Against Capitalism
Author: David Schweickart
List Price: $38.00
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ISBN: 0813331137
Publisher: Westview Press (September, 1996)
Sales Rank: 275,139
Average Customer Rating: 3.33 out of 5
Customer Reviews
Rating: 3 out of 5
I disagree but I still recommend this book
As a libertarian, I found this book challenging, provocative, well-argued and thorough. Of course, as a libertarian, I also found it to be completely wrong about everything, but I would still recommend this book to any libertarian, conservative or free-marketeer who is up for an honest intellectual challenge rather than the parade of straw-man fallacies, circular reasoning and populist rhetoric usually trotted out by the left.
Rating: 5 out of 5
A good argument for economic democracy
One previous reviewer seems to not have even read the book, but i want ot reiterate what has been stated previously: this book is not about soviet communism, it is about something new called economic democracy. every reviewer should realize this when reading other reviews that deride this book by applealling to the stalinistic soviet union. the first chapter discusses marxian arguments against capitalism. the only real original writing in the first chapter is at the end when he attacks nozick, an argument that i think is particularly damning to nozicks argument; unless youre a are pure libertarian who doesnt really care about the bad stuff that other people suffer.
after that, marx doesnt come into the discussion until the last chapter where he tries to align his theory with marxism. like mentioned previously, i am not sure if he sells his case.
one last thing. as much as i loathe those previous reviewers who appeal to the soviet union to make a case against socialism, i must admit that even schweickart's central real world example of economic democracy has some flaws. a little bit of research will turn up that the socialist paradise of the mondragon cooperative has recently discovered that there were some serious corruption problems occuring within the system. that said, schweikart's book is still an excellent piece of social philosophy.
Rating: 5 out of 5
There Is An Alternative
In the aftermath of the failure of Soviet socialism, we hear over and over again that there is no alternative to capitalism. Schweickart shows, with great clarity, wide learning, and an accessible prose style, that this is not true. His alternative is a market economy in which the workers run the factories, farms, and offices. What is is that capitalists contribute merely by owning the productive assets, in virtue of which there might be a point in letting them take the profits? Schweickart answers: _nothing_, and backs it up. Workers can perform all the managerial and entrepreneurial functions themselves. He develops a model in which they do, based on empirical research into worker cooperatives. The economy has a large state sector for finance, but uses markets to allocate scarce resources and satisfy demand. Schweickart shows that this would be more just, more democratic, and more efficient than either libertarian laissez-faire capitalism or welfare state capitalism. He also tries to show, rather less successfully, that his economic democracy is somehow in the Marxist tradition, despite Marx's dislike of markets. But whether one finds this argument as plausible as his argument for the dispensibility of capitalism is really immaterial. Schweickart has articulated a compelling and practicable alternative to capitalism, something that would be different, better, and worth fighting for. The book is essential reading for anyone thinking about economic alternatives. Similar Products
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