CAPITALISM TODAY

by Daniel & Irving Kristol -- Eds. Bell ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 23, 1971

There seems to be no great rationale for assembling these twelve essays except the consensus that capitalism is providing unlimited material progress, marred only by cultural erosion, structural economic changes, and tire possible irrelevance of economists. Bell finds that culture now by itself generates social change: everyone is hooked on modernity, and there is a ""triumph of will"" (whatever that means) over the rationalist-pragmatic-bourgeois world-view. Apart from a critique of Baran & Sweezy's Monopoly Capital and Norman Macrae's sophisticated review of the Labour Party's planning bumbles, the essays are pedestrian and unilluminating. Bell alibis his end-of-ideology ballyhoo with the statement that he really meant the end of the ""older ideas of the radical movement""; Kristol offers a dim shadow of Bell with an invocation of ""the pre-modern political philosophers -- Plato, Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, Hooker, Calvin, etc."" These marginalities are complemented by short surveys of Japan and Sweden, and by Peter Drucker's chatter about mass ownership of stock and infinite career opportunities. Meanwhile Heilbroner thinks economists conservative, but Robert Solow finds 61.7% ""left or liberal."" About Wall Street, the business cycle, and economic concentration, contributors Seligman, Gordon, and Adelman say there is still much to learn. A decidedly vaporous collection, which will convince only the most credulous that mere cultural twists and market imperfections prevent abundance from abounding throughout the Western world.

Pub Date: April 23, 1971

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Basic Books

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1971

Categories: NONFICTION