The Future of Capitalism
Facing the New Anxieties
Paul Collier
Having read it
★★★★★
Life-affirming in its attitude and thought-provoking in its positions, possibilities and not necessarily having all the answers but posits a damn good willingness to plot better paths – brilliant; thoroughly decent too for its rounded nature of not just solely focusing on economics and capitalism but seeing the interwoven nature of society and the meaningful gains that can be made and that show and prove that the paternalistic state should be reimagined as, the author outlines, the maternalistic state of which local and regional actors are better supported, guided and empowered to drive effective change that shouldn’t just be used as an electoral device of any party political colour.
The replacement of the ethical family by the entitled individual is revealed to be more tragedy by than triumph.
The book is fantastic in its clarity, perspectives and admissions of what society, in its broadest sense, needs to do and try and adhere to so as to allow localism and nationalism to be properly adapted, owned and championed by all and that politically the centre needs to be reanimated with belief, passion and plenty of pragmatism.
If capitalism is to work for everyone it needs to be managed so as to deliver purpose as well as productivity. But that is the agenda: capitalism needs to be managed, not defeated.
It was pleasing to read parts and see, better understand and align thoughts I have had about these things for most of my livelihood, certainly, and realise that there is shared common sense out there and that these insights help feed and empower the conversation and bring us, hopefully and steadily, to a realisation that capitalism is important but it really does pay to make it ethical capitalism, not the forms either the left or right politically use to justify endless change and populist narratives that feed and power the broken and unfair political institutions, even media echo-chambers, of them and us which just does no one any favours to or for long-term and meaningful progress.
Oh, and this book is a fantastic explainer of many an economic issue and attitude and well worth your reading time for its informative and involving narrative and seems even more relevant today (the 2020s) and somewhat prescient in its nature given it was first published in 2018.
The future of our societies will depend on reforming capitalism, not overthrowing it.
A good passage
We are living a tragedy. My generation experienced the triumphant achievements of capitalism harnessed to communitarian social democracy. The new vanguard usurped social democracy, bringing their own ethics and their own priorities. As the destructive side effects of new economic forces hit our societies, the inadequacies of these new ethics have been brutally revealed. The current failures of capitalism, as managed by the new ideologies, are as manifest as were the successes of what they replaced. It is time to turn from what has gone wrong, to how it can be put right.
A second good passage
The ethical bounds of the state are set by the ethical bounds of its society. The current lack of ethical purpose in the state reflects a decline in ethical purpose across society: as our societies have become more divided, they have become less generously disposed to those on the other side of the divide.
A third good passage
The social-democratic era from 1945 to 1970 was built on the exceptional history that expanded our sense of community to embrace entire countries. Our spatial identities and social networks have already withered as a result of the skill divide that came as a consequence of rising complexity. Now what we are beginning to experience is a further wave of assault on shared spatial identity as the behavioural changes consequent upon smart phones and social media take hold. Smart phones are at the extremity of individualism – the selfie indiscriminately posted to ‘friends’ in the hope of attracting an impressive tally of likes. We see the withering of spatial community, and indeed we live it as we sit in public spaces, such as cafes and trains, surrounded by people who are proximate yet invisible as we peer at our screens. Space binds us through public policies, but it is no longer binding us socially. It is under assault both from substitute communities of digital echo-chambers, and by a more radical withdrawal from face-to-face interaction into the isolation of anxious narcissism. My prediction is that unless this divergence between our polities and our bonds is reversed our societies will degenerate, becoming less generous, less trusting and less co-operative. These trends are already underway.