Quick rant: Not to be taken too seriously
I love the phrase "failure of market capitalism." It's such a brilliant phrase. Because, of course, as it currently seems to be being used, it's actually wrong. Market capitalism has spectacular failings in its theories at times, but human crisis and catastrophe aren't among them. Crisis and catastrophe are supposed to be part of market capitalism. Companies and individuals that are operating dubiously are supposed to disappear (and do, regularly. Unlike the historical practice of the alternative model, where companies with dubious practices keep on keeping on). Bad debts are supposed to cause problems. Under market capitalism, only the fittest are supposed to go on, and function competitively. Market capitalism as a model says little about contentment, stability, satisfaction, or individuals. Individuals can and do suffer immensely under capitalism. That is not a failing, because capitalism doesn't really promise that people will be happy, only that, on average and over time, Pareto optimality will be maximised. That's it. It would be a failing if capitalism promised happiness. Instead, if you want to go looking for failings, you have to turn to the failure of other things that are supposed to increase happiness and security. Failures of things like regulation, oversight, etc. Social democracy, basically. Basel II hasn't been implemented; FSF protocols have been ignored; CRO's have have fucked up royally; laws have been bypassed; governments have made stupid decisions; individuals and auditors have perpetrated absurd frauds. Those aren't market failures, because they're things largely external to the market (with the exception of direct government spending and taxation). They're things that social democracy failed to get right, and are now coming back to bite it. (And, I mean, if I were being even more uncharitable, take a look at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac: they are among the most colossal failures in financial history, and, like many colossal financial failures, they are originally government initiatives, designed to lift an economic depression and satisfy the American dream of home-ownership (i.e. to alleviate the negative consequences of pure capitalism) (at which, I might add, they were until very recently, relatively successful and profitable, as instruments of social democracy go). Tighter regulation on them was recently discouraged on the grounds that it may disproportionately disadvantage the less well-off. Probably would have too. And they've been instrumental in triggering off the things that Basel II was supposed to be being in the middle of implementation to avoid. But see any parallels with the foundation of Fannie and Freddie, and current Australian proposals anyone? No, our housing proposals aren't that bad. Not really)
There has been no failure in ideology; no grand disproofs of long-standing theory recently. What there has been is a series of terrible errors, of the kind that, living in a complicated world where drives are not solely towards economic efficiency, were bound to happen eventually in some guise. Blame can't simply be pared off, and attributed to those terrible free-market economists. Everyone, on all sides of politics, gets a share of whatever blame there is to be spread around. Where we are now is a result of a set of decisions, votes, and ideas from all over and everywhere; poorly co-ordinated, designed, executed, and monitored. And unless that is recognised, corrective measures are destined only to be temporary, until the flaws in the new model become suddenly, and all too horribly, apparent.
Sorry. I'm venting here because I don't want to vent on another discussion which is actually the one that's annoying me. I've decided that, after BMedSci and MBioEth, my next degree will have to be in economics, because at the moment I'm only a dabbler in the theory, but I still want to hit people over the head with a book of economic theory in the hope that they either die or learn something.
Tomorrow! I promise an actual summary of someone else's ideas. On the philosophy of science. And a playlist.
There has been no failure in ideology; no grand disproofs of long-standing theory recently. What there has been is a series of terrible errors, of the kind that, living in a complicated world where drives are not solely towards economic efficiency, were bound to happen eventually in some guise. Blame can't simply be pared off, and attributed to those terrible free-market economists. Everyone, on all sides of politics, gets a share of whatever blame there is to be spread around. Where we are now is a result of a set of decisions, votes, and ideas from all over and everywhere; poorly co-ordinated, designed, executed, and monitored. And unless that is recognised, corrective measures are destined only to be temporary, until the flaws in the new model become suddenly, and all too horribly, apparent.
Sorry. I'm venting here because I don't want to vent on another discussion which is actually the one that's annoying me. I've decided that, after BMedSci and MBioEth, my next degree will have to be in economics, because at the moment I'm only a dabbler in the theory, but I still want to hit people over the head with a book of economic theory in the hope that they either die or learn something.
Tomorrow! I promise an actual summary of someone else's ideas. On the philosophy of science. And a playlist.