The FT summarised modern capitalism in two lines this morning:
Boeing shares hit another record high after the company boosted its quarterly dividend by a fifth and announced a $18bn share buyback programme.
A business fuelled by the world's wealthiest people (you have to be to travel, and I am personally aware of this) and the defence sector is returning vast sums of cash to shareholders rather than invest it in new products, services and training with the aim of lifting the share price in the short term to, no doubt, trigger executive share price related incentive scheme payouts that will massively and wholly disproportionately increase the reward of a few in the company at cost to all the rest and society at large.
If you want to know why modern capitalism does not work, that's why. It's called rentierism by management. It's rampant. It's corrupting. And it's undermining the way our economy and society works.
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This prevailing corrupt economic system is so deeply entrenched in the Western corridors of power and being ‘successfully’ exported to the emerging economies (incl. Communist China and Vietnam) that I don’t see any easy way to reverse it. As with ‘Brexit’ the only hope is generational – or else a catastrophic global failure. Re-educating the young is no simple task either. It’s unlikely the economic syllabus will be radically changed. And the ‘dark power’ of corporate giants will ensure there are enough ‘toys’ to keep them pre-occupied and brain-controlled for decades to come.
I feel we’re becoming reluctant prophets of doom. Once the Christmas retail-fest is over the progressive element in society has really got to start getting its act together big-time to produce another ‘Blueprint for the Future’. Or else, as Osho said, “be realistic – and plan for a miracle”!
John D says:
December 13 2017 at 10:07 am
“I feel we’re becoming reluctant prophets of doom. Once the Christmas retail-fest is over the progressive element in society has really got to start getting its act together big-time ……… ”
Not much reluctance here, John.
There will be a larger number of people who are not ‘fully engaged’ with the Christmas ‘retail fest’ this year than for a long time. I am looking forward to the worst high street figures for many a year. I have no spare money and no credit and I’m not alone.
So the progressive element of society needs to get on board and begin getting its act together by spending as little as possible in the annual consumer orgy.
A lot of businesses will fold in the New Year and some of them are likely to be quite large names. The January sales started on Black Friday (and black Friday was not just a day it was a week; leading for many retailers into a ‘black’ and possibly terminal December)
Many of those who had some latitude left on their credit cards will be struggling to meet their repayments in the New Year and the banks will start to feel the pressure from their personal, aswell as commercial, customers.
@Andy Crow
“So the progressive element of society needs to get on board and begin getting its act together by spending as little as possible in the annual consumer orgy.”
You do realise that one person’s spending is another person’s income, don’t you?
Why are you wishing unemployment on your fellow citizens?
Because, Mr Shigemitsu, until stress begins to impinge on the financial sector nothing will change.
As so often things will need to get worse before they can improve. The sooner the chaos gets underway the sooner it may be considered to ‘need fixed’.
There are too many people too comfortable still, and content to ignore those who aren’t.
Those who have least to lose become reckless. Those with nothing to lose become downright dangerous.
Modern capitalism does not work because it is not capitalism. Great grandma’s distant cousin, who was landlord of Karl Marx in the 1850’s, never quite got it through to this Prussian that Engel’s statistics were on the dodgy side, as the inspection of census returns a century later suggests. Our trouble has been sloppy political philosophers, there have been a lot of them, to take words in use to describe systems going through radical change and failing to come up with a concise term that would be rather more accurate.
You’re right its not capitalism.
what we have are the inevitable consequences of capitalism.
Capitalism doesn’t work because it concentrates wealth in too few hands. Poverty is an inevitable consequence of this. Until employees own the businesses they work in we will not have an economy that works for all.
I feel your anger on this one. It is straight forward financial incest and is immoral and dangerous.
I did not know this sort of thing happened until I read Michael Hudson’s book ‘Killing the Host’ this year (wet behind the ears or what?). I was so shocked that I had to triangulate in order to see that it was true.
What is bad about this (take your pick because its bad in all sorts of ways) is that it frees any greedy bastard from the supposed ‘discipline’ of the market. The fact is that you can artificially boost the value of the company whose shares may even underperforming because of a lack of performance by purchasing your own stock. And it is not just the greedy bastards in the company, it can be shareholder ‘activists’ also pushing for this happen.
What makes me laugh (or should I cry?) is that it is so extreme – it is almost anti -capitalist, anti-market. It’s just a big deception that has become normalised and accepted by even pro-market advocates.
And Governments seem to let them get on with it.
