When even The Guardian says you’re biased against capitalism

A new - grandly ambitious - history of capitalism is out. About which The Guardian’s review says:

Even Marx and Engels gave the devil his due in The Communist Manifesto: for all its savagery, it had “accomplished wonders”. Beckert is so good at decrying the sticks that he downplays the carrots: longer lives, higher living standards, labour-saving innovations, new vistas of experience. In this story, capitalism is the answer to every question, the root of every ill, yet the histories of feudalism and communism suggest that cruelty and exploitation are not unique to one economic system.

As we continually point out we’re not particularly worried about or wedded to capitalism - we never do complain about worker owned and so socialist organisations like Waitrose - it’s markets we insist are the thing. We’d also not attribute all, not all, of those lovelies to capitalism - life, material abundance etc - but some to markets, which is why we say they’re the important thing.

But we do think it’s fun that the latest jeremiad against capitalism is met by The Guardian with a “Steady on, Old Chap, bit far there, no?”

Not that that’s going to stop the usuals from claiming that this new book now proves everything they already believe. Sigh.

Tim Worstall