capitalism censored

joanna bujes joanna.bujes at ebay.sun.com
Fri Sep 20 12:13:16 PDT 2002


Just read through a fascinating article by Henry C K Liu on debt and the Global Economy; you can find it at

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/DI14Dj01.html

A couple of the concluding paragraphs caught my attention:

"Since World War II, the term "capitalism" has been gradually displaced by the more benign label of the free market. Capitalism ceased to be mentioned in most economic literature. In the process, economists also squeezed out of official dialogues the word "capitalism", the once-traditional name for the market system, with its subjective connotation of class struggle between owners, through their professional managers, and workers, through their trade and industrial unions, and with its legitimization of the privileges that go with various levels of wealth.

The word "capitalism" no longer appears in textbooks for Economics 101. A Harvard economist, N. Gregory Mankiw, author of a popular new textbook, Principles of Economics, told the New York Times: "We make a distinction now between positive or descriptive statements that are scientifically verifiable and normative statements that reflect values and judgments." A whole new generation of economists have grown up thinking of "capitalism" only as a historical term like "slavery", unreal in the modern world of market fundamentalism."

------------------------ In addition to sounding like a socialist, this Liu guy runs a private investment fund in New York. Doug, have you heard of him? Anybody?

Anyway, check out the article; it was very interesting.

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