This business of companies buying back shares has been one of the effective ways in which corporate board members have siphoned the QE bonus into their own hands.
It is the very antithesis of the supposed point of QE that was (stated that) it would make available funds for investment implicitly in the productive economy.
Shareholders are inclined to acquiesce because there are short term gains for them too.
It seems a classic case of system malfunction. It will assuredly be destructive in the longer term, but as Keynes observed, in the longer term we’re all dead. When the likes of Boeing eventually collapse (Boeing itself probably won’t because of the strategic importance which will force the US government to bail it out) there will be these hyper-wealthy individuals waiting in the wings to buy the distressed assets at bargain basement prices. It’s vulture capitalism.
See the Richard Werner ‘Princes of the Yen’ documentary film on U tube. This isn’t a quirk. It’s policy at the highest level.
If QE is the problem, why is it still going on? I see the retiring head of the Fed implicitly questions the continuing value of it.
Of course it is because the supporters of QE are the beneficiaries. Despite apparent neutrality in certain members of the boards of central banks their voices are unheard.
So, who will call a halt? Not the current bunch of politicians, who’s interest is short term. Do we have to wait for a real crash, which is not solvable by the likes of of QE?
Barry says:
December 14 2017 at 6:21 am
“If QE is the problem,……
….So, who will call a halt? Not the current bunch of politicians, whose interest is short term. Do we have to wait for a real crash, which is not solvable by the likes of of QE?”
That seems to be currently the most cunning ‘plan’ on offer.
To borrow a phrase from Genesis (the band not the book) who gave us ‘Selling England by the Pound’ which has been very apposite for forty years, I offer you the suggestion that Central Bankers and their teams are: ‘….hovering like a fly , waiting for the windshield on the freeway’
I agree Richard our Capitalist system is in deep crisis. But this is nothing new Capitalism has always suffered periodic recessions, booms and busts. I concur with Howard, one candidate to replace the dysfunctional capitalist enterprise is the worker co-op. Unlike the hierarchical structure of the typical Capitalist corporation, worker Co-ops are democratic institutions. Worker-co-ops are therefore an alternative to the undemocratic hierarchical enterprises which are a feature of our present Capitalist system. If workers democratically controlled their own enterprises you wouldn’t find them awarding a few executives at the top with huge salaries, large payments of dividends to wealthy shareholders whilst most the workforce had to make do with the left overs. Neither would the workers vote to shut up shop and export their jobs to a lower wage economy, leaving themselves unemployed, struggling to pay their bills and a burden on the social. Automation as a problem would not exist, the benefits would be shared, not automatically appropriated by the 1%. All citizens would have a share of the income & wealth which they collectively produce. Thus, no need to put out the begging bowl for a Universal Basic income.
Worker co-ops would result say their proponents in a much more equitable and therefore stable economic system.
Richard, I strongly suspect that in your accountancy student days you came across the concept of double entry bookkeeping. Just in case over the years you have gotten a little rusty but more for the benefit of any of your readers who may not be familiar with the idea I will summarize.
For every debit entry, there is a corresponding equal credit entry. It is like say goals scored in the Premier League. Every goal scored for one team there must be a corresponding goal scored against an opposing team. The important point to keep in mind is that if we ascribe a positive value for goals scored for and a negative value for all goals scored against then the sum of all values will always equal zero. This is true irrespective of the number of teams playing or goals scored
If any enterprise, choose to become part of the WSDE movement they would need to join the same bank constituted for that purpose. A dedicated bank is necessary to keep the two systems, separate, protect the WSDE’s investments and keep them out of the hands of the “banksters.” It will also facilitate proper funding. Members of this bank can include the NHS, social care, local authorities, county councils, research, artistic, sport and academic institutions and by agreement small and medium enterprises. There will be certain protocols that members will need to follow, (e.g. equal pay for men & women, reporting standards, real time control) but if each candidate can demonstrate that their activity adds value to the economy, entry should be automatic. Zero sum business models that enrich a few at the expense of the many will not be allowed. They must remain in the Capitalist system. Economic rent seeking, and rent-extraction will not be permitted. They too must remain within the Capitalist system. The WSDE’s are free to trade with who they like and set their own pay rates, which should closely the ratio set by the Mondragon Co-operative Corporation i.e. 8.5 to 1 and they like any viable economic system will produce enough “surplus” to meet all their own social security, security and investment needs.
