Review of "Capitalism: Opposing Viewpoints," edited by Bruno Leone

Review of

Capitalism: Opposing Viewpoints, edited by Bruno Leone, ISBN 0912616504

Four out of five stars

Arguments on both sides haven’t changed

 This book was published in 1978 and presents arguments both for and against capitalism. The first is by Adam Smith and basically sets down the basic arguments in favor of capitalism. Smith’s arguments were first made in the eighteenth century and are still cited largely in their original form by economists that favor pure capitalism.

 The essay by Smith is followed by one by Karl Marx and is from “The Manifesto of the Communist Party,” and summarizes Marx’s basic arguments against capitalism. The remaining essays make more modern arguments for and against capitalism. The last essay is by Sam Love and was written in 1977. In that essay Love argues that capitalism is afflicted by “the terminal illness of bigness.” In other words, his essay puts forward the modern argument that some companies are “too big to fail.” In modern terms if those companies are facing bankruptcy, then the federal government will have no choice but to intervene to prop them up.

 As the financial meltdown of 2008 demonstrated, capitalism suffers from some fundamental weaknesses. Even with hundreds of billions of quick spending by the American federal government, the United States experienced the greatest economic downturn since the Great Depression. The authors that took the con position on capitalism in this book showed some predictive ability regarding the weaknesses of the capitalist economic system. Free markets can fail and as we have seen, sometimes quite spectacularly.

This book was published in 1978 and presents arguments both for and against capitalism. The first is by Adam Smith and basically sets down the basic arguments in favor of capitalism. Smith’s arguments were first made in the eighteenth century and are still cited largely in their original form by economists that favor pure capitalism.

 The essay by Smith is followed by one by Karl Marx and is from “The Manifesto of the Communist Party,” and summarizes Marx’s basic arguments against capitalism. The remaining essays make more modern arguments for and against capitalism. The last essay is by Sam Love and was written in 1977. In that essay Love argues that capitalism is afflicted by “the terminal illness of bigness.” In other words, his essay puts forward the modern argument that some companies are “too big to fail.” In modern terms if those companies are facing bankruptcy, then the federal government will have no choice but to intervene to prop them up.

 As the financial meltdown of 2008 demonstrated, capitalism suffers from some fundamental weaknesses. Even with hundreds of billions of quick spending by the American federal government, the United States experienced the greatest economic downturn since the Great Depression. The authors that took the con position on capitalism in this book showed some predictive ability regarding the weaknesses of the capitalist economic system. Free markets can fail and as we have seen, sometimes quite spectacularly.

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