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A Review of Branko Milanovic’s Capitalism, Alone

A leading liberal economist’s latest book. The wrong assumption, and not hardly questioned by the reviewer, is that socialism and communism existed in modern times. “ Capitalism, Alone  demonstrates the limits of studying capitalism’s empirical effects without a theory of how the system actually works—or especially, how it doesn’t.” Surely, without (referring to) theory–the Marxist tenets and analysis–then our description of the socio-economic system that existed in the Soviet Union, would be the mainstream one: socialist/communist. A fundamental pillar of capitalism is the rate of profit, not just profit-making. This also has not been even hinted at. How any form of capitalism that is dominated by private capital invests and therefore achieves growth is determined by the rate of return.  “ Where the globalization literature of the 2000s was exultant with promise, Milanovic’s book frankly admits the limitations of actually existing capitalism and resigns itself to making the best of th

Deep Rifts in French Society

“Jean-Daniel Lévy, managing director of Harris Interactive, which conducted the poll, said: “Overall, the French have the same views as those that were expressed by the generals. Researchers say that support for Le Pen in the army has been running at just over 40 per cent, which is not far off the level in the wider population given the far-right’s support among the young and the relative youth of active soldiers. In the police, support exceeds 50 per cent.”

Wealth Inequality

“ Real wealth concentration is about the ownership of productive capital, the means of production and finance. It's big capital (finance and business) that controls the investment, employment and financial decisions of the world.    A dominant core of 147 firms through interlocking stakes in others together control 40% of the wealth in the global network according to the Swiss Institute of Technology.   A total of 737 companies control 80% of it all.   This is the inequality that matters for the functioning of capitalism – the concentrated power of capital. And because inequality of wealth stems from the concentration of the means of production and finance in the hands of a few; and because that ownership structure remains untouched, any increased taxes on wealth will fall short of irreversibly changing the distribution of wealth and income in modern societies.”

Jim Crow in U.S. vs. Apartheid in Israel

U.S. Jim Crow Israeli Apartheid

The National Health Service in England

This is not news; it’s been going going for years. “Rather than selling off the NHS  outright – a decision politicians know would be unpopular – they are instead doing this through the backdoor, by stealth.” The NHS is being privatised by stealth under cover of the pandemic