Reviews for American capitalism

The average rating for American capitalism based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2016-09-11 00:00:00 Jesse Sexx Writing in 1952, Galbraith argues that the prior 20 years (the great depression and Ameria's WW2-driven recovery) proves that we must reconsider a fundamental economic assumption. Namely, that perfect competition does not exist in the US economy, and that there is enough consolidation of businesses in most industries that companies do indeed have control over prices. This in turn limits optimal market efficiency, and "is different only in degree and precision" of a single-firm monopoly. Galbraith goes on to argue that the most important power dynamic to study in American economics is therefore not how competitors interact to optimize prices, but how customers and suppliers interact to split profits. Instead of competition, he calls this "countervailing power". Namely, when one industry consolidates (say the US Steel industry), the important dynamic to understand is how labor organizes (one of the key vendors of US Steel is its employees) or how customers organize (e.g., the auto industry). Galbraith then points out that the US Government plays a critical role in establishing countervailing power where there wasn't before, through laws and reforms like the minimum wage or workers' safety regulation. Obviously, this role for the US Government is controversial in practice "Increasingly, in our time, we may expect domestic political differences to turn on the question of supporting or not supporting efforts to develop countervailing power. Liberalism will be identified with the buttressing of weak bargaining positions in the economy; conservatism - and this is its proper function - will be identified with the protection of positions of original power. There will be a debate over whether weak positions have been unduly strengthened" Galbraith goes on to say where and why government intervention in the economy to establish countervailing power is important, but the conclusions to me ultimately feel pretty obvious.

Review # 2 was written on 2009-04-11 00:00:00 Rose Campbell I read this along with several other Galbraith books for the Capitalism, Democracy, Socialism class taught under the Philosophy Department at Loyola University Chicago during the first semester of 1981/82. It is one of Galbraith's weaker texts, and one of his earliest, being effectively the first volume of a series including The New Industrial State and Economics and the Public Purpose.