The Myth of Capitalism - Jonathan Tepper

 A book that take down the myth of the American capitalist system as a system of competition and constant renewal.  He outlines how the actual American economy has become both monopolistic and monopsonistic with a small number of companies controlling huge areas of the economy, setting prices, wages and even what suppliers will be paid.  Innovation and new company creation are steadily slowing.  Smaller firms are more and more swallowed up by a few big ones.  The end result is lower wages for everyone, the disappearance of family farms and businesses and higher prices for everyone too.  This is actually the driving force behind growing income inequality:  wages shrink, prices go up, large corporations and big share holders grab more and more of the wealth. 

Since slavery the basic American economic model has been highly exploitative.  Then came colonialism/imperialism on the world stage.  Now they are back consuming their own people to get rich.  

Nothing is done because money runs politics.  Congress works for the wealthy shareholders and corporations by granting monopolies, increasing regulation that makes it harder for small companies to get started and changing laws that benefit large companies and the wealthy.  He underlines the importance of how government advisors and top administrators move back and forth between the private and public sector.  

This problem is particularly important in the U.S.  Canada and Europe are far more stringent in applying anti-trust and anti-monopoly rules.  The U. S. has given up on this.  

This book explains why Google and other large tech companies have been having legal problems and being fined large sums of money in Europe whereas nothing is happening in the U.S.  

Worth rereading for the details,

Berji Kristin: Tales from the Garbage Hills - Latife Tekin

A fascinating social portrait of a time and place - the period of mass migration from Anatolian villages to Istanbul and Ankara, and the creation of massive overnight slum neighbourhoods.  A portrait of the village mind in confrontation with capitalism and the effects of untrammelled industrialization.  Also a portrait of capital at work in the neoliberal post 60s military coup in Turkey.  Dovetails nicely with another book I read recently - Why Turkey is Authoritarian:  From Atatürk to Erdoğan, by Halil Karaveli.  The novel puts some flesh and bones onto the political situation of the time - government unquestioning support of capital, ignored corruption, links between politics and organized crime, suppression of worker rights.

How to Lose a Country - Ece Temelkuran

Subtitled "The 7 Steps from Democracy to Dictatorship"
    Brilliant book chronicling Turkey's slide into its current dictatorship/autocracy, with asides looking at the same process in other countries - U.S., Hungary, Russia, Poland, Britain.
She brings up the point that this structure of government can actually be called a form of mafia government.
     A good companion read to "How Fascism Works".
    Temelkuran points out some interesting techniques used by would-be leaders, particularly their use of the news cycle and the outrageous statement as a means to controlling the media's and people's attention, directing it towards controversial topics as the government gets on with some other agenda that it doesn't want attention on.
    A very disturbing book.  You have to worry about your own homeland heading in that direction. So far, Temelkuran has focused on the actions of the would-be dictator as he moves towards absolute power, but I am interested in the ground, the socio-political situation that makes his rise possible, that he exploits on his way up.  My sense is the fertile ground lies in groups that see themselves excluded from the benefits of society as it stands.  And it has to be a significant group in terms of numbers.  When I consider Turkey, Russia and Hungary, it seems that desperate poverty is certainly one of those conditions of exclusion.  Hence, the aspiring fascist/dictator groups get the support of these poor people by simply giving them some of the basic necessities of life for free. (Same thing was done in Egypt by the Muslim Brotherhood - these poor people may not buy into the religious or nationalist message, but they sure appreciate the food and other necessities.)  Or by creating low-paying fake jobs for them - as Orban is doing in Hungary.  This, however, is not one of the basic techniques in the U.S. - their mythology is too strongly against any kind of social welfare...
So you can conclude here that increased income inequality, either within society as a whole or regionally, is one key element that helps prepare the ground for the rise of autocrats.
     Another group to exploit would seem to be the people who see themselves excluded for religious or cultural reasons.  In Turkey, the religious factor is obviously at play in several ways.  First in the former dominance of a secular elite.  Second, in some discriminatory laws around religious clothing that excluded people from higher education and government positions.  Cultural exclusion can also be seen. At play, I suspect, was also a disdain towards the people and society of smaller, more traditional Anatolian towns and villages, which also suffered, coincidentally from higher levels of poverty.  A would-be dictator gets their support by appearing to take them seriously, by speaking their cultural language, by granting them respect.  Which "respect" also seems to be a big selling point for Trump in the eyes of many mid-western and small town Americans (who also experience higher levels of poverty and joblessness.)
    A third issue also seems to be exploitable by would-be autocrats, the issue of "the other", of immigrants, (or of the "foreign" E.U regulations in some European countries).  It is essentially a reverse side of cultural exclusion  - the fear of becoming a cultural stranger in your own country due to immigrant culture or culture imposed from outside. This is the issue that can be used with the middle-class, secular citizen. This trope is being exploited in many countries, but alone it doesn't seem to get the would-be autocrat too far.  Economic exclusion and cultural exclusion seem to be more powerful issues to exploit.

