CARPE DIEM
Professor Mark J. Perry's Blog for Economics and Finance
Tuesday, June 02, 2009
About Me
- Name: Mark J. Perry
- Location: Washington, D.C., United States
Dr. Mark J. Perry is a professor of economics and finance in the School of Management at the Flint campus of the University of Michigan. Perry holds two graduate degrees in economics (M.A. and Ph.D.) from George Mason University near Washington, D.C. In addition, he holds an MBA degree in finance from the Curtis L. Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota. In addition to a faculty appointment at the University of Michigan-Flint, Perry is also a visiting scholar at The American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C.
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15 Comments:
Creative destruction at work, the real reason newspapers are folding: Teamsters threaten to shut down Star Tribune.Sounds like cutting off your nose to spite your face.
If the thug-run system Russia has today is going to be named "Capitalism", then one is simply between the devil and the deep blue sea.
Hey, it can work both ways:
If the thug-run system America has today is going to be named "Capitalism", then one is simply between the devil and the deep blue sea.
"If the thug-run system America has today is going to be named "Capitalism", then one is simply between the devil and the deep blue sea"...
So what does one call the, 'thug run system' Obama and his allies in Congress are pushing?
Just asking...
"So what does one call the, 'thug run system' Obama and his allies in Congress are pushing?"
I like to call it "change."
"I like to call it "change."
You can call herpes a recurring Chicken Pox...but that don't make it so.
"I like to call it "change."
I called it socialism, but my left wing buddies quickly corrected me by explaining that it's not a choice between socialism and free markets. Oh, no sir. Government control over the economy either directly or via stifling regulation is NOT socialism or fascism - it's more nuanced than that.
So, I'm calling it nuance and I feel much much better about socialism...i mean...nuance.
Um, yeah sure, Russia took their fall into capitalism real well....
"Um, yeah sure, Russia took their fall into capitalism real well...."
Anon 12:33pm. I don't claim to be one of them, but there are lots of intelligent folks on here posting very insightful statements on both sides of the argument. Please don't insult their collective intelligence by quoting wikipedia.
NoWhining: The cartoon implies the transition to capitalism was painless. My link to Wiki was just one place where one can read about the many problems of the transition of the Soviet economy.
Of course Wiki itself is a collective intelligence, much larger than the audience of this blog. Which is not to say that it is the authoritative source, but it certainly contains enough fact to support my arguments that the transition to capitalism in Russia was painful at many levels.
But generally on this site one is considered to be 'insulting' the collective intelligence if one is not humming Richard Halley's 5th Concerto. Forgive me for not posting from Galt's Gulch.
"Hey, it can work both ways:
If the thug-run system America has today is going to be named "Capitalism",..."Today, neither the Russia nor the U.S. system can truly be called either Capitalism or Marxism.
Not that I think perfect adherence is required before one can assign those labels. In my view the U.S. of the late 1800's and the U.S.S.R. for most of its existence were close enough to be called Capitalist and Marxist, respectively.
Of course, the diagram on this post is probably just cartoon satire, so not to make too much out of it. Nevertheless it repeats the stereotype where cronyism is equated with Capitalism.
As long as we're going to get all serious about the cartoon...
The Soviet Union was NEVER Marxist. Lenin tried Marxian Communism for a short time after wresting control but gave up when the entire economy disintegrated as a result. From that point on, the country was socialist and paid lip service to Marxian ideology but did not follow it. Incidentally, the Soviet Union had an ENORMOUS black market operating along side the "official" economy and it is the black market that supplied needed goods. Very little was supplied by the official economy. We had private apartments and cars and lots of private property that wouldn't have been Marxian at all because it could (and was) used to generate income outside of the official pittance paid to government workers for not working.
Russia is as capitalist as it ever was. The elite steal everything that isn't nailed down and small businesses are forced to operate under the radar and without Russian bank accounts so as to evade the attention of Russian authorities. While people can more openly engage in trade, capitalism is far from embraced.
Living here and watching what's happening, we in the U.S. are certainly becoming extra super fond of the Marxian axiom "from each according to his ability to each according to his need".
"The Soviet Union was NEVER Marxist."Sure, I never said it was; and, by the same token, the U.S. was never Capitalist either. However, they were both close enough for us to be able draw conclusions about the moral and economic consequences of the two systems.
If you think that Russia is Capitalist because the elite are stealing, then that is the exact error the cartoonist demonstrated in the diagram posted: a caricature of Capitalism that bear no resemblance at all to the real thing. That type of viewpoint would make the Nazi's advocates of Capitalism. In other words, it is a conceptualization that makes Capitalism equivalent to a Plutocrachic oligarchic dictatorship.
In reality, Capitalism is founded on the principle of individual rights of both the rich and the poor.
Realist, I don't think Russia is capitalist because the elite are stealing. I was being sarcastic. Russia is now more accurately described as a fascist state - it's as capitalist as it ever was. It isn't.
Russia was never ever "close enough" to Marxism. It was a Socialist country but nothing about it resembled Marxian communism.
The United States - and Russia before the Bolshevik revolution - were pretty close enough to capitalist.
Given the [resent realpolitik, perhaps the best perspective was echoed by the South Park character Kyle---"Officer Barbrady, I call shenanigans!"
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