CAPITALISM

"An A-Z business quotations" is the name of an article taken from "The Economist". Recently published, July 6th 2012, it is a collection of quotations about capitalism and its different shades.

The first paragraph has the function to introduce the topic of the discussion: capitalism in different times according to different people.

Indeed by reading the article, the intelligent reader may notice that the idea of capitalism changes depending on he or she who is speaking ( a philospher or an economist or a gangster) and the time when the person is speaking in.

From the quotations from some writers such as Al Capone, a gangster who lived between 1899 and 1947, Thomas  Sowell, an economist who lived in the second half of the XX century, and Thomas Friedman, a writer auhtor of The Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization (1999), you can see capitalism from different perspectives either positive or negative. On the other hand though, some people such as Winston Churchill ( the British Prime Minister under Hitler's dictatorship)  show us the double face  nature of capitalism that depends on the use you make out of it. 

The definition of Capitalism belongs to the first part of the XX century. It was supposed to give people happiness but, apparently, it's only a "frontier constantly shifting location from crisis to crisis" as Naomi Klein affirms in her "The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism".

In concreate terms however, people do not spend all that is earned by work. Why? Because they don't know how to invest in useful things for the future; it's easier to make things for today. This is the point of Keynes in his "The General Theory of Employment Interest and Money" and specifically in the third book "The Propensity to Consume". He analyzes the pros and cons of gold-mining vs building new houses, which is useful but has the side effect of decreasing the rent of old ones. He also asserts that gold mines are one of the most important value that contributed to civilisation.

Unfotunately, nowadays, we can't simply talk about capitalism with a common  register as Marx or Chirchill did. We have to use an economic register and pay close attention to what capitalism means in our society in order to catch its multiple aspects.