    The other interesting idea she brings up, which is peculiar to our current technology and era, is the idea of the mob - how harsh it can be, how dangerous, how beyond reason.  In situations like that of Turkey (and the U.S.) Twitter etc. essentially function as tools for the formation of mobs at lightening speed.  The mob follows you everywhere because it infiltrates your online life.  It can also easily track your address, your family and connections.  This is a new and very scary tool for enforcing conformism and for silencing dissent through fear.

A People's History of Scotland - Chris Bambery

An interesting book that takes a working person's perspective on history and changes in Scotland since the 1600s.  Some time is spent looking at the Clearances, but a lot of the book chronicles social history of urban and working class Scots through the Industrial Revolution to the post-Independence vote.
A lot of the history of Scotland since the beginning of industrialization seems to be a history of unions and social protest for better working conditions, better pay, stable jobs.  This history, particularly in the 20th century, seems to mark it off from the history of England, where social protest seems to have been less of a force (except in the Border regions, which shares similarities with Scotland economically.
Bambery manages to bring out the elements of colonialism operating in the relation between England and Scotland.
He also touches on a lot of other issues, some worth exploring further:
- blows up the myth of Scottish clans, tartans and all:  upper class English romantic invention in the late 1800s
- the general decline of England since 1900:  causes, elements
- Thatcher's goals and policies which deliberately lead to the collapse of British manufacturing, social hardship, and incidentally shifted the economy to a London/finance base
- also a source for Scottish authors, both current and historical, who stand apart from the English literary stream

Through this book you get a sense of the ugly, exploitative effects of the British/Anglo model of capitalism.

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....

Kids These Days: Human Capital and the Making of Millennials - Malcolm Harris

A brilliant analysis by a Millennial of the economic and social forces at work over the past twenty years or so that created the environment which has shaped his generation's culture and outlook.
A very pointed examination of the role of corporate culture, economic individualism, and the every-man-for-himself  ethos of the ruling oligarchy of the U.S. in shaping the stressful, isolated and alienated space we now occupy.
The book is well-divided into sections on various important shaping influences, starting with the mania around homework, moving through university, changes in the work environment, decline of social support networks, identity politics, pills and so on.

Not a hopeful book.  At best 50/50 - he sees either fascism or rejection/revolution as the two alternate paths...

Worth rereading as there is a lot to absorb.

In the Shadows of the American Century - Alfred W. McCoy

A well-researched catalogue of all the conditions and geopolitical shifts that are easing the U.S. out of its position of dominance.
- a brief examination of how the US become so powerful after WW II (economics in a fractured world)
- fracturing of social cohesion at home
- American loss of status and credibility through support for oppressive regimes, use of torture, covert operations harmful to the populations of other countries
- over reliance on military threat to force other countries to acquiesce the US lead / interests
- decline in economic performance (education failure, investment failure)
-decline in share of world economic activity as other countries' economic performance grows

The sections on China are very interesting.   They have a completely different approach to foreign relations.  They use their enormous reserves to build infrastructure partnerships with other countries and improve economies for both partners.   Some of the infrastructure projects are huge:  rail lines to Europe,  high speed rail lines to Europe (China to Berlin in 2 days!)  Infrastructure to link Europe, China and Africa in one large trading block. 

McCoy spends time at the beginning of the book exploring an old idea - Central Asia as the strategic key to world dominance.  If you can control or create a network linking this area with Europe, the East and Africa, then you have the dominant economy in the world.  He sees much of China's foreign policy as working towards this goal.

A book to reread, as there are many threads.

Next: Piccolo libro sulla globalizzazione - Alessandro Baricco

Unfortunately, not translated.
Il meglio libro che ho mai letto sulla globalizzazione.  Piccolo, da vero (90 pagine), ama esamina l'essenziale del fenomeno - cos'è, problemi nel disegno nella cultura popolare, effetti postivi e negativi.  Insomma, l'autore non veda un globalizzazione 'pulita' come dica - i problemi della globalizzazione sono i problemi inerenti del capitalismo ama più profondi perché non c'è controlli legali del fatto che e transnazionale come fenomeno.
Ama piuttosto di smettere o disfare la globalizzazione pensa che dobbiamo andare a fondo - una globalizzazione che viene non solo dai banchi e dei manager, ama un gran movimento di globalizzazione dell'umanità - il sogno di un solo mondo.

