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In a recent dialogue sociologist Isabelle Ferreras and economist Josh Ryan-Collins discussed housing and work as two key areas in which people experience the effects of contemporary capitalism on their everyday life. Ilse Oosterlaken reports on the key points.
“In The Price of Peace: Money, Democracy, and the Life of John Maynard Keynes, Zachary D. Carter offers a new intellectual biography tracing the life and legacy of the influential economist, which argues that in the years since Keynes’s death, Keynesian economics has been stripped of Keynesian thought. Weaving together a dazzling array of Keynes’s private letters, journalistic works and academic research, this accessible book may help to hasten Keynes’s revival, writes Stephen Paduano.”
“For Torben Iversen, capitalism is not responsible for the crisis democracies are currently facing. After Jenny Andersson, Cyril Benoît underlines the limits of this optimistic interpretation.”
“For Torben Iversen, capitalism is not responsible for the crisis democracies are currently facing. Responding to this argument, Jenny Andersson underlines the limits of this optimistic interpretation.”
“Should we blame capitalism for the challenges rich democracies have been facing over the past thirty years—from growing inequality to the rise of populism? According to Torben Iversen, the opposite is true: it was democracy that transformed capitalism to take full advantage of new technologies.”
“Human health and the care of the most vulnerable cannot be governed by market forces alone. If we leave these things solely to the market, we run the risk of exacerbating inequalities to the point of forfeiting the very lives of the least advantaged. How to avoid this unacceptable situation? By involving employees in decisions relating to their lives and futures in the workplace – by democratizing firms. By decommodifying work – by collectively guaranteeing useful employment to all.”
[a manifesto that has been published today in its original in French in Le Monde and translated and published in 37 other places]
The idea that the people have a right to shape political decisions through democratic means is widely accepted. The same cannot be said of the decisions that impact on our everyday economic life in the workplace and beyond. Andrew Cumbers shows in The Case for Economic Democracy why this is wrong, and why, in the context of the rising tide of populism and the perceived crisis of liberal democracy, economic democracy’s time has come.
“This crisis arose because the news media’s commercial imperatives never fully aligned with democratic objectives. The market simply can’t support the levels of journalism — especially local, but also international, policy, and investigative reporting — that a healthy democracy requires.”
