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Paul Craig Roberts

The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West Kindle Edition

by Paul Craig Roberts (Author, Introduction), Ryan McCullough (Illustrator), Hudson Atwell (Editor), Format: Kindle Edition

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This very readable book by a distinguished economist, Wall Street Journal editor, and Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury is a major challenge both to economic theory and to media explanations of the ongoing 21st century economic crisis. The one percent have pulled off an economic and political revolution. By offshoring manufacturing and professional service jobs, US corporations destroyed the growth of consumer income, the basis of the US economy, leaving the bulk of the population mired in debt. Deregulation was used to concentrate income and wealth in fewer hands and financial firms in corporations “too big to fail,” removing financial corporations from market discipline and forcing taxpayers in the US and Europe to cover bankster losses. Environmental destruction has accelerated as economists refuse to count the exhaustion of nature’s resources as a cost and as corporations impose the cost of their activities on the environment and on third parties who do not share in the profits. This is the book to read for those who want to understand the mistakes that are bringing the West to its knees.

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189 pages
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English
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Publication date

2 Feb. 2013
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681 KB
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"The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism is fearless. It transcends Roberts' illustrious
career and prior works of intellectual and practical analysis." NOMI PRINS

"Clearly, this empirically based, theoretically challenging book is one of the most important works of our time." Johannes Maruschzik, Preface to the German Edition

"In his inimitable way, Roberts describes how the rhetorical patter talk about free-markets
is a cover story for the horror of an extractive asset-stripping operation by publicly supported
private banks and the governments that they control." MICHAEL HUDSON

About the Author

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury in the Reagan administration, a member of the US Congressional staff, associate editor and columnist for the Wall Street Journal. He was Business Week's first outside columnist, a position he held for 15 years, and columnist for a decade for Scripps Howard News Service, carried in 300 newspapers. He was also a columnist for the Washington Times and for newspapers in France and Italy and for a magazine in Germany, as well as a contributor to The New York Times and a regular feature in the Los Angeles Times.. He was awarded the US Treasury's Meritorious Service Award as well as the French Legion of Honor by the Mitterrand government. Roberts has held academic appointments in six universities, including Stanford and the William E. Simon Chair in Political Economy, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Georgetown. He has testified before committees of Congress on 30 occasions. He was educated at Georgia Tech, the University of Virginia, the University of California, Berkeley, and Oxford University where he was a member of Merton College.

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The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the rise of the high speed Internet have proved to be the economic and political undoing of the West. "The End Of History" caused socialist India and communist China to join the winning side and to open their economies and underutilized labor forces to Western capital and technology. Pushed by Wall Street and large retailers, such as Wal-Mart, American corporations began offshoring the production of goods and services for their domestic markets. Americans ceased to be employed in the manufacture of goods that they consume as corporate executives maximized shareholder earnings and their performance bonuses by substituting cheaper foreign labor for American labor. Many American professional occupations, such as software engineering and Information Technology, also declined as corporations moved this work abroad and brought in foreigners at lower renumeration for many of the jobs that remained domestically. Design and research jobs followed manufacturing abroad, and employment in middle class professional occupations ceased to grow. By taking the lead in offshoring production for domestic markets, US corporations force the same practice on Europe. The demise of First World employment and of Third World agricultural communities, which are supplanted by large scale monoculture, is known as Globalism.For most Americans income has stagnated and declined for the past two decades. Much of what Americans lost in wages and salaries as their jobs were moved offshore came back to shareholders and executives in the form of capital gains and performance bonuses from the higher profits that flowed from lower foreign labor costs. The distribution of income worsened dramatically with the mega-rich capturing the gains, while the middle class ladders of upward mobility were dismantled. University graduates unable to find employment returned to live with their parents.The absence of growth in real consumer incomes resulted in the Federal Reserve expanding credit in order to keep consumer demand growing. The growth of consumer debt was substituted for the missing growth in consumer income. The Federal Reserve's policy of extremely low interest rates fueled a real estate boom. Housing prices rose dramatically, permitting homeowners to monetize the rising equity in their homes by refinancing their mortgages.Consumers kept the economy alive by assuming larger mortgages and spending the equity in their homes and by accumulating lar

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00BLPJNWE
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Atwell Publishing
Accessibility ‏ : ‎ Learn more
Publication date ‏ : ‎ 2 Feb. 2013
Edition ‏ : ‎ 1st
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 681 KB
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Print length ‏ : ‎ 189 pages
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0988406513
Page Flip ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Best Sellers Rank: 1,438,094 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- 4,961 in Business Economics (Kindle Store)
- 7,734 in Finance (Kindle Store)
- 104,548 in Business, Finance & Law
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207 ratings

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Paul Craig Roberts

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Dr. Paul Craig Roberts was the Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration, associate editor and columnist for the Wall Street Journal, columnist for Business Week, the Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has testified before Congress on 30 occasions. His unparalleled website, www.PaulCraigRoberts.org, has millions of visitors every year.