Un'idea interessante - che la guerra era la globalizzazione del passato; il modo di dare più grande campo di attività ai soldi dei capitalisti.

Slow Motion Riot - Peter Blauner

Both a gripping read and an interesting account of crack culture and police culture in the 90s in New York City.
It also explores issues around poverty and drug culture, how people end up there, what choices are made, how difficult it is to turn people and situations around,    Blauner doesn't come down on one side or other in terms of responsibilities - there is criticism of both society and its institutions, and the choices people make that lead them to crack culture and crack life.  The institutions exhibit institutional racism, the black characters are decidedly not sympathetic.  He does a good job of portraying the confused thinking (or lack of) behind some of the stupid things the characters do.  He also gives a sense of how thin or delicate the liberal view point can be, and how easy it is to slide into blame and scorn.
The conflict between political correctness and the reality of events on the ground.

Welcome to the Poison Chalice - James K. Galbraith

A collection of essays by Galbraith on the Greek financial crisis.  He comes at the issues from the same perspective as Yannis Varoufakis.  A bit repetiive, as the is essays and articles are addressing the same issues for different publications.
The best point he makes (apart from the total economic nonsense of Bruxelles approach to the crisis) is the true concern of the leading EU and IMF politicians and leaders:  #1 political survival and career  #2 protect the banks  #3 maintenance of EU system status quo  #4 populations of countries in crisis

Worth at least dipping in to.

Putin Country - Anne Garrels

An interesting look at a middle-sized city in central Russia, near the border with Kazakstan.  Garrels visited the city over several years for extended periods of time, made friends, got inside the society a bit.   It is an interesting look at the lives, attitudes and perspectives of different kinds of people living in the city.
You get a sense of how life can be harsh there - the role of corruption, the power of money, the indifference of the State, families alone in a sea of opportunistic individualism.  She gives you a sense of the blind spots, the places where ideas and reality don't match, where rhetoric wanders off from basic realities.  It is interesting to see where nations' mythologies diverge from historical and actual reality - there is something tragic in the Greek sense lurking in these dark spots.
The city was one of the Soviet's centres of nuclear technology, and there are endless stories about pollution and contamination ignored, denied, hidden.  It is still a very toxic environment.

The book reminds me of another social idea (wish I could remember the book).  When a society experiences a prolonged period of oppression, exploitation and fundamentally dishonest leadership, social and moral bonds eventually break down, leaving everyone operating as an isolated agent.  The example sighted in the source book is southern Italy and Sicily.  This type of social structure is very persistent and rebuilding social trust and social morals seems to be next to impossible.   Modern Russia as the result of a century of Soviet Communism and Putin's kleptocracy. 

The Global Minotaur - Yanis Varoufakis

An interesting look at the crash of 2009 and the post WW2 economic order in the west.  Varoufakis writes well on what could otherwise be a boring or obscure (or both) topic.

His central idea is the idea of profit recycling.  There will always be nations that accumulate more wealth, that will be more developed - what keeps the system in balance is some mechanism (often an investment mechanism, either private or government) that cycles some of the surplus wealth back into the poorer or less developed areas.  A classic example of this is the US Marshall Plan after WW2, and their heavy investment in Japan after the war.    U.S. excess wealth was recycled in the form of low-interest government and business loans. 

In the 60s, as the U.S. become a debtor nation instead of a surplus nation, a more complex system was developed, where profits of U.S. surplus trading partners came back into the U.S. either as government bond purchases or as investment in Wall Street.  This money was used to provide loans to government, companies and individuals to support development projects but especially high levels of consumption through debt - which in turn benefited trading partners... An ingenious system.  However, when the banks got greedy and started high risk lending practices, the house of cards collapsed when consumer liquidity collapsed.   With the collapse of the U.S., this leaves the whole system without the necessary recycling mechanism, which explains the very slow recovery of the world economy to date.

Varoufakis maintains that that the biggest weakness in the E.U is that there is no similar recycling mechanism for distributing excess wealth from Germany in particular.  This leads to inevitable collapse as the less developed nations become poorer and poorer.  German and French banks also indulged in risky lending practices similar to American banks.

Varoufakis is not a popular guy.  I suspect his ideas are too challenging for the status quo economists and politicians...

