Flawed Capitalism - David Coates

Subtitled:  The Anglo-American Condition and its Resolution

An in depth analysis of the current capitalist model pursued in these two countries.  He begins with an historical overview covering the evolution of the capitalist model/social contract in these two countries basically since WW1.  He spends a lot of time on statistics and research that shows the slow economic decline of both of these countries, and does a good job of laying it out.

The ideas that stood out for me are:
1) Lack of demand as one of the most significant factors in slowing economic growth and activity
2) Failure of large parts of the public's salaries to grow in any real sense depresses demand (see above!)
3) The downward pressure on salaries comes primarily from a strong shift in power relationships between capital/owners and workers, largely through the elimination and suppression of unions and union jobs, which has significantly shifted the balance of power to capital/owners.  They use this power to suppress wages.
4) This decline in demand is tied to the lack of growth in productivity which is negatively affecting American and especially British industries when compared to other countries.
5) In both England and the U.S., there has been a strong shift towards dependency on finance sectors to boost GDP etc.   This shift has been actively pursued through government policy, at the expense of investment and support for more productive economic activity, and for modernization of production.
6) One of the biggest weaknesses in trickle down economic theory is that rich people just can't spend as much money and create as much demand as a well-payed large middle-class, or a decently payed majority of the population.  This inevitably leads to economic slowdown and social failure.

At the end of the book there is a section of what to do about all of this, but the author recognizes there is a long way to go to shift the ideology and policy of ruling elites.  Cautious optimism perhaps....