It is important that all members of the WSDE movement belong to the same bank, because in so far as they transfer funds against one and another the net cost across the whole system is always zero. Every debit will be cancelled by every credit. If the WSDE movement covers every single aspect of the economy e.g. Agriculture, fisheries, housebuilding, health, social care, education, transport and so on then all our needs can be meet from within that community — the cost to the community is zero. Of course, that will not be the case there will be trading between members of the WSDE community and between the WSDE community and the Capitalist community and trading between home and abroad. Capitalism, feudalism and WSDE’s will co-exist for many years. Any economic system must serve all. However, the only net funding the WSDE system would require would be where it owes money outside its own system. Normally such deficits will be met from reserves.
Two points we need to emphasise firstly WSDE’s need capital for investment and credit to meet their salary and expense obligations — they do not need to make a profit. Other than at the margin the cost is zero. Secondly the cost of sales within the WSDE community will not (apart from the margin) include any fictitious, or monopoly costs. Therefore, WSDE’s via-a-via their Capitalist counterparts will always be competitive.
However, we must acknowledge there is a problem with this scenario. There will be enterprises and institutions with a surplus and equally those with a corresponding deficit in funding e.g. NHS & Social Care. Let’s as an illustration imagine that in typical Capitalist fashion those with a surplus will be offered say 0.25% on their credit balances and those in deficit will be charged say 10% – 22.5% on theirs. The differential rates will always be a net drain on the WSDE economy. The result will be that that economy too (in accordance with the arithmetic of compound interest rates) will be sent every so often just like Capitalism into economic, booms, busts and depression. But that happens only because the bank is owned by Mr and Mrs 1%. If the bank is owned by the community of WSDEs the problem disappears. The WSDE’s cannot owe themselves money. In true jubilee and Christian tradition, the debit and credit entries are written off against each other.
The only difference between “old” Capitalism and Modern Capitalism is its growing inability to meet the basic economic needs of the great majority of the population. The trajectory of Capitalism has always lain on a positive exponential cost curve. Nowadays the curve is on the cusp of being vertical. The chickens are merely coming home to roost.
In contrast the trajectory of WSDE’s as outlined above have the potential to lie on a negative exponential cost curve. You do the maths.
John Adams says:
” Thus, no need to put out the begging bowl for a Universal Basic income…..”
That’s a very long exposition just to slip in a dig against UBI 🙂
What you are outlining overall, however is a system which divides the ‘socially useful’ organisations “e.g. Agriculture, fisheries, housebuilding, health, social care, education, transport and so on then all our needs can be meet from within that community…” from a capitalist economy which by logical extension I would have to infer are ‘socially useless’ or worse.
I think you are barking up a wrong tree, because there are not (or at least should not be) any enterprises which are not in some way socially useful. They would arguably be criminal or quasi criminal enterprises – un-social or actually anti-social.
The point of UBI is its universality. It isn’t an alternative to unemployment benefit; it’s the basis of an entirely alternative way of looking at the way a society operates and radically alters the relationship of people to employment and industry in their widest senses: as in useful activity which may or may not be financially profitable but needs doing anyway to hold a society together. What has traditionally been dismissed as ‘Women’s work’ features particularly in this category.
What you outline could be the blueprint for a society eternally divided – a bit like what you will see if you look around you I think.
Andy
You seem to think that what I propose is to prevent socially useful economic activity from being produced in the Capitalist sector. I should have made it clear that both sectors are free to engage in any economic activity. The co-op sector out of choice would not engage in any rent extraction or monopoly pricing. Whether organizations , companies or people wish to join is purely a matter of democratic choice. There will be no government imperative. Also they are free to leave either sector at any time and as often as they like, if ever they perceive that the grass is greener on the other side. The two systems would in effect regulate one another- no need for a lot of tedious law making or legal disputes. The economy would vote with its feet.
Andy as to your suggestion that the Capitalist sector would in any way engage in criminal activity, I would never have guessed – perish the thought.
As for the idea of Universal Basic Income being some sort of new way it is no such thing. We already have it, its called social security, pensions, universal credit, winter fuel allowance and xmas bonus. They don’t work. With economic democracy there is no need for a begging bowl, any productivity gains are automatically distributed in accordance with the democratic system of governance – to the many not just the few.
“…As for the idea of Universal Basic Income being some sort of new way it is no such thing. We already have it, its called social security, pensions, universal credit, winter fuel allowance and xmas bonus. They don’t work. ”
The idea of UBI is certainly not new. But even on the few occasions when it’s been tried malign forces quash it.
