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Tony Judt e o capitalismo dos nossos tempos

Tinha prometido colocar aqui alguns trechos do ltimo captulo (The Banality of Good
: Social Democrat) do ltimo Tony Judt, Thinking the Twentieth Century. Para econo
mistas, o captulo mais interessante do livro. A vai o material para pensar:

Pgina 340:
Adam Smith argued that capitalism does not in itself generate the values that ma
ke its success possible; it inherits them from the pre-capitalist or non-capital
ist world, or else borrows them (so to speak) from the language of religion or e
thics. Values such as trust, faith, belief in the reliability of contracts, assu
mptions that the future will keep faith with past commitments and so on have not
hing to do with the logic of markets per se, but they are necessary for their fu
nctioning.
Pgina 346:
The rates of growth in industrializing societies were thus typically 7 or even 9
percent - pretty much as they are in China today. What this indicate is that hi
gh rates of economic growth do not typically suggest prosperity, stability or mo
dernity. They were long thought to be transitional features.
Pgina 347:
The loss of equilibrium that Keynes and his generation experienced with the Firs
t World War and the collapse of Edwardian, and therefore Victorian, certainties
and security, is the most important informing sentiment in his theoretical writi
ngs.
Pgina 354:
All six of the foreign ministers who signed the European Steel and Coal Communit
y, the foundation of institutionalized European economic cooperation, were Catho
lics: from Italy, France, largely Catholic West Germany and the Benelux countrie
s.
Pgina 355:
We do well to recall that it was only a new generation of Anglo-American-incline
d economic theorists and policy makers who claimed that planning as such was a f
ailure. (...) English disillusion with planning was a by-product (not altogether
justified) of disillusion with nationalization and the state control of the eco
nomy.
Pgina 358:
We need a similar renewal of attention to what lies under our noses. Today so ma
ny of us live in gated communities, physical enclaves that keep one kind of soci
al reality out and also preserve another kind of social reality from intrusion.
These enclosed micro-societies reassure their beneficiaries that since they are
paying for their own services, they are not responsible for the expenses and dem
ands of the society outside the gates. This makes them reluctant to pay for serv
ices and benefits from which they perceive no immediate private gain.

What gets lost here, what is corroded in the distaste for common taxation, is th
e very idea of society as a terrain of shared responsibilities.
Pgina 359:
None of the water-starved, western states of the U.S. could survive a year witho
ut the American equivalent of what the European think of as regional subsidies.
Pgina 360:
The appearance of individual self-reliance is part of the myth of the American f
rontier. Destroy that or, rather, let it be destroyed, and you destroy part of o
ur roots. This is a defensible and even reasonable political argument - there is
no reason in principle why Americans should not pay to maintain whatever they c
onsider most American about their heritage. But as an argument it has nothing to
do with capitalism, individualism or the free market. On the contrary, it's an
argument for a certain sort of welfare state - not least because of its unquesti
oned assumption thata certain sort of sustainable individualism requires a good
deal of help from the state.
Pgina 361:
The effect of the dominance of economic language in an intellectual culture whic
h was always vulnerable to the authority of "experts" has acted as a brake upon
a more morally informed social debate.
Pgina 365:
So let's return to the capital markets: under today's arrangements, the losses o
f the biggest gamblers are covered sufficiently to ensure that people will, inde
ed, continue to take the risks but with no downside. Which means the risks they
take will be ever less justified. If you don't have to worry about making the wr
ong decision, then there's a greater chance you will make the wrong decision.
Pgina 368:
... social policy should consist of creating the most educated electorate possib
le: precisely because the citizenry today are both more exposed to abuse and hav
e more "authority" to abuse themselves than ever before.
Pgina 375:
Even at the height of the Iraqi absurdity, a majority of Americans favored huge
government expenditure on under-articulated or straightforwardly dishones milita
ry ends, while claiming to believe in reducing taxation across the board, presum
ably including taxation that was intended to pay for military expenditure. Ameri
cans showed no interest in increasing the role of government in their lives, not
realizing that they had just enthusiastically encouraged it to do just that in
the most important ways in which government can intervene in their citizens' liv
es, namely fighting a war. This reveals an American collective cognitive dissona
nce that is very hard to overcome politically.
Pgina 386:
... the choice we face in the next generation is not capitalism versus communism
, or the end of history versus the return of history, but the politics of social
cohesion based around collective purposes versus the erosion of society by the
politics of fear.
_________
Evidentemente tem muito mais no livro, fica recomendada a leitura. Judt faz muit
as perguntas relevantes, mesmo para quem no concorda com as respostas que ele mes
mo fornece.

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