Vanishing New York: How a Great City Lost Its Soul - Jeremiah Moss

Brilliant look at gentrification - causes, specifics, effects.  Told through the changes that have happened in different New York neighbourhoods.  He looks at specific longtime businesses, at the politics and policy behind changes, at the effects on lower income families, at the disaster that sometimes follows high rent gentrification.  He also adds comments and analysis from the literature on gentrification and its effects - these are good sources for followup.  There is also some discussion of the social changes that are behind this gentrification and suburbanization of the city.
I like his view of the historical role and importance of cities - essentially an environment of freedom and tolerance.
Reading this book brings back a lot of memories from my trips to New York in the late 70s.  Also, early days in Toronto.  The process of urban change has been similar in Toronto, though not so extreme or so rapid.  But the result, the "same-ification", the whitewashing, the commodification has been the same.
Interesting to read someone writing about the same questions and complaints I have had about Toronto over the past few years.  A subject to pursue.

The real question though, is what next?  If the city has lost its place and role as a home for diversity and difference, where do you go?  Scattered and down your own rabbit hole?

And the Weak Suffer What They Must? Yanis Varoufakis

An excellent look at the current crisis situation in the EU.  Varoufakis discusses some complex economic models but he explains them clearly, so it is possible to learn quite a bit about macroeconomics.  The goes over the Bretton Woods agreement, then the financialization structure that took its place after the Nixon Shock (when the US stopped backing European currencies at a fixed rate convertible to gold).  He also traces the history of the EU idea from its earliest stages as a heavy industry cartel centred in France and Germany.  He sees this origin as a corporate cartel as a major shadow hanging over the further development of the EU as primarily a regulatory economic block for large corporate interests - rules based, technocratic and essentially apolitical, asocial and antidemocratic.
He also looks at some of the shady practices of the EU bank in Frankfort leading up to the collapse of Greece and several other smaller EU countries in 2009.  Predatory loan practices similar to the subprime mortgage crisis in the US.  Banks pushing loans to high risk businesses and countries that could never pay them back, and then cutting the loans up to make derivatives of "shared risk" that were then sold to other EU national banks - who of course threatened to collapse when the true value of the derivatives emerged in the 2009 crisis.
He sees the EU technocrats and governing bodies as suffering from dogmatism which keeps them from seeing both the real nature of the economic problems and also the possible solutions which could be enacted (except that they come from outside accepted dogmatic thinking).
The German political and banking elite comes off quite badly in his analysis.
A complex book, worth rereading.

Time to Start Thinking - Edward Luce

A very clear, sharp analysis of the many challenges America is facing as it slowly slips into decline.  A chapter on each of several issues - middle class decline, poor education system, dubious value of free trade, outdated ideologies, rise of other dynamic and innovative economic centres, bureaucracy, political dishonesty, entrenched special interest groups.
Luce is only moderately optimistic that the situation can be turned around.
Very well-done.  Doesn't seem too biased in any particular direction.

Utopia for Realists - Rutger Bregman

This book opens with a set of surprising statistics that make you realize how much the world has changed in a positive way since 1900 - deaths from all causes are way down, wars are less common, major infectious diseases are disappearing, extreme poverty is down, hunger is down, literacy is up.  Such a contrast to the picture you get reading the daily news media.
His central argument is how we need to rethink our relationship to work and income in this age of plenty, especially as machines become a progressively more productive part of our economy.  One idea is that the time has come for a guaranteed minimum income for everyone - this includes a look at two surprising experiments with this idea back in the 60s in the US (associated with Nixon!) and Canada.  The other idea is that we need to look beyond work to give meaning and purpose to our lives - the kind of socially positive activities that can be engaged in when work doesn't eat up all your time.
There are lots of other threads attached to this central idea - it is a rather dense book.  Worth a reread.

Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow - Yuval Noah Harari

A very interesting look at some of the possible important trends emerging as a result of technological change largely.  A look at how human potential is shifting as technology changes.
Some main themes:

- human immortality; the possibility of drastically increasing the human life span

- the slow, step-by-step ceding of control of decisions to technology (smartphones), big data and AI; what happens if (when?) AI begins to set its own priorities

- a brutal look at how humans have manipulated biology to produce the modern meat factory;  the possibility that intelligent computers could come to treat humans in a similar fashion

- the importance of the stories we tell in the evolution of humans and society

- threats to liberalism as humans become less necessary as a work force

- the concept of living beings as algorithms; problems and issues with this idea

A brief summary.  A very dense book.  Worth rereading.

