind of what makes it interesting.” Tell that to the tens of millions of people who lost their home and or jobs thanks to some of the surprises capitalism threw up during its last set back in 2008.

“A private sector entity would do better under the circumstances.”

Indeed it would for the shareholders and investors of said entity.

“Capitalism over the past twenty-five years has been an incredible moral good.” says David Brooks at one point, but of course we could equally argue that it has been a disaster for hundreds of millions around the world, the millions forcibly displaced in places like India and China alone for capitalism to thrive or the wars and mass immigration all products of capitalism.

We hear about the many people pulled out of poverty by capitalism, but we also know it could have and should have been many more. We don’t get the figures for how many were put there by the capitalism in the first place. But also how many of these people have been lifted out of poverty only to be put into long-term debt?...A large number of these people are in China and they may no longer suffer from starvation poverty, but they certainly now endure many other forms of poverty, not least ecological and democratic poverty, so let’s not get too smug or carried away just yet by what we think capitalism has achieved for them.

David Brooks repeatedly makes the point about Scandinavian countries having no minimum wage, but he makes no mention of the extremely strong trade unions, the collective bargaining contracts or the limits on working hours etc so the governments don’t have to intervene with a minimum wage.

Both Brooks boys continue to show a bizarre and slavish devotion to capitalism and “the markets” and yet how often have we heard this argument and how often has it failed the vast majority of people, who are left to pick up the tab and then the rich get richer, not just in 08 but with countless other bubbles and events called Black (insert day). Capitalism in its current form is an illusion of smoke and mirrors.

Katrina Vanden Heuvel sums it up nicely at one point when she says,

“There are three major ways US capitalism is broken: it is fueling extreme inequality; it is consuming democracy; and it is destroying nature. And we’ve lived through four decades of stagnant wages. We still have stagnant wages.”

We also get a token mention of the climate crisis, as if this is just a side issue and not the greatest existing threat to all mankind and the planet we all live on, but hey let’s just “trust the markets” I am sure they will bail us all out.

[Sana Malalai · Rating 2 out of 5]

A shallow examination of capitalism from both sides - focus on ‘American exceptionalism’ without linking it to the violence, imperialism and subjugation that has enabled it to sustain itself - all rooted in capitalist systems.

[Izzy · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is basically a transcript of a debate between four people, including interviews with each participant before and after the debate.
The books reminds me of why I dislike watching these kinds of debates, moderated or not. Few points can receive rigorious interrogation, or, if inconvenient, points are ignored entirely. Straw men and dishonest arguments go barely challenged. To be fair, this book probably wasn't for me. Having four participants just made this worse.
Also, the debate doesn't start until nearly the half way point. The participants each get an interview beforehand, in which they give statements which are repeated almost verbatim at the start of the debate.
Having said that, thought-provoking things were said by all participants in this debate. So it did do a bit of what I hoped it would do - just in a format that I find personally unpleasant. However, I don't think I'd recommend this book to those who are interested in answering the question "Is Capitalism Broken?"

[Greg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting debate on capitalism with two speakers arguing the case for capitalism being broken and in need of replacement and two against. All speakers had interesting things to say but the debate suffered from a lack of definitions from the start. The speakers were often arguing past each other because nobody had agreed on what they meant by "capitalism" nor what it should be replaced with.

[Holly · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great exposure to a range of opinions on the state of capitalism as we know it and the future. I will be reading more of the Munk Debates series. In 100 pages, you can learn so much. It’s like reading an essay summarising current views on capitalism but much more digestible and with multiple layers of rebuttal. Would highly recommend.

[Arianna :)]

I think i might have a problem with this format as a whole; there wasn’t enough time to challenge every talking point, which was frustrating. I wish it would’ve been longer.