In this short RSA Animate, radical sociologist David Harvey asks if it is time to look beyond capitalism, towards a new social order that would allow us to live within a system that could be responsible, just and humane. View his full lecture at the RSA. Download a transcript of this video (pdf).
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1. THE MAN DOES NOT EVEN KNOW WHAT SISTEMIC RISK IS!!
2. HOW CAN HE POSSIBLY TALK ECONOMICS, with that air of authority, WHEN HE CLEARLY DOES NOT READ OR STUDY ECONOMICS? NOT EVEN AT HOME!!! Instead of sticking to some easy rethoric based on the Marx he learned when young, he should GET SERIOUS AND READ WHAT ACTUAL ECONOMISTS HAVE WRITTEN, both about Marx and about economics as a whole. I suggest him to start with the following serious book WRITTEN ON MARXIAN ECONOMICS BY AN ECONOMIST: "An Essay on Marxian Economics" by Joan Robinson.
3. IF HE IS GOING TO THROW A NAME LIKE "KEYNES", HE SHOULD AT LEAST READ KEYNES FIRST! It is evident that he has not.
4.SIR, JUST GET SERIOUS.
Most excellent, I enjoyed this tremendously.
Love it. But FYI David Harvey is a Geographer, not a Sociologist.
Although I agree with what you say Marko, I think that the reference to the paper by E. Stringham and J. Hummel fails to clearly explain in adequate language their points, and most people will fall asleep before they understand it. The problem is that many people, even educated economists, like capitalism like football fans like their team; they don´t always bother to reason if their allegiance is wise. So the idea of having a sustainable social system with a free-market system on the top for budding entrepreneurs and market-types, would give society stability and encourage enterprise. This could be "marketed" to both ends of the spectrum, so to speak...
"... theories on socialism and communism, ..." You are missing the point of the piece. Even though the author may be a communist, I do not know, he is simply explaining one of the arguments that Marx used. That of how capitalism contains an inherent contradiction.
Mr. Harvey makes a cogent argument explaining one reason that the unfettered financial markets do not work. Please address that argument.
You also state that socialism and communism did not work. I'll agree with on communism, but if you include countries like Norway in the socialist camp then I would have to disagree with you on the socialism part.
As an aside, just in case you are a Hayekian, please name a country where laissez-faire capitalism has worked for a period as long as Soviet Russia existed, or even one-quarter as long. Or to make it even easier, name a single country where laissez-faire capitalism has even existed. Talk about a failure of a system, that system cannot even get off the ground!
For a good discussion of the topic of why laissez-faire capitalism (a pure market economy) does not exist please see the link: http://mises.org/journals/qjae.... Note: this is from the mises institute which is the headquarters of the Von Mises folks. They say that such an economy does not exist and offer a long article of apologetics why it does not.