The End of Capitalism

Gabriel Kolko has a post up on Counterpunch that outlines problems within the world economic system.

It seems that that Neo Liberal economics don’t work. How many times will laissez faire policies have to crash and burn before that message sinks in?

The entire global financial structure is becoming uncontrollable in crucial ways its nominal leaders never expected. Instability is increasingly its hallmark. Financial liberalization has produced a monster, and resolving the many problems that have emerged is scarcely possible for those who deplore controls on those who seek to make money, whatever means it takes to do so. Contradictions now wrack the world's financial system, and if we are to believe the institutions and personalities who have been in the forefront of the defense of capitalism, it may very well be on the verge of serious crises.

One conclusion he reaches seems of particular interest.

The rules some once erroneously associated with capitalism -- probity and the like--no longer hold even on paper.

This raises the question; what exactly is capitalism? Most of its defenders trot out the usual stuff about freedom, democracy, opportunity, choice etc. But it seems to me that these are merely the ideological justifications that mystify its true nature. History should show us that any freedoms, liberties and wealth gained by the masses during the modern era have been fought and struggled for rather than benignly bestowed by capital. A lot of these have been lost over the last generation and now with rationality, probity, and sustainability being stripped away, what is left? The almost unthinkable question may now be be asked. Can capitalism fail? And if it does, what then?