Hyman Minsky used to say there were 57 varieties of capitalism. If we're
on, say, our 3rd or 4th version, I'm not sure the planet can handle
trying out the remaining possible variations should each future
successive model seriously undermine its own social structure of
accumulation.
The birth of laisser-faire in the 19 th century and its rebirth in the 1970’s is not a natural phenomenon that emerged out of capitalism. According to Polanyi, “free markets could never have come into being merely by allowing things to take their course... Laissez-faire itself was enforced by the state... Laissez-faire was not a method to achieve a thing, it was the thing to be achieved" [Polanyi 1957, 139]. Laissez-faire did not come out of capitalism as a “natural” mode of functioning of society. It was purposely created to appease selfish elitist desires. One might think of capitalism as the best social and economic system yet discovered, but we should also think of the evolution and diversity of socio-economic systems.
We must recognize intra-capitalism diversity, which acknowledges an evolution of capitalism along with its institutions. In fact, Minsky identified as many as 57 varieties of capitalism in America [Minsky 1993, 3], and he repeatedly used the term in the plural form (capitalisms). Laissez-faire capitalism was only one of the varieties of capitalism that Minsky mentioned in his analysis. Minsky argued that “if capitalisms are to be successful in the 21 st century they are likely to be quite different from the models we are familiar with” [Minsky 1993, 7]. He certainly did not imagine another laissez-faire model, but probably a system in which economic theory and policy evolve along with capitalism and its institutions, a system where two institutions are deemed necessary in order to “stabilize” the system. First, a big government with countercyclical fiscal deficits is necessary to keep aggregate demand and thus output and employment at a high level. Second, a big bank that operates as a lender of last resort, regulates and supervises the banking industry [Papadimitriou and Wray 1999].
Passage via Google from Oeconomicus Winter 2001
The Demise and Rebirth of Laissez-Faire Capitalism * 1
Fadhel Kaboub
Reference to 57 varieties of capitalism given as Minsky, Hyman P. “Finance and Stability: The Limits of Capitalism.” Working Paper #93. The Jerome Levy Economics Institute of Bard College, May 1993.
I quote it because the description of the probable system sounds rather like Schweickart's system from "Against Capitalism" ,
ironically enough.
This suggests to me a sort of resultant of forces and processes in response to the contradiction between the private ownership of the means of production and the social character of that production. Class struggle will determine whether the resultant leans more towards capitalism or towards socialism.
Chris Burford
London
