This week’s Economist has a well-argued - and typically Economist - polemic about the problems facing 21-st century capitalism. Much of it is an argument against protectionism and for expansion of free trade - not surprising perhaps. I can help but take glee, though, in the magazine’s contention that capitalism must be saved from itself, using the recent corporate scandals as a springboard:
The problem [of corporate malfeasance] does not, however, stop there, because a large part of it is structural, not merely cyclical. And that part has less to do with law enforcement and more to do with the way companies are owned and run. Levels of executive pay symbolise the issue, for they show what has occurred entirely legally. Those who attack pay levels are often accused of ”the politics of envy”, or of failing to recognise the role of incentives. That is unfair. It is better thought of as the politics of astonishment, a tale of misdirected incentives and misdelegated power.
Also of interest is their distinction between pro-market and pro-business stances of govenment - something that really should enter journalists’ discussion of politics more.
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