Richard Reeves notes:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/may/22/capitalism-broken-better-future-can-it-do-that
“It is now more
than half a century since the Club of Rome published The Limits to Growth and
Fred Hirsch published the Social Limits to Growth. The first argued that the
depletion of natural resources would put the brakes on economic progress; the
latter that competition among the affluent for positional goods (valuable
precisely because of their scarcity) would reduce overall welfare. While both
predictions contained important truths, neither have so far proved correct.
Market-fueled growth has slowed, certainly by comparison to the booming decades
in the middle of the last century, and has become more skewed towards the rich,
but it has not stalled.
The question now is
not, I think, whether and how capitalism will end, but how it can renew its
promise of a better future – for us all.”
Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Romer observes:
“It is the job of government to prevent a tragedy of
the commons. That includes the commons of shared values and norms on which
democracy depends. The dominant digital platform companies, including Facebook
and Google, make their profits using business models that erode this commons.
They have created a haven for dangerous misinformation and hate speech that has
undermined trust in democratic institutions. And it is troubling when so much
information is controlled by so few companies.
What is the best way to protect and restore this
public commons? Most of the proposals to change platform companies rely on
either antitrust law or regulatory action. I propose a different solution.
Instead of banning the current business model — in which platform companies harvest
user information to sell targeted digital ads — new legislation could establish
a tax that would encourage platform companies to shift toward a healthier,
more traditional model.”
How Capitalism Betrayed Privacy
Columbia University
Law Professor Tim Wu makes an interesting point:
“The historical link between privacy and the forces of
wealth creation helps explain why privacy is under siege today. It reminds us,
first, that mass privacy is not a basic feature of human existence but a
byproduct of a specific economic arrangement — and therefore a contingent and
impermanent state of affairs. And it reminds us, second, that in a capitalist
country, our baseline of privacy depends on where the money is. And today that
has changed.”
Related:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/04/10/opinion/internet-data-privacy.html
Related:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/04/10/opinion/internet-data-privacy.html
Chicago economist Raghuram Rajan notes:
“More generally, the more that government-defined
intellectual-property rights, regulations, and tariffs – rather than
productivity – bolster a corporation’s profits, the more dependent it becomes
on government benevolence. The only guarantee of corporate efficiency and
independence tomorrow is competition today.”
Related: