{"id":14536,"date":"2012-04-11T00:08:36","date_gmt":"2012-04-11T05:08:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=14536"},"modified":"2012-04-10T14:07:58","modified_gmt":"2012-04-10T19:07:58","slug":"qotd-the-silly-claims-about-capitalism-in-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2012\/04\/11\/qotd-the-silly-claims-about-capitalism-in-crisis\/","title":{"rendered":"QotD: The silly claims about “capitalism in crisis”"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Yes, times are tougher than they otherwise could be; however, to claim that the bumps in the road over the last few years show that \u201ccapitalism is in crisis\u201d is absurd.<\/p>\n

[. . .]<\/p>\n

Even with the a few recessions, Real per-capita Gross Domestic Product is a lot higher than it was in 1960, 1970, 1980, 1990, or 2000. The truly unique fact about the world as it has changed in the last few centuries is that, as a number of economic historians have emphasized, we live in a world where economic growth is taken to be the norm. […]<\/p>\n

Indeed, as the economist Joseph Schumpeter pointed out long ago, capitalism has given us the time and energy to criticize capitalism. People content themselves by being outraged at working conditions in Foxconn plants in China. However, it is the economic growth we have achieved in the western world that allows us the comfortable working conditions from which we express horror at working conditions elsewhere in the world. Further, not all the workers are greeting the reformers as saviors (HT: Doug Stuart). If people are willing to trade off longer working hours for higher incomes, I don\u2019t see how it\u2019s my right to stop them.<\/p>\n

[. . .] Donald J. Boudreaux points out how we have to be very careful with income data if we are going to get an accurate picture of trends in standards of living.<\/p>\n

If we\u2019re going to talk about \u201cstagnation\u201d we also have to be very clear about precisely what we mean. Consider the near-ubiquity of the iconic gizmo of the early 21st century and its technological cousin: the smart phone and social media. My Forbes.com<\/em> colleague Erik Kain reported in February that \u201c472 million smartphones were sold worldwide in 2011.\u201d In a world of 7 billion people, the top 1% would be 70 million people. If all the gains really went to them, that would be about six and a half smartphones each for the members of the world\u2019s Top 1%. I\u2019m pretty sure that isn\u2019t what\u2019s happening.<\/p>\n

Art Carden, “It’s the Final Crisis of Capitalism, Charlie Brown!”, Forbes<\/em><\/a>, 2012-04-10<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yes, times are tougher than they otherwise could be; however, to claim that the bumps in the road over the last few years show that \u201ccapitalism is in crisis\u201d is absurd. [. . .] Even with the a few recessions, Real per-capita Gross Domestic Product is a lot higher than it was in 1960, 1970, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,7,28,41],"tags":[377,95,547,315],"class_list":["post-14536","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-history","category-media","category-quotations","tag-conspicuousconsumption","tag-jobs","tag-smartphones","tag-wealth"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-3Ms","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14536","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14536"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14536\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14538,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14536\/revisions\/14538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}