Wednesday, October 11, 2017

Future of Capitalism

In another round of file cleaning on the old computer I found my notes taken when reading The Future of Capitalism by Lester Thurow. The book was written in 1996 and I read it in 1998.

Wikipedia - Lester Carl Thurow (May 7, 1938 – March 25, 2016) was an American political economist, former dean of the MIT Sloan School of Management.

Actually, this is kind of spooky. I made (in 2017) comments in parens places.

Surging inequality (a big political talking point)
China focus will change to India focus (not so much)
Communism had good education (don't know what this meant)
No competitor to capitalism now so it will not implode (true dat)

Economic Surface of the Earth

End of Communism (Plate 1)   (well, Cuba pushed that way a little and North Korea will if they push war)
Offers lots of cheap labor (another political talking point

Migration (plate 4) pushes unskilled workers into 1st world (ditto)

New technologies (plate 2) generates skill shift (in spades)
Need to offset this (by massive skill investment) is resisted by the elderly (plate 3)

Global economy (plate 4) forces wages down (indeed)

Without dominant power (plate 5) there is no economic locomotive. (better watch out)

Progress occurs when technology meets ideology

Inflation is extinct (true dat, too)

Japan will crack (it is number 3)
Europe is biased towards social programs so jobs will flee (Nostradamus)
Global bubbles burst together (looks like that could happen very soon)
Uncertainty breeds religious fundamentalism (its familiar in uncertain times) (O...M...G...)

Capital is human and no longer ownable

Need to spur long-term thinking and R&D - Government's only role  (we wish)

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