The Trouble with Capitalism: An Enquiry into the Causes of Global Economic Failure - Hardcover

'Identifies an impressive array of potential problems.' The Christian Science Monitor 'Shutt is one of the few to expose capitalism's lies and imperfections, faults that critically threaten our democratic survival.' Publishers Weekly 'In this thoughtful treatment of the current economic scene, one feels convinced that the collapse of Western civilization as we know it is at hand.' Library Journal 'Offers no easy answers, but suggests the West is going to have to face the fact that profit-maximising capitalism has run its course.' Tribune 'Based on wide knowledge, well documented source material and sharp analysis, everyone who reads it will learn from it...' Liberation 'Shutt [has] a message for every saver and investor: a crash of 1929 proportions is almost inevitable' Dan Atkinson in The Guardian

Recent instability in the financial markets has shaken confidence in the global economic order. Is the current variant of ?free market? capitalism in fact sustainable? This remarkable book explains its underlying economic fragility as a result of: The growing redundancy of both capital and labour because of changing technologies and chronic slow growth since the 1970s; The desperate struggle of organised capital to prevent its redundancy from being reflected in a 1930s-type collapse in the price of financial assets; The consequent distortion of official policy -- in areas like corporate subsidies, taxation, pensions and privatisation -- to help maintain the value of capital. This book exposes the sham of the laissez faire prospectus. In fact, state power and resources are increasingly propping up capital while pretending to roll back the frontiers of the state.