Tuesday, May 10, 2005
Stability or laisser-faire?
Should global capitalism be better directed? The G8 might want to avoid this question.
If stability in the nation (or a group of nations) is the overriding priority, to what extent should personal greed be controlled? More importantly, though, can it be controlled - remember the experience of the US with prohibition.
Anyway, the question of disciplining 'capitalism' is provocatively raised by the nobel laureate Gunter Grass and the many other people who are reacting to his views. Grass suggests that stability in Germany (as an example of a developed country) is now being seriously harmed by capitalism; the newspaper article is copied at the start of the first link. Debates are at http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2005/05/guenter_grass_m.html, and at http://crookedtimber.org/2005/05/09/moral-critiques-of-capitalism/#comments
Unfortunately the responses have been largely pro and con Grass, not about the primacy of stability. But it's a brave start.
If stability in the nation (or a group of nations) is the overriding priority, to what extent should personal greed be controlled? More importantly, though, can it be controlled - remember the experience of the US with prohibition.
Anyway, the question of disciplining 'capitalism' is provocatively raised by the nobel laureate Gunter Grass and the many other people who are reacting to his views. Grass suggests that stability in Germany (as an example of a developed country) is now being seriously harmed by capitalism; the newspaper article is copied at the start of the first link. Debates are at http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2005/05/guenter_grass_m.html, and at http://crookedtimber.org/2005/05/09/moral-critiques-of-capitalism/#comments
Unfortunately the responses have been largely pro and con Grass, not about the primacy of stability. But it's a brave start.
# posted by IJ @ 5:22 AM 
