History of Ideas – The Post-Capitalist Society

Paul Mason: PostCapitalism: A Guide to Our Future

October 25, 2015 by Admin 1 Comment

This short video lays out Paul Mason’s perspective on a post-capitalist future. I have not yet read his new book, PostCapitalism: A Guide to Our Future, but it is in my queue. Here is a link to an article written by Mason which elaborates his position: The End of Capitalism Has Begun

Louis Althusser and The Absolutely Fundamental Thesis

October 18, 2015 by Admin Leave a Comment

This may prove a challenging post. The French philosopher Louis Althusser (1918-1990) considered this subject — the question of which aspect of the mode of production has primacy — to be a difficult one to posit, let alone answer. He begins his essay, On the Primacy of the Relations of Production Over the Productive Forces, (a title which […]

Joseph A. Schumpeter: Can Capitalism Survive?

August 30, 2015 by Admin Leave a Comment

“Can capitalism survive? No. I do not think it can.” So begins Joseph Schumpeter’s classic essay, Can Capitalism Survive?, which constitutes the middle third of his 1942 book, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy. Schumpeter goes on to say, The thesis I shall endeavor to establish is that the actual and prospective performance of the capitalist system […]

Peter Drucker: The Post-Capitalist Society

March 14, 2015 by Admin Leave a Comment

Peter Drucker’s book, “Post-Capitalist Society”, published in 1993, is included in this section on the history of ideas for one reason — its title. If you search the term “post-capitalist,” Drucker’s book is bound to come up. This may lead to some confusion. Is this website associated with the book? It is not. Drucker’s book has the […]

Daniel Bell: The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism

March 14, 2015 by Admin Leave a Comment

Content Coming Soon!

Jeremy Rifkin: The Zero Marginal Cost Society

March 14, 2015 by Admin Leave a Comment

Content Coming Soon! http://www.thezeromarginalcostsociety.com/

The growing perception that existing social institutions are unreasonable and unjust, that reason has become unreason, and right wrong, is only proof that in the modes of production and exchange changes have silently taken place with which the social order, adapted to earlier economic conditions, is no longer in keeping -

Friedrich Engels, Socialism: Utopian and Scientific

Modern bourgeois society, with its relations of production, of exchange and of property, a society that has conjured up such gigantic means of production and of exchange, is like the sorcerer who is no longer able to control the powers of the netherworld whom he has called up by his spells.

-Marx and Engels

Man today is confronted with the most fundamental choice; not that between Capitalism and Communism, but that between robotism (of both the capitalist and communist variety), or Humanistic Communitarian Socialism. Most facts seem to indicate that he is choosing robotism, and that means, in the long run, insanity and destruction. But all these facts are not strong enough to destroy faith in man's reason, good will, and sanity. As long as we can think of other alternatives, we are not lost; as long as we can consult together and plan together, we can hope. But, indeed, the shadows are lengthening; the voices of insanity are becoming louder. We are in reach of achieving a state of humanity which corresponds to the vision of our great teachers; yet we are in danger of the destruction of all civilization, or of robotization.

- Erich Fromm, The Sane Society (1955)

In the social production of their life, men enter into definite relations that are indispensable and independent of their will, relations of production which correspond to a definite stage of development of their material productive forces. The sum total of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which rises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness... It is not the consciousness of men that determines their social being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness.

- Karl Marx

The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed, the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist....Soon or late, it is ideas, not vested interests, which are dangerous for good or evil.

- John Maynard Keynes, The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money