3 Review(s)

In the world of the 90% heterogeneous middle-middle majority, which we find throughout the advanced industrialised economies in both East and West, all are equally affected by the major socio-economic issues of our time. This has resulted inevitably in eroding left/right (or class-based) politics as a relevant or useful tool for the future in advancing the cause of justice and equity. In this second volume of Robert Corfe's major work on Social Capitalism, he turns to examining the financial-industrial system and identifies issues, which are untouched by contemporary politicians across the political spectrum. Whilst politicians live in their own self-enclosed world of dated ideologies, the author highlights urgent and major problems which are significant for us all in the real world. Through a careful analysis of the underlying forces which directly affect the majority, he formulates a new political language, and in doing so, creates a fresh perspective and vision for the future. No people can hope to be free without capitalism, competition, and free consumer choice. But capitalism is not a single or monistic system as traditionally projected by the political establishment.As the author demonstrates, through both empirical evidence and the development of ideas, capitalism may be manifested as either a malign or benign influence on society.In this book the concept of Productive capitalism is promoted as the desirable path towards which peoples worldwide should strive. It is socially self-destructive Rentier capitalism, with its accumulation of wealth into ever fewer hands, and the polarisation of society, which needs to be opposed. But the political battles which lie ahead, in promoting a benign financial-industrial system, will be very different from those in the past, since it is an economic system which will need to be confronted rather than an identifiable sector of the community.