The Seven Deadly Sins of Capitalism

For all its deficiencies, very serious flaws and sins, market capitalism still probably represents "the worst system devised by wit of man, except for all the others," to paraphrase what Winston Churchill said about political democracy. In spite of its title, the purpose of this book is not about religion - and certainly not about creating a new one! Using a religious reference as a book title does not mean that the author regards himself as a kind of devotee and evangelist (old-fashioned or newborn) pleading, on economics and in general, for some forms of heavenly or cardinal virtues. Yet these, or at least some, may admittedly come in handy in times of economic, financial, social or moral distress. For those who are not aware, have forgotten, and for the many more who live with other beliefs, in Christianity "the seven deadly sins" refer to objectionable and mortal vices. "I could've had religion", as the Irish blues rocker Rory Gallagher sang. "But...". As far as I am concerned and as the book shows, I have never considered capitalism as a religion and behaved like one of its apostles. However, a loss of faith in the system might have been at work to come up with the criticisms developed in this book. Call it the liberal blues or a blues for capitalism? The book deals with the SINS of capitalism. Logically, it contains much more on the negatives than about the positives -and I believe there are still a number. The virtues may still deserve words of praise yet to a lesser extent than in the past. Why should we not talk of sins when, after all, it was (and still is) about religion - at least for some?[1] Goldman Sachs' CEO once said that he was "doing God's work" and other dedicated followers of the market religion (make) believe that economic and market forces are like the forces of nature. This thinking has turned into a form of "no alternative" determinism applied full steam ahead through the forces of globalization. Capitalism is an economic system based on certain mechanisms. Not less, but not more either. It should not be turned into an all-embracing ideology, because you simply can't run an economy as complicated as ours on ideology alone. Nor should it be viewed as a religion, e.g. by making it synonymous per se with free market or democracy, or, even worse, by mixing up market economy with some form of market society - where everything is bought, sold and traded.