July 23, 2012

Anglo-American Capitalism Is in Retreat

Pankaj Mishra, Bloomberg

AP Photo

On Dec. 26, 1992, a year after the Soviet Union imploded and lurched to embrace American-style capitalism, the Economist editorialized about a “universal agreement that there was no serious alternative to free-market capitalism as the way to organize economic life.” Since its origins in mid-19th century Britain, the Economist has been the main propaganda organ for the neoclassical ideology of the free market (minimal government, invisible hand, etc.). It is the job of all ideologues to make their own preferred political and economic system seem natural and perfect. Still, someone in that 1992 editorial meeting ought to have said, “Not so fast.”

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TAGGED: global economy

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