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Lester C. Thurow

The Future of Capitalism: How Today's Economic Forces Shape Tomorrow's World Paperback – April 1, 1997

by Lester C. Thurow (Author)

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The author of The Zero-Sum Society explains how the fall of Communism has changed today's economic picture and created a global economy and how the current economic situation will impact the future. Reprint. Tour.

Print length

400 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Penguin Books
Publication date

April 1, 1997
Reading age

18 years and up
Dimensions

5.18 x 0.91 x 7.66 inches
ISBN-10

0140263284
ISBN-13

978-0140263282
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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A "farsighted, magisterial," ultimately gloomy look at trends in international trade from the influential MIT economist.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Penguin Books; 0 edition (April 1, 1997)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 400 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0140263284
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0140263282
Reading age ‏ : ‎ 18 years and up
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 10.2 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.18 x 0.91 x 7.66 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #2,807,649 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1,529 in Free Enterprise & Capitalism
- #2,312 in Macroeconomics (Books)
- #3,919 in Theory of Economics

Customer Reviews:
30 ratings

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sixfourlion

Received book in good condition

Reviewed in the United States on October 26, 2016

Verified Purchase

Received in good condition

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Luc REYNAERT

Capitalism is perfectly compatible with slavery, democracy not

Reviewed in the United States on July 6, 2008

Lester C. Thurow sees five forces that will dominate the world economy after the fall of the Berlin Wall with the creation of a Second World (the old communist one) between the First and the Third ones.

forces
1. with the fall of the Berlin Wall, well-educated but cheap labor from the Second World will migrate to the First World putting wages in the First one under pressure;
2. a technological shift to an era of man-made brainpower industry and concomitantly the disappearance of Ricardo's competitive advantage;
3. considerable demographic changes: a big increase of older people (the financial enemy) in the First World and massive migration of unskilled labor from the Third World into the First one, putting again global average wages under pressure
4. a globalization of the world economy
5. an era without a dominant power which could function as an economic locomotive

capitalism on its own
Before the fall of the Berlin Wall, the capitalist world had been held together by the fear of communism. Now, capitalism, with at its heart `profit maximalization by minimizing costs and maximizing revenues', stands alone. It has only one adversary: democracy (politics).

capitalism v. democracy
Democracy believes in a completely equal distribution of political power (one man, one vote), while capitalism believes that it is the duty of the economically fit to drive the unfit into economic extinction, or, as Spencer said, to starve them to death. ('Contract for America': if faced with the reality of starvation, everyone will buckle down to work).
But, the survival-of-the-fittest version of capitalism doesn't work. E.g., a pure capitalistic system would do nothing against long-term environmental problems like global warming.

politics
The answer should come from the political sphere, from democratically elected governments (undemocratic governments will only serve special interests). Politicians need a vision of how to reduce inequalities and how to raise global average wages. Otherwise, any society will retreat to ethnicity.
But what do we see? Many governments have negative time horizons. They are borrowing (budget deficits) from the funds that should be used for investments for the future. In these circumstances, the intrinsic problems of capitalism visible at its birth (instability, rising inequality, an army of have-nots) can and will not be solved.

In this masterly analysis of the actual and future way of the world, Lester C. Thurow puts the democratically elected politicians before their responsibilities: To-morrow before Today, more equality and more democracy.
This book is a must read for all those who want to understand the world we live in and who are interested in the future of mankind.

2 people found this helpful

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Packed With Knowledge!

Reviewed in the United States on May 5, 2004

This is a particularly important book for two types of people to read: those who believe economic instability and inequality will lead capitalism to implode (they're wrong); and those who believe the economic engine of capitalism is running just fine, especially in the United States, and simply needs to be left alone by meddling do-gooders, thank you (they are wrong too). Neither view is realistic. Lester C. Thurow is quite well suited to explain why. He is practically a brand name on national television, known for making more sense of the economy than anyone could possibly expect from a dean at MIT. Although Thurow wrote this book in 1996, the trade deficit, the skewed distribution of revenue and the disparity between rich and poor continue to demonstrate the validity of his conclusion that fewer and fewer can get more and more for only so long. We highly recommend his insightful analysis, wishing only that Thurow proposed deeper solutions for the problems he so ably diagnosed.

9 people found this helpful

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Dalton C. Rocha

Good, but has some absurds and is a little outdated

Reviewed in the United States on June 28, 2006

I read this book here in Brazil.This book has many good facts and is good to read.About Cingapore's pension sistem, the author is 100% agree.About old times Bismark's sistem(used in Brazil, USA,etc.) the author tells us that, these sistems are doomed to be a failure in the future.

This book also has some absurds.On chapter 7, the author claims that, any other country in world's history was so powerfull as USA, in 1990 decade.Nonsense.Between 1945 and 1949, USA had atomic monopoly and his GDP was bigger than all rest of the world together.Again, also on chapter 7, this book claims that after the end of USSR, the oil from the gulf now isn't essential.Nonsense.Persian Gulf has about 65% of oil in the world.And we must know that there's a link between oil price in the world.If the oil's price exported by Brazil rises, than the oil's price from Algeria, Angola and Iran will, also rises too.

Another reviewer of this book claims that this book is USSR's friend.Nonsense.Even forgeting the genocide of about 70,000,000 people made by eugenicists/communists such as Lenin, Trotsky, Lazar Kaganovich,etc. ,this book never claims that socialism is a way to help any country, in his development.Also I must tell you, that this book, also is a little outdated today.

Reviewed in the United States on April 5, 2013

In this book, Lester Thurow, argues that "Capitalism" in the Globalist George W. Bush, neo-Gilded Age sense is an ideology that doesn't fully satisfy the needs of a great many people. Under this capitalism, why have public schools, or state funded public roads-only profit matters. Thurow argues that since the end of the Cold War, the squeeze is on for the middle class. This situation is unsustainable and some new political idea will come along to challenge this "Capitalism."

Thurow uses examples, statistics, and anecdotes to bear out his thesis. Since the book has been published the truth of his ideas seem more apparent. The trick is to find a sustainable economic idea that can create wealth production while avoiding the pitfalls of the tyranny of Globalism we suffer from.

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The Future of Capitalism: How Today's Economic Forces Shape Tomorrow's World Paperback – April 1, 1997

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