On his book Foretelling the End of Capitalism: Intellectual Misadventures since Karl Marx
Cover Interview of September 16, 2020
In a nutshell
This book seeks to explain the persistence
of capitalism despite all the trouble it has created. For several years now,
every crisis—even crises not directly caused by capitalism, such as that of
Covid-19—has been accompanied by a plethora of recriminations: capitalism is
unsustainable, it cannot go on like this. It makes our societies intolerably
unequal, fuels racism, destroys the environment, and so on. Everything will
have to change. Thus, expectations of structural change arise which, as soon as
the crisis is over, are invariably frustrated.
To make sense of why capitalism is still
with us, I perform two separate yet related operations. The first is to review
unfulfilled prophecies about its end that have been repeated over the past two
centuries. Surprisingly enough, they came not only from the left but also from
the right. I endeavor to contextualize them historically but also to identify
their mistakes. The idea is that from these mistakes something can be learned,
certainly about the limitations of our understanding, but more importantly
about capitalism itself. Half of the book can therefore be regarded as a work
of history, of intellectual history in the broadest sense.
The second operation is to outline a theory
of capitalism and the forces that sustain it. Besides what keeps capitalism
alive, a good theory should also explain its origin and, possibly, give us some
indication as to where it is or isn’t headed. This part of the work, which is more
theoretical in nature, culminates in the final chapter, “How Capitalism
Survives.”
I wrote Foretelling the End of
Capitalism in such a way that it could be accessible to any intelligent
reader, regardless of their background. It’s a book deliberately devoid of
jargon, where even important concepts are put into a narrative. This isn’t a
work of economics, a discipline that—at least in its present form—has
little to say about capitalism, but nor does one have to be a sociologist or
philosopher to make the most of it. Any person interested in the subject should
be able to read this book, be they dentists or kindergarten teachers. Capitalism
touches the lives of us all.
[T]he Holocaust transformed our whole way of thinking about war and heroism. War is no longer a proving ground for heroism in the same way it used to be. Instead, war now is something that we must avoid at all costs—because genocides often take place under the cover of war. We are no longer all potential soldiers (though we are that too), but we are all potential victims of the traumas war creates. This, at least, is one important development in the way Western populations envision war, even if it does not always predominate in the thinking of our political leaders.Carolyn J. Dean, Interview of February 01, 2011
The dominant premise in evolution and economics is that a person is being loyal to natural law if he or she attends to self’s interest and welfare before being concerned with the needs and demands of family or community. The public does not realize that this statement is not an established scientific principle but an ethical preference. Nonetheless, this belief has created a moral confusion among North Americans and Europeans because the evolution of our species was accompanied by the disposition to worry about kin and the collectives to which one belongs.Jerome Kagan, Interview of September 17, 2009
In a nutshell
This book seeks to explain the persistence of capitalism despite all the trouble it has created. For several years now, every crisis—even crises not directly caused by capitalism, such as that of Covid-19—has been accompanied by a plethora of recriminations: capitalism is unsustainable, it cannot go on like this. It makes our societies intolerably unequal, fuels racism, destroys the environment, and so on. Everything will have to change. Thus, expectations of structural change arise which, as soon as the crisis is over, are invariably frustrated.
To make sense of why capitalism is still with us, I perform two separate yet related operations. The first is to review unfulfilled prophecies about its end that have been repeated over the past two centuries. Surprisingly enough, they came not only from the left but also from the right. I endeavor to contextualize them historically but also to identify their mistakes. The idea is that from these mistakes something can be learned, certainly about the limitations of our understanding, but more importantly about capitalism itself. Half of the book can therefore be regarded as a work of history, of intellectual history in the broadest sense.
The second operation is to outline a theory of capitalism and the forces that sustain it. Besides what keeps capitalism alive, a good theory should also explain its origin and, possibly, give us some indication as to where it is or isn’t headed. This part of the work, which is more theoretical in nature, culminates in the final chapter, “How Capitalism Survives.”
I wrote Foretelling the End of Capitalism in such a way that it could be accessible to any intelligent reader, regardless of their background. It’s a book deliberately devoid of jargon, where even important concepts are put into a narrative. This isn’t a work of economics, a discipline that—at least in its present form—has little to say about capitalism, but nor does one have to be a sociologist or philosopher to make the most of it. Any person interested in the subject should be able to read this book, be they dentists or kindergarten teachers. Capitalism touches the lives of us all.