How great is capitalism?

In response to a question about capitalism in an email today from a blog reader I thought I'd throw this in for starters...

Capitalism fills our shops with all manner of things but for every happy East German who can buy more ice cream at the corner shop, a parent in Uganda will bury a child who has died of AIDS - directly because of the monopoly power of pharmaceutical companies who refuse to allow affordable copies of life saving drugs.

Derek Wall, the Green party's Co-Principal Speaker writes: "Capitalism can only exist by selling us more and more things at ever accelerating rates. Corporations that drive capitalism have a legal requirement to maximise short term profit. Thus, while it is wrong to talk of wicked capitalists and design caricatures of evil cigar smoking bosses, the very DNA of modern capitalism leads to a number of severe problems. The drive to cut costs leads to out sourcing where companies with monopoly power can drive down wages to a few cents equivalent an hour, so workers and small producers like farmers suffer from low incomes. The infinite economic growth required by capitalism where we produce, consume and waste at accelerating rates is ecologically impossible on our finite planet."

Critics of capitalism include not just the Greens but John Gray, a conservative academic who used to support Mrs Thatcher, Joseph Stiglitz who once headed the World Bank, and even financier George Soros. Some critics believe that capitalism can be modified, others want to create a new economic system.

Photo: Green party member Jonathon Porritt talks in Cheltenham last week

Practical alternatives exist in many places - each with their own strengths and weaknesses: cooperative control of factories is big in Argentina and much of Latin America, open source production of software is growing globally and I read that Yochai Benkler's concept of social sharing is being applauded by academics as a substitute for the market. There clearly needs to be more of a debate between those who believe that capitalism can be adapted to reflect ecological and social realities and those who seek alternatives.....

- Read Molly Scott Cato's Green Economics blog for more:
http://gaianeconomics.blogspot.com/
- And Dr Derek Walls' latest blog site where he has started to put his latest published book, "Babylon and Beyond: Anti-Capitalist Economics":
http://babylonandbeyond.blogspot.com
- Jonathon Porritt calls for better capitalism - others take issue with his arguments - see here
- Green call for Localisation here
- Three Guardian articles on the death of growth-economics here