The benefits you list are not akin to UBI: the are not universal, they are designed as a patchwork ‘safety net’. In addition because so much of the ‘social security’ system has to be claimed rather than paid as of right it becomes de facto discretionary. DWP staff are actually forbidden (I’ve been told) to explain their entitlement to claimants.
The narrative that states that people will only work for financial reward is quite clearly untrue, but very persuasive. It’s only fat cats that refuse to get out of bed for less than a wad. Ok, there are some idle folk at all levels, but the narrative of motivation is false. It certainly is not universal, and inevitably leads to minimising rather than maximum worker engagement.
I recommend you keep reading Rutger Bregmans ‘Utopia for Realists’ until the concept of UBI makes some sense to you, because what you are describing is, I’m fairly sure, more or less where we are now. In theory at least we currently have democratic governance. And it doesn’t work.
The post-2008 bank bailout was worth 240 years of unemployment benefit payments. What was that for? That was notionally the result of democratic governance. And it has not worked. Emphatically, it has not worked.
Capitalism doesn’t work because it’s simply money making money.
Carol says, “…..Capitalism doesn’t work because it’s simply money making money…..”
That’s simplistic and not quite right. Certainly not the whole story.
In essence the capitalist system has the potential to work very well, but it falls to pieces almost instantly because of the disconnected thinking and subsequent power imbalance that says that labour has no place in the equation of ownership.
Clause 4 sought to/was intended to redress that balance and never achieved it.
Much of the ‘money making money’ stems from that unfairly and disproportionately accumulated wealth. What we are seeing now is an intricate set of financial ‘instruments’ set up to ‘capitalise’ on those profit holdings and the underlying productive engine being starved of the funds it needs to function.
One real reason that the capitalist system doesn’t work is the mythology that market mechanisms are self-correcting – that they are effective and efficient systems of assessing price and value, that supply and demand will move towards equilibrium and various other quasi philosophical bunkum.
The ‘free marketeers’ insist that what skews markets is government interference. Hence they are constantly screaming for lighter regulation. I maintain that this is nonsense, because the free marketeers rely for their very existence on property rights enshrined in the laws, which they created, to skew the system in their favour. They deny a place in their system for a free market in labour and they deny the right of violent opposition (or even collective action and dissent) to economic oppression.
The default currency of the truly free market is violence. It’s not acceptable. The failure of capitalism is the failure to regulate it even-handedly. In theory capitalism should work reasonably well in conjunction with democracy. That it doesn’t is as much an indictment of our failure to operate democratic systems of government as it is an indictment of Capitalism per se.
Socialism has it’s own but different set of failings. Or would have if ever a socialist state were to come into existence somewhere.
Richard,
Isn’t it a good thing that the dividend, and the share buy-back, will result in a diminished Boeing cash pile, and an increase in taxes paid?
I presume that the reasoning by the Boeing board is,
1. We think that there is little prospect of a good return for our shareholders ( and the economy at large ) if we spend the cash pile on making more planes. Outsiders with no skin in the game might prefer us to think differently, but we have thought very long and very hard about this. And it really doesn’t have anything to do with the outsiders in the first place, does it?
2. We think that the owners of the cash can now either spend it as they see fit, and boost the economy at large, or invest it in some more lucrative businesses, thereby helping the economy at large.
Win-win, they would say. And I think you agree with them?
If Boeing has no use for money then pay dividends: do not rig markets and prices
But you miss my point: why does capitalism have no money to make and no productivity to gain? Is it that monopoly means that this does not pay? And if so, has capitalism failed, which is my argument?
You are confusing the tree for the wood I was looking at
Yes Richard, but it shows how beholden Boeing and others are to the bookies and spivs who decide on ” market value” not on the implicit value of Boeing’s assets and skills. Since the same people sit on the boards of the companies, they control the policies.
Cofe Baker says:
December 13 2017 at 12:18 pm
“…Isn’t it a good thing that the dividend, and the share buy-back, will result in a diminished Boeing cash pile, and an increase in taxes paid?….” That perhaps depends whether a) you believe the money really exists in the sense of representing productive company profit and b) whether you believe it will actually result in much recycling through the tax system.
For my part I’m sceptical on both counts. The ‘increased profit is largely skimming of froth from an asset bubble before it gets chance to correct.
