In this short RSA Animate, radical sociologist David Harvey asks if it is time to look beyond capitalism, towards a new social order that would allow us to live within a system that could be responsible, just and humane.
David Harvey is the Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY).
A leading social theorist of international standing, he received his PhD in Geography from the University of Cambridge in 1961. Widely influential, he is among the top 20 most cited authors in the humanities.
Economic system in which most of the means of production are privately owned, and production is guided and income distributed largely through the operation of markets. Capitalism has been dominant in the Western world since the end of mercantilism. It was fostered by the Reformation, which sanctioned hard work and frugality, and by the rise of industry during the Industrial Revolution, especially the English textile industry (16th–18th centuries). Unlike earlier systems, capitalism used the excess of production over consumption to enlarge productive capacity rather than investing it in economically unproductive enterprises such as palaces or cathedrals. The strong national states of the mercantilist era provided the social conditions, such as uniform monetary systems and legal codes, necessary for the rise of capitalism. The ideology of classical capitalism was expressed in Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations (1776), and Smith's free-market theories were widely adopted in the 19th century. In the 20th century the Great Depression effectively ended laissez-faire economics in most countries, but the demise of the state-run command economies of eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union (seecommunism) and the adoption of some free-market principles in China left capitalism unrivaled (if not untroubled) by the beginning of the 21st century.
(born May 5, 1818, Trier, Rhine province, Prussia [Ger.]—died March 14, 1883, London, Eng.) German political philosopher, economic theorist, and revolutionary. He studied humanities at the University of Bonn (1835) and law and philosophy at the University of Berlin (1836–41), where he was exposed to the works of G.W.F. Hegel. Working as a writer in Cologne and Paris (1842–45), he became active in leftist politics. In Paris he met Friedrich Engels, who would become his lifelong collaborator. Expelled from France in 1845, he moved to Brussels, where his political orientation matured and he and Engels made names for themselves through their writings. Marx was invited to join a secret left-wing group in London, for which he and Engels wrote the Communist Manifesto (1848). In that same year, Marx organized the first Rhineland Democratic Congress in Germany and opposed the king of Prussia when he dissolved the Prussian Assembly. Exiled, he moved to London in 1849, where he spent the rest of his life. He worked part-time as a European correspondent for the New York Tribune (1851–62) while writing his major critique of capitalism, Das Kapital (3 vol., 1867–94). He was a leading figure in the First International from 1864 until the defection of Mikhail Bakunin in 1872. See alsoMarxism; communism; dialectical materialism.
Really? Where's the 'beef'? Capitalism has been steadily self-destructing---just like the cartoon cycles Harvey draws. Communism, the other brand, is contradicting too. So where's the synthesis? Neither pure economic model works anymore---ah, but something in between....
My kids and grandkids will see it happen---a limited playing field for "for profit" competition and a public arena for the common good 'goods & services.' And don't hand me that "what will motivate us to better ourselves?" crap! New economic paradigms... new adaptive shifts in human motives. Ever heard of evolution? Why don't you Milton Friedman-lovers get out of the way and go count your Krugerrands?
I love the "I don't know the solution, but surely Marx is right!" This is the same crap that has been said on education campuses for the last 100+ years. Let me put it clearly.
Marxism. Fails. Every. Time.
Marx makes the false assumption that the workers are the noble group of people who are suppressed by those above them. Yet when given power, they do what is natural, try to acquire more pay for less work until the system breaks down. The worst cases are obviously communism. Which because one can't progress with money leads to people progressing with power. This naturally leads to dictatorships and ruined economies.
Capitalism succeeds because it, so far, is the only economic system that takes into account that people want to better themselves, and by creating things, that other people want, the creators are rewarded for doing so. Currently a properly regulated Capitalist system (one that promotes savings and down payments as well as proper investment) is the only thing that has ever worked and promoted the general welfare of a country over a select group of individuals.
That’s very original and illuminating analysis of corrupt, risky, failed (if not already, then soon) economic system which so many countries are for some strange reasons are embracing.
Any comments about system of the countries where statutes of Marx used to be everywhere and now have somehow disappeared? Countries were Marxist economy made it unable to feed population so only iron fist could keep populace in check?
There are still some of them left, any comments?
marecki
Capitalism is bad, capitalism is bad, capitalism is bad- Marxism is good. So besides an intellectual analytical appraisal of the current economic state of the world, what is the solution? Carl Jung said that a collective problem, if not identified as such, is a personal problem. We all know that capitalism is out of control, literally, but just recognizing this doesn't solve the problem. The real problem here is the intentional pulling of the marxist-capitalist pendulum. I remember, from my childhood, this one type of glue that had a symbol of two horses pulling two submerged boxes in opposite directions. This somehow gave the illusion that the glue was very strong, even so strong that the strength of two horses could not separate boxes. Metaphorically speaking, the crap is not one of the two boxes left/right, rich/poor, capitalist/marxist, and it's not the glue. It's the horses who pull the structure apart, be it the capitalist or religious fanatic, the employee or the employer, the government or the governed... two-lens perspective is so vain...
member. 
