Pinguin Fred leest The Crisis of Democratic Capitalism - Martin Wolf

Het is even 382 pagina's doorakkeren maar dan heb je ook wat gelezen. Econoom Martin Wolf (Financial Times) heeft een Nederlandse moeder en is een overtuigd pessimist. Hij heeft volgens eigen zeggen zijn leven dan ook aan pessimisme te danken. Als zijn Joodse opa van moeders' kant niet al in mei 1940 uit Nederland naar Engeland gevlucht was, dan was Martin er niet geweest. Wolf heeft een veel omvattend en een zeker ook voor economen prachtig boek geschreven. Best lastig om het samen te vatten, dus in plaats daar van doe ik een een aantal - soms vrij weergegeven - citaten. Verder geef ik het boek vijf ballen en nodig ik iedereen van harte uit donderdag 25 januari (16.00 uur) online aan te schuiven bij Pinguin Fred. 

• This book will argue that economic disappointment is one of the chief explanations for the rise of left and right wing populism in high income democracies.
• Economy is embedded in nature, a truth that economists foolishly forgot.
• Market capitalism, a liberal democracy, rest on the same, underlying philosophical values. Individual freedom. But this marriage between these complementary opposites, the self-seeking of competitive markets to the collective decision-making of democracy is always fragile. It depends on the separation of control over economic resources from political power.
• The strength of democracy are representation and legitimacy, while is weaknesses are ignorance and irresponsibility.
• The strength of capitalism are dynamism and flexibility, while its weaknesses are insecurity inequality.
• There are two main ways in which delicate balance between politics and markets can be destroyed state control over economy and capitalist control over the state.
• In the absence of any confidence in a progressive revolution, the politics of reactionary nostalgia has arrived.
• But there is something just as important and possibly far more dangerous, the exploitation of markets and political power. We should think of this as the rise of the rentier economy. This has many aspects: financialization, winner take all markets, rents from agglomeration, weaknesses of competition, tax avoidance and evasion, rent seeking and the erosion of ethical standards.
• Members of Congress spent about 30 hours a week raising money. That has proved a big step on the journey of the United States toward becoming a plutocracy.
• (Over Trump) Encourage people to consider themselves white, anti-gay or Christian first and members of the relative disadvantaged second, third or not at all. Splitting the less well off by their racial ethnic or cultural identities. 
• Right-wing populism is far more successful than left-wing populism, because it feeds of fear and anger, while the left promises hope, however, unrealistic and ultimately poisonous, it may turn out to be. Hope requires trust. Fear does not, it just requires an enemy.
• (Over innovatiebeleid) Governments that try to pick the winners, usually discover the losers pick them instead.
• (Interessante gedachte) He argues (Dani Rodrik)  that one cannot have all three of deep international integration, full democracy and national sovereignty. One can at best have two of them. Thus deep integration could go with democracy if the people voted to abandon national sovereignty (as in the European Union). Again, democracy could go with national sovereignity if the people choose to abandon deep integration. Finally, deep integration could go with national sovereignty, if the people lost their democratic ability to choose. 
• Dat vindt Wolf te simplistisch: By agreeing to cosntrain its discretion. the sovereign creates new opportunities for its citizens and itself (something Brexiteers mostly failed to understand).  There is no reason to insist only on the extreme options or what econimts call  'corner solutions'. The best way is through international agreements that can be adjusted to the pressures and needs of the time. 
• The ability to control who lives in a country is a fundamental aspects of its existence.
• The purpose of business is to solve the problems of people at planet, profitably and not profit from causing problems.
• (USA) Tax policy is supporting the creation of an immensely wealthy and powerful hereditary plutocracy.
• Nobody elected Bill Gates to solve the worlds health problems. At present, the text deductibility of gifts allows very rich people to act in the public realm at least party at the expense of other taxpayers.
• By patriotism, I mean devotion to a particular place in a particular way of life, which one believed to be the best in the world, but there’s no wish to force upon other people. Patriotism is of its nature, defensive, both militarily and culturally. Nationalism on the other hand is inseparable from the desire to power. A big mistake of the Brahmin left has been its contempt for patriotism, particularly working-class patriotism.
• There is great value of unelected senates, properly constructed and run. A second elected house seems far less useful.
• Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.
• (Lord Acton) Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. 
• A complex society without an elite is inconceivable. It depends ultimately on truthfulness trustworthiness in those in positions of responsibility.
• Renewal of capitalism and democracy must be animated by a simple powerful idea that of citizenship. We cannot just think as consumers workers, business, owners, savers or investors. Citizenship must have three aspects: concern for the ability of fellow citizens to have a fulfilled life, desire to create an economy that allows citizens to flourish in this way, and above all loyalty to democratic political and legal institutions and values of open debate and mutual tolerance that underpin them.

 Veel leesplezier!