The Corruption of Capitalism: Why Rentiers Thrive and Work Does Not Pay - Softcover

Guy Standing

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1785902172 ISBN 13: 9781785902178

Publisher: Biteback Publishing, 2017

Synopsis

There is a lie at the heart of global capitalism. Politicians, financiers and global bureaucrats claim to believe in free competitive markets, but have constructed the most unfree market system ever. It is corrupt because income is channelled to the owners of property - financial, physical and intellectual - at the expense of society.

This book reveals how global capitalism is rigged in favour of rentiers to the detriment of all of us, especially the precariat. A plutocracy and elite enriches itself, not through production of goods and services, but through ownership of assets, including intellectual property, aided by subsidies, tax breaks, debt mechanisms, revolving doors between politics and business, and the privatisation of public services. Rentier capitalism is entrenched by the corruption of democracy, manipulated by the plutocracy and an elite-dominated media.

Meanwhile, wages stagnate as labour markets are transformed by outsourcing, automation and the on-demand economy, generating more rental income while expanding the precariat.

The Corruption of Capitalism argues that rentier capitalism is fostering revolt, and concludes by outlining a new income distribution system that would achieve the extinction of the rentier while promoting sustainable growth.

About this title

Product Description:

Guy Standing reveals the devastating effects of the construction of a global market economy. At the heart of the problem is the construction by successive governments, working in the interests of elites, of the most unfree market system ever created. A system in which property, financial, physical and intellectual, is controlled by a tiny but enormously powerful rentier class.

Review:

"The Basic Income is an idea whose time has come, and Guy Standing has pioneered our understanding of it not just of the concept but of the challenges it is designed to meet: rapid automation and the emergence of a precarious workforce for whom wages derived from work will never be enough. As we move into an age where work and leisure become blurred, and work dissociated from incomes, Standing s analysis is vital." --Paul Mason

"Is it possible to make capitalism work for the many rather than the few? In this thoughtful book, Guy Standing focuses on the central problem of modern capitalism the tendency of great wealth to transform itself into political power that corrupts the political process and generates laws and regulations favouring the wealthy and suggests useful and important solutions." --Robert Reich, Labor Secretary to President Clinton, 1993 97

"Guy Standing's incisive critique of the corruption of rentier capitalism and his description of the potential of the rising precariat should put politicians and ruling elites on the alert." --John McDonnell, shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer

About this edition

• Publisher: Biteback Publishing
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 1785902172
• ISBN 13: 9781785902178
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 320