The overall picture implies a company has ceased to grow and therefore could well be exhibiting the symptoms of decline. The Boeing board know damn fine they will not be allowed to sink because they have implicit ‘too important to fail’ status. Viz the money is spare only by virtue of government asset price stimulus and an assurance that new investment funding will be available from the same source when it is required in future.
This isn’t free market capitalism it’s nanny state subsidy for the feckless and greedy.
Well that’s how I see it. Very much part of the pattern of the past forty years.
There are at least half a dozen distilleries in England laying down whisky for sale when it is ready. Given the lead times of years between investment, distilling, maturation and sale can you think of any system other than capitalism that can do this?
The many alternative models to capitalist production are permitted of course, but don’t seem to be in on it, and why should they if they don’t know if they’ll make any money for many more years.
I have a strong bias towards markets that work well
I am a chartered accountant and serial entrepreneur
What really irritates me are people who argue that rentierism (which is what is going on in Boeing) is market capitalism when it is not
That`s called `planning` or `prudence` and is inevitable in any well run enterprise whether classic capitalist or worker co-op.
Capitalism gets a pass because we get hung up on its mantra word “competition” (the Invisible Hand and all that). If we started to look at its activities in the light of another word “benefaction” (such as how much benefaction is capitalism offering from the totality of its activities to the many as opposed to the few) then we might get change in societies.
Note, for example, how the mutualistic/cooperative message inherent in this article gets muddied at its end:-
http://journals.sfu.ca/jjsc/index.php/journal/article/download/45/24
Schofield says:
December 13 2017 at 1:19 pm
“…Capitalism gets a pass because we get hung up on its mantra word “competition” (the Invisible Hand and all that). ….”
‘Competition’ – Ah! yes, that vital process in bringing rigour to the market 🙂
Right I’ve stopped laughing now. The essential problem with devotion to competition is that it has a strong tendency to be ‘zero sum’. Piracy on the high seas is a classic example of how competition works. Very lucrative business robbing Spanish galleons – laden with pieces of eight robbed from the South American nations. If you steal from the thief has he any just grounds for complaint? The current value of the gold cultural artifacts melted down to make bullion is inestimable and unrecoverable – gone for ever. And for what? To finance European wars mostly, I guess.
Cooperation on the other hand is predicated on the principle that the whole can be more than the sum of its parts. Two people working together can often produce more than one alone. Whether three people further improve that return is the function of management to determine. And then we get into the vexed question of how well a machine can replace all three, followed shortly by making the manager redundant too.
The whole basis of the conundrum is who has ownership of all, or any of, this productivity ?
What makes Boeing the perfect case study here is to ask where the cash comes from. I bet most of it is US government funding for research into ever more advanced weapons of war. This spending will of course be amortised into the price Boeing charges for said weapons so they’ll get paid for it twice.
The net result is that taxes collected from regular folk (the US tax system isn’t exactly progressive) is laundered through the military industrial complex and poured out to executives and shareholders.
If it wasn’t so upsetting it’d be funny.
As a Quaker I would prefer the defence sector to return vast sums of cash to shareholders where they can spend it into the economy or leave it in the bank where the banks can lend it to other people to spend into the economy; rather than invest it in new products, services and training into how to kill people more effectively.
Agreed
But the issue is systemic
@Jonathan Saunders:
“…leave it in the bank where the banks can lend it to other people to spend into the economy”
Banks do not lend out deposits – they create loans from thin air, which in turn become deposits. I know it’s seasonal, but from the banking point of view, “It’s A Wonderful Life” is complete nonsense!
@George:
“The net result is that taxes collected from regular folk (the US tax system isn’t exactly progressive) is laundered through the military industrial complex and poured out to executives and shareholders.”
Taxes collected from “regular folk” in the US get destroyed, just like any other taxes.
The US Government, not the US taxpayer, funds the defence industry.
The extent to which it does is a political choice, although it’s depressing that the only area of public spending that Americans don’t seem to hugely resent is the military.
However, at least it functions as a way to get government money into poorer regions – just build a military base. But never a Health Service: oh no, that would be just terrible.
“Banks do not lend out deposits”
So what *do* banks do with all that money people deposit with them? Put it in a big pile and ski down it?
Might you advise MrShigemitsu?
What I would advise you do Mr Sandwrs is start reading modern monetary theory.
