Is capitalism doomed? - By Nouriel Roubini - Slate Magazine

Is capitalism doomed? - By Nouriel Roubini - Slate Magazine

So Karl Marx, it seems, was partly right in arguing that globalization, financial intermediation run amok, and redistribution of income and wealth from labor to capital could lead capitalism to self-destruct (though his view that socialism would be better has proved wrong). Firms are cutting jobs because there is not enough final demand. But cutting jobs reduces labor income, increases inequality, and reduces final demand.

Recent popular demonstrations, from the Middle East to Israel to the United Kingdom, and rising popular anger in China—and soon enough in other advanced economies and emerging markets—are all driven by the same issues and tensions: growing inequality, poverty, unemployment, and hopelessness. Even the world's middle classes are feeling the squeeze of falling incomes and opportunities.

To enable market-oriented economies to operate as they should and can, we need to return to the right balance between markets and provision of public goods. That means moving away from both the Anglo-Saxon model of laissez-faire and voodoo economics and the continental European model of deficit-driven welfare states. Both are broken.

Some consider this guy the financial guru of our time. We'll see.