Abundance Theory Economics

[ebacon]

IMO the most important read is the Communist Manifesto. It is in the public domain and available online. It explains the weak point of capitalism. The fact that capitalism has a weak point is a ghost that American leaders keep in the closet.

Capitalism a word that gets thrown around a lot but it its users often do not define it in hopes of misleading the voting public. There are basicly two flavors of capitalism working in the United States. The first is what most of us think of when we use the word capitalism. We generally think of privately owned means of production and markets that are somewhat regulated for consumer safety, economic stability, and the like. Typical mom and apple pie stuff. What is noteworthy with the traditional flavor of capitalism is that the markets are regulated according to an unwritten moral code that in our society all have some duty to respect and watch out for one another. That underlying moral code and duty that binds us is what has in part been painted as sexlaxalism by the Tea Party leadership of the right.

The other definition of capitalism is a more radical one. When the people that are being honest in discussion are talking about this more radical capitalism they modify it with adjectives such as laissez-faire capitalism or free market capitalism. It is also called anarcho-capitalism, Randism, and Objectivism.

The theory of Laissez-faire capitalism removes the regulation and hence governmentally enforced moral code that binds us. It removes consumer protections and pits us dog-eat-dog against each other. Easy to see examples of laissez-faire are deregulated campaign finance, deregulated financial markets such as hedge funds, deregulated banking structures, deregulated credit card interest rates, and the like.

Another big economic topic to understand is the concept of creative destruction. While the phonomenon is very real, the term is used misleadingly on the American public to rationalize shipping jobs overseas. There is a decent discussion of creative destruction on wikipedia.

Wealth of Nations is also an outstanding read. It is also in the public domain and free on the internet.

Other major topics:

Austrian School/Hayek
Keynes