This book seeks to understand and trace the history of
Capitalism. It includes essays of Jacques Adda, Michel Aglietta, Robert Boyer and Immanuel Wallerstein, who had contributed originally these essays to the journal Alternatives économiques (1997) in its special issue entitled
500 years of capitalism. The
author defines modern capitalism as a result of the control by economic interests of all other human activities in their manifold aspects, such as political, cultural, religious, etc. The author identifies six phases of
globalization, which he defines and organizes in the following chronological order: (1) 1500-1765: Commercial capitalism and its march of world conquest; (2) 1765-1873: Industrial Revolutionor the triumph of capitalism; (3) 1873-1914: The second industrial revolution; (4) 1914-1944: The big crisis of capitalism; (5)1944-1971: The great expansion under the american leadership; (6) A tripolar domination by an unregulated capitalism. In its Part Two we are provided the views of three scholars cited earlier, presenting to us ten paradoxes of the contemporary capitalism (Robert Boyer), new regulations which should emerge (Michel Aglietta), and the crumbling of the system (I. Wallerstein). By way of conclusion, the author seems to confirm the viewpoint of the proponents of the
critical theory first defended by the School of Frankfurt. Points to a demographic explosion made possible by capitalist technologies, but with little success in promoting a corresponding system of resource production and just distribution. Its mismanagement of
ecology and its promotion of demographic dislocations with all its consequences, call for urgent forms of regulations. These can only depend upon the political options of the social groups in power.
Plus de critiques à propos de 500 ans de capitalisme: La Mondialization de Vasco da Gama à Bill Gates