Professor Phelps tries to trace what he sees as a decline in modern capitalism beginning as early as the mid-1960s and continuing through the present day. One suspect is what the author calls the “new corporatism”: “Regulations of industries are instituted, aimed at shielding companies or workforces from competition. …Shakedowns of companies by communities, nonprofits, or governments extract donations or other accommodations….The new corporatist economy, then, is pervaded by fears of holdups by the government, by stakeholders, by organized labor, and by an ocean of persons and companies ready to litigate.”
Later,
The question of whether the late-1960s radicals were rebelling against tradition or against modernity is complicated, a topic for a book, or a column, of its own. But surely even a Nobel laureate economist ensconced at Columbia can figure out that whatever the great villain is in the story of the American economy or culture since the 1970s, it isn’t “the resurgence of family values.”
I think that the value of the book is in making the case that our system is corporatist, and that, unfortunately, many people are quite happy with that. I have written my own review, for which I am seeking an outlet.
If we will accept that “Capitalism” is a resultant condition dependent upon the necessary and sufficient existence of “freedom of choice,” there can be no question that the resultant condition has been impaired as it’s necessary and sufficient requirements have been reduced.
I could believe this of Schumpeter writing in the 50s which were the epitome of corporatism, but later we have only the superficial forms of it dominating startups that by the time have grown large have also become moribund. Shakedowns and holdups are as old as capitalism and modernity has less than Carnegie and Rockefeller ever managed. So peculiar.
@Lord: How do you define “the epitome of corporatism”? Not anecdotally, but say historically? Do we have Data, not Stories?