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207 global ratings

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Customers find the book compelling and easy to read, praising its writing quality and knowledge level, with one customer noting how it helps piece together complex topics of capitalism. The book's reliance on solutions receives mixed reactions from customers.

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Knowledge level Readability Ease of reading Writing quality Reliance on solutions

13 customers mention ‘Knowledge level’11 positive2 negative

Customers appreciate the book's knowledge level, with one customer noting how it helps piece together complex topics of capitalism, while others find it well-informed, authoritative, and thought-provoking.

"Very informative book for anyone that wants to understand economics" Read more

"Paul Craig Roberts is one of the most influential and authoritative analysts and commentators on the ills of so-called 'free market' capitalism and..." Read more

"Very authoritative and written by a highly credible author. Well informed. Quite US-orientated but can one transfer the message to other contexts...." Read more

"This a great summary of the current malaise in world economics and an insightful commentary on the base motivations and flawed systemic thinking..." Read more

12 customers mention ‘Readability’12 positive0 negative

Customers find the book excellent and compelling to read.

"A really excellent book, One of the best I have read, very well written and understandable for the not so interested in economics, well worth..." Read more

"Amazing! Paul Craig Roberts is a great author. This book is simple to understand and helps you piece together ones complex topics of capitalism." Read more

"...EXCELLENT." Read more

"...Well worth a read!" Read more

5 customers mention ‘Ease of reading’5 positive0 negative

Customers find the book easy to read, with one mentioning it is simple to understand.

"...I have to saw it was an easy book to read, technical at times but offering really good critique of how we got into this mess and how out of control..." Read more

"...excellent book, One of the best I have read, very well written and understandable for the not so interested in economics, well worth reading thank..." Read more

"Amazing! Paul Craig Roberts is a great author. This book is simple to understand and helps you piece together ones complex topics of capitalism." Read more

"...The book itself isn't hugely academic, which makes it easier for newcomers...." Read more

5 customers mention ‘Writing quality’4 positive1 negative

Customers appreciate the writing quality of the book, with one noting that it is well-crafted by a highly credible author.

"Amazing! Paul Craig Roberts is a great author. This book is simple to understand and helps you piece together ones complex topics of capitalism." Read more

"A really excellent book, One of the best I have read, very well written and understandable for the not so interested in economics, well worth..." Read more

"Though provoking if a little OTT. Well written. Plausible and logical enough not to be conspiracy....." Read more

"...His 'preface' occupies the first quarter of the book. The quality of the writing is not good - and the footnotes appear in the original German!..." Read more

3 customers mention ‘Reliance on solutions’1 positive2 negative

Customers have mixed opinions about the book's reliance on solutions, with one customer noting it doesn't provide them, while another mentions concerns about job offshoring.

"...in places as it rages against a political executive that is remorselessly gaining powers and spying on the general public but these things are..." Read more

"...Although a great treatment of the "as is" I feel that the book lacks a little of the depth of comment needed on the change that is required..." Read more

"...To the contrary, they are creating unemployment by joboffshoring and a decline of the living standard of nearly the whole population...." Read more

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Mike
Exposing the system's lies
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 26 August 2015
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

Really excellent and must read book. Economics can be argued so many ways that it's a gift to the ruling class who can always find court economists to bestow academic credibility on any devious scheme the former invent for their own purposes.

The entire current conventional Western package of economic policies is a giant lie pretending to be there to benefit the people when it's really there to create a wealth transfer to the rich. Immigration and free trade are simply cheap labour rackets which have nothing to do with improving economic efficiency is what PCR is saying. The EU is a power grab by the unelected.

One wonders how long before the penny drops with all those workers whose living standards have stagnated or declined while they are told how lucky they are. Graduates doing unskilled work while a tale about 'skills-shortages' is endlessly repeated, vast numbers of adults living with their parents who once would have bought a home, former factory workers fallen into poorly paid work if they can get any, and the whole contraption propped up with debt.

If you wish for a graphic illustration as to how the people are lied to, then the book is worth it just for the charts at the end showing how little the US economy had recovered several years after the crash when the manipulated official statistics issued are adjusted to reflect reality.

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Josancel55
An easy to read ( by the layman) economic Review
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 8 November 2013
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
This a great summary of the current malaise in world economics and an insightful commentary on the base motivations and flawed systemic thinking that governs the current world systems. For those new to the subject and not into conspiracy thinking it will be an "eye opener".