According to Michael Hudson (Junk Economics) many in the “Defence” business are on “Cost Plus” contracts – almost a licence to print money. Perhaps this has something to do with why Boeing has a huge cash pile. In other cases it’s to do with companies who have virtual monopolies and can charge what they like – i.e. rentier capitalism. So, as well as asking what can they do with the money, let’s ask and identify how (and this applies to many of the genius billionaires sucking up wealth too) they came by such obscene profits in the first place and create ways of ensuring they don’t make them in the future.
But if they are looking for ways of reducing their present embarrassment they could do worse than paying their workers, and sub-contractors, and their sub-contractors, a decent wage and ensuring they have decent pensions, and health care and if thay’ve still got loot left over they could donate to charity. To hell with the shareholders and greedy executives.
https://www.ft.com/content/9a4f653c-dc36-11e7-a039-c64b1c09b482
I agree with that article which argues that the US tax cut should have been spent on investment on workers
Prof Murphy, I feel inclined to side with the commentator who proposed that buying back shares is better than investing in militarism or planes for mindless tourism. How would you rather Boeing spend its money?
Would you rather it invest in new climate-damaging planes, stealth bombers, return it to shareholders, pay it to workers?
I was not, as such, making a comment on Boeing
I commented on the system and the way it achieved the distribution of funds
Boeing have competitors – including the Airbus consortium, who answer more to governments than to shareholders – and this diversion of funds from research and development will be their epitaph.
Aviation does not stand still, and continuous improvement by innovation and investment is the only way to stay ahead.
Nile says:
December 14 2017 at 12:15 am
“Boeing have competitors —
Aviation does not stand still, ….”
Too right. Spacex is planning clean rocket travel to anywhere on the globe on an hour (or was it half an hour). Smelly old airplanes’ (sic) could be museum pieces surprisingly soon.
Remember ‘The Magic Roundabout’?
Boeing! “Time for bed”, said Zebedee. 🙂
Isnt modern finance just imaginary wealth generated by mathematical systems?
See my blog on accountants and time, just published
The answer to your question is ‘yes’
There was a time, not so very long ago, in Britain, when a director of a company could be put in prison for supporting his company’s share price, as in the Guinness/Distillers affair. Why ever did they change that? Was it part of the Thatcher revolution?
Yes….
Quite. Well there’s a lot of work to be done to build new legal structures to reverse the exclusion of 99% of the population from a fair share of the fruits of their enterprise or to keep them from the dire poverty that now endangers so many of them. That work is not just corporate law (re: share buy-backs, as a start, workers on boards…), but employment law (?abolish zero hours contracts, clean-up the interface between income tax and national insurance contributions), social security law (? citizens basic income), lending law (?force majeure as a standard provision – derivative transactions unenforceable – as were some consumer credit transactions, before New Labour put its foot in it all), and there’s more…. It’s a long list to get through to achieve a proper balance in society again (if ever there was one).
Given that the Guinness 4 were convicted when Thatcher was still PM, it seems unlikely.
Philip Strauss says:
December 14 2017 at 8:50 pm
“Given that the Guinness 4 were convicted when Thatcher was still PM, it seems unlikely.”
Not so if the law was changed as a result. Laws are always trying to catch up.
Ernest Saunders ought to be a celebrity on the grounds of his miraculous apparent recovery from Alzheimer’s. He seemed to recover dramatically once released from his sentence. A cynic might suggest that strings were pulled in his favour to mitigate the effect of a law which had not been correctly drafted or redrafted soon enough.
In this instance I am of the cynical school.
Growing up in West Germany in the 80ies, there was a phrase that made fun of the huge gap between official socialist propaganda and the actual situation in East Germany, it was called “real existierender Sozialismus” [1]. Nowadays, the gap between official capitalist propaganda and the actual situation of the world is similarly huge. And, as Richard’s blog shows, the official capitalist propaganda is similarly unintentionally funny as Erich Honnecker was back then. So I was wondering whether we should coin a phrase like “real existierender Kapitalismus” … just that the direct translation into English (real existing capitalism or even real capitalism) doesnt sound neither right nor funny …
[1] The term “real existierender Sozialismus” was first part of the official East German propaganda, but it backfired, when it became to signify all that was wrong with the system.
Alexander,
I’m rather fond of the term; Socio-economic Apartheid.
Not mine , but I picked it up from a contributor on here and I think it sums up what we have admirably.
I have a principled objection to much of what passes as ‘intellectual property’ so I regard myself as being at liberty to use the phrase as often as I see fit. Which is quite frequently.
( I cite Oscar Wilde in my defence: “I wish I’d said that…..You will, Oscar. You will.”)
🙂