Episodes
Friday Dec 13, 2019
Economic Update - Libertarianism, Capitalism and Socialism
Friday Dec 13, 2019
Friday Dec 13, 2019
Libertarians defend capitalism by saying its many current flaws/faults flow from the state's economic interventions, not from the system itself. Libertarians oppose socialism as even more state-dominated. We criticize libertarians based on capitalism's long history of strong state interventions and socialism's long-standing anarchistic components. We conclude by inviting consideration of possible agreements between some libertarians and some socialists.
Saturday Dec 07, 2019
Economic Update - Competition and Monopoly in Capitalism
Saturday Dec 07, 2019
Saturday Dec 07, 2019
This week’s special topic discusses capitalism's growing problems, such as inequalities, instabilities, and unsustainability. That leads some defenders to argue that the causes of these problems are monopolies displacing competition in many industries. We disagree: capitalism's history is oscillations between competition and monopoly, each causing the other. Capitalism itself is the problem, not its oscillating forms.