Although a great treatment of the "as is" I feel that the book lacks a little of the depth of comment needed on the change that is required to remedy the current system. In particular whether or not the Fractional Reserve Banking system should now be rethought by evolutionary morphing into a new system based on new principles. Many others have written on this but foundational change needs to be set out by these authors and communicated to the "layman" so that in today's political climate the masses continue to have their say on informed change.

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Paul Simister
We're in the middle of a nightmare economic situation
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 17 May 2014
Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase
This important book criticising the laissez faire capitalism of the last couple of decades is written by an assistant secretary of the Treasury under President Reagan and is one of the architects of Reaganomics.

I think that's important because its criticism of capitalism is coming from the political right and not from someone with long-standing views.

Another reviewer is correct. There is a long introduction by someone else for the German version served up to us on amazon.co.uk. My advice is to skip it and start with the book written by the author because you won't have any trouble understanding the stories based on America.

The book is a little repetitive and in need of an effective edit anyway but ignoring the introduction will help get to the core of the matter.

What we've seen is the creation of global corporations that are effectively outside the scope of political influence because there is no global government to stand up to them. In fact it's worse than that, these corporations have the means to twist policies in their favour.

Our economic models, taught at universities and practised by central banks and governments, don't properly incorporate the effects of these changes. This leads to a misleading narrative about what is good and bad in the media.

By pursuing strategies to move production and services offshore to low cost countries, these corporations have managed to enhance their profits by dumping enormous costs on society. The USA (and the UK and parts of Europe) has been hollowed out with middle income jobs transferred overseas. Unemployment increases and the traditional economic levers no longer work because the capacity for the jobs no longer exists. Increasing aggregate demand using traditional Keynesian policies pushes a share of the added value abroad so the benefits leak from the economy while the debts build up.

Jobs that are created in our newly modelled economies are often part time, lowly paid and support what the author calls non-tradeable services. Government employees, shop assistants, hairdressers, care workers can't help the economy export and earn the money needed to pay for the imports.

This is important. The tradition support for free trade in classical economics comes from David Ricardo, an early 19th century economist who developed the theory of comparative advantage. He argued that because Britain was better at producing textiles than wine and because Portugal was better at producing wine that textiles, both economies would gain by specialising in what they did best and trading.

The logic was impeccable in a simple two product, two country example. It falls apart as things get much more complicated. It's entirely broken when you look at offshoring of processes. That's no longer trade but labour arbitrage.

This book helped to bring together a lot of uneasy thoughts I've had over the last 15 years or so. I'd accepted the idea that free trade was good and that whilst we lost jobs, we benefited from buying consumer products at prices that could never be achieved with UK production so that meant our incomes bought more.

What I hadn't thought about was the remorseless process that is occurring as more higher paid jobs are offshored. The political talk about specialising in complex engineering and technology is nonsense when you think about it properly and look at education standards. Chinese and Indian software developers are still a fraction of the cost of those who live in the developed countries.

I recommend this book to help you understand the problems. It does get a little paranoid in places as it rages against a political executive that is remorselessly gaining powers and spying on the general public but these things are happening. It may be naive to believe that it will be used for general public good rather than just the good of the elite.

The book doesn't point to solutions. Should globalisation be stopped and could anyone stop it anyway? Do we want a world government to stand up to global corporations and stop them avoiding taxes? is protectionism a valid solution anyway.

The answers need another book and may have to be written by another author. At least the book helps you to focus on the big underlying problems.

About my book reviews - I aim to be a tough reviewer because the main cost of a book is not the money to buy it but the time needed to read it and absorb the key messages. 4 stars means this is a good to very good book.

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Shion
Helping you and I understand the madness of out of control Banking!
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 13 August 2013
Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase
I follow Paul Craig Roberts a lot. This is the first book of his that I have read. I have to saw it was an easy book to read, technical at times but offering really good critique of how we got into this mess and how out of control banking became. The most interesting part I found was explaining the game played on Greece. He explains that really well and had opened my eyes on the sovereignty problems of the EU, the debt and what the REAL moves are by these guys. Paul Craig Roberts is another Gerald Celente, he should not be ignored by us. Well worth a read!

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R. F. Culverhouse
A Must Read from Authoritative Source
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 8 January 2014
Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase
Paul's thesis is that currently applied economic theory does not fit todays world. Offshoring jobs in the name of "Globalism" is crippling the US economy. To boost executive pay, low and middle class jobs are being relentlessly sent to India, China etc. The US economy is in it's death spiral now, they cannot afford to pay the interest on the debt and print a trillion a year to stay afloat. Paul and other right minded economists have tried to turn the "ship" around before, but are defeated by the economic mindset that supports the one percent taking all the money. Average income is down 10% over the last ten years in contrast to the ballooning wealth of the rich. Check PCR's interview with Corbett Report May 2013.

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