Thread: Capitalism isn't working ?

It seems to me the article is not really saying anything new. Maybe for an economist it is large step to say capitalism is not working. His actual reasons seem to be a bit more complicated than, say, Marx, but still based on the same principles of exploitation of the worker and control of capital into the hands of an elite. So this is a 'conflict theory' approach to studying capitalism vs. a 'functionalist' approach. Conflict theory is about seeing if any inequalities exist in a system and pointing out those inequalities. Generally they are trying to make a change within the system. Functionalist, can actually see inequality as a good thing. Why? Because the system needs inequality to exist. Doctors get paid more due to specialized knowledge than less skilled workers. When I was a student I saw merit in both approaches. Generally economist would have a different approach, a quasi functionalist method. They would like to understand how they can make capitalism work, not capitalism does not work. Their 'scientific knowledge' ruled Washington over and above other social sciences. I think since the economic down fall maybe there has been a paradigm shift amongst economist into looking at other theories. An interesting, though relatively old book, would be the Power Elite by Mills. Marx Weber, probably more familiar to our bros out in in Europe, wrote a lot on modernism and capitalism.