Show 366: What Capitalism’s Wrought w/ Michael Perelman

What Capitalism’s Wrought w/ Michael Perelman

Audio here!

Central to the humanistic worldview are the notions of individual liberty and communal freedom. A humanist society is one where people can each reach their potential, and engage with each other in all the myriad aspects of living the good life.  But for all people to be able to participate in such a society, everyone has to have social, political, and economic freedom. To many on the Right, Free-Market Capitalism is the perfect tool toward meeting such goals, and the Government is the major obstacle. To others, it’s the other way around. And to perhaps just a few, both institutions are thought to be severely flawed, if not the actual antithesis of what is needed to reach a humanistic future society.

But everyone can see things are breaking down. Debt Ceilings, Spending Crises, High-Unemployment, Failing Entitlements, Obamacare, Low Tax Rates for the Rich and on and on. It almost seems as if American society is beginning to collapse; fracturing into many angry groups, some more powerful than others; and it all seems to be – underneath all the yelling – over economics (fed by misanthropic beliefs about the human condition).

But economics seems to be so confusing that many people – including the “experts” – don’t really seem to understand what exactly is going on. The result of this is that Americans seem to have many diametrically opposed opinions about capitalism, statism, “free markets”, and socialism/communism … about how we got here, and thus how to get out of this mess. But because so many of these opinions are based on misinformation, they don’t allow us to introduce evidence-based ideas on how to right the ship.

Then again, maybe the ship can’t be saved.

ETFF will speak to economist and economic historian Michael Perelman (The Invisible Handcuffs of Capitalism: How Market Tyranny Stifles the Economy by Stunting Workers) about these questions and problems and more, as we welcome in Labor Day weekend.

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