The Return of History - Jennifer Welsh

This book and author is causing a stir right now, which seems a bit strange to me.  Her arguments only make sense if you were naive enough to buy into Fukuyama's idea of the triumph of liberal capitalism and the western social model after the fall of the Communist bloc.
Welsh's book basically points out that things haven't worked out this way - the barbaric wars, pirate capitalism, and social equality that were always there under the liberal capitalist propaganda / daydream / theoretical ramblings are all still there.  Perhaps the western liberal capitalist worldview was more fantasy than realized - in much of the world with oppressive dictators, grinding poverty, stolen economic resources and slave-like exploitative work conditions (usually supported by some agglomeration of Western powers), the capitalist dream looked pretty much like what Welsh describes for the whole time period.  There is no question of return; it is pretty much a continuation.  The only place these type of conflict points might seem like a return is in western societies themselves, which were relatively protected to maintain public support for the ruling elites.  Now that we have globalization, a happy home public is not really necessary anymore, so things may return to being a little harsher at home...

The one thing that annoyed me is, in her discussion of Putin's new "model of government", she is not blunt enough or harsh enough.  She seems to argue that it is simply a different model of economic and political rules, expectations, pathways.  This is too kind, and I think, a bit naive.  Putin's model is a pirate capitalism model.  His concept of managing the public is to enforce rule of law so he and his cronies can go on pocketing everything they can without being disturbed by the courts, demonstrations, alternate political parties and various other social "disorders".

Perhaps and eyeopener for some, but only those lost in a liberal capitalist dream...

Why Nations Fail - Daron Acemoglu & James A. Robinson

A brilliant analyses of the state of many of the world's countries based on the nature of the economic and political structures within the country, and also the relationship between the two.
They analyze many examples to back up their central ideas.
They analyze both economics and governments based on two polar opposites which are different aspects of the same dichotomy.  Economically, there are inclusive or extractive structures operating.  Politically, there are inclusive or exclusive/oligarchic/dictatorial structures in place.  Inclusive economic structures encourage the dispersion of wealth through society, extractive structures concentrate wealth at the top.  Inclusive structures encourage innovation, economic renewal/evolution and competition.  Exclusive structures discourage investment and promote stasis and stagnation, as change threatens the economic and political elite.  Same for exclusive/inclusive political structures. Oligarchic or dictatorial political structures can promote strong short-term growth as they can dictate where resources, both financial and human, are directed.  The growth does not last, though, because of the tendency towards stasis and economic stagnation to guard positions of privilege.
They analyze various political and economic structures - colonialism and post-colonial government and economics, Stalin, Britain, China, and others - within their parameters, and a lot of it makes sense.  I find I am seeing current events and history in a different light using these concepts.

There are also several sections on a question that has puzzled me for quite some time - how the British ended up developing this particular democratic system in combination with a strong economy.  An interesting read.

Some other ideas worth considering - the importance of a centralized state as a prerequisite for inclusive economic and political structures.  Centralized states can go both ways, but without centralized power there is no chance for inclusive structures.  Everything is just chaos and infighting.

Another is the sheer chance of Britain and Europe developing the systems they now have.  They talk about critical historical junctures, or moments of possible conflict - which forces win is not a forgone conclusion.   If you are lucky, the inclusive forces win and life improves for most people.  If not...
It also makes you realize that the continued existence of inclusive structures and economies is not a given; they can be slowly eroded by small changes in laws and regulations - I think you see this happening to a degree in the U.S. for the past decade or two.

The ideas in this book also make you realize the enormous difficulties of changing exclusive structures in failed and failing states, as these structures often have very deep historical roots.  Our current structures are the result of centuries of slow change and growth - it is close to impossible to impose these in a country in a short time, especially if the elites benefit from the existing exclusive structures.

Another idea that strikes me is that most people on the planet live in extractive economic structures of varying degrees, and with no real political or social power.  I can't imagine what it is like to live in a society where you are seen as something to be exploited (labour, taxes) and where the government has absolutely no care taking function.  Pirate states...

Ill Fares the Land - Tony Judt

One of his most pointed books looking at modern society, how we got here and what the serious problems are.
He looks at both how the two World Wars and, most interesting, the 60s social revolution have landed us where we are today.

He explores and defines the idea of social democracy, as opposed to socialism, and why it rose to prominence after the horrific social fallout of the two world wars.  He also looks at how the 60s obsession with self-expression and individual freedom led to the demise of social democracy and the rise of social relativism.

He underlines the continuing need for strong government, and democratic participation, in the face of  the challenges and social upheaval heading our way from both ecological causes and the effects of globalization.  He underlines the impossibility of big business dealing with crisis issues (even like the crash in 2009 which was exclusively economic).  He points out that, while we have allowed much of our economy to become global, government is still local, and cannot be any other way.

One issue he brings up that I am not sure I see the way around is that much of the social democratic benefits were enacted in a time when people had a much stronger cohesive national identity.  We have to have something to build the concept of "group" on if we are going to work together as a society.  Consumerism and the fragmentation of social life through the internet has tended to minimize these larger local group identities.

Worth rereading.