The End of Capitalism?

   It's hard to asses in the midst of current events just how "historic" they are, but it seems a fair bet that the 13th of October 2008 will at least go down as a significant date in the history of the UK and possibly the "West". What's more the nationalisation of RBS and HBOS on the 13th of October is ironic as it falls on the birthday of the queen of the free market, Margaret Thatcher. President Bush talked today of rescuing the free market as if nothing will change, but I think Andrew Porter in the Daily Telegraph hit upon an appropriate term when he talks about these events "inventing a new system of regulated capitalism".

So while I'm no fan of "late" capitalism and the "free market" (freedom here only meaning free from regulation rather than an open freedom where our markets are open to new entrants, thus the free market has always been free in a limited sense), I think we need to be cautions in writing its obituary. Capitalism is still with us on the 14th of October, albeit a transformed capitalism.

I think Paul might be right in suggesting that "regulated capitalism" will effect globalization, yet even in the moves made by each "sovereign" state we see globalisation at play. Thus the US plan to rescue banks along similar lines as the Brown plan have to some degree been forced due to worries that US investors would move money abroad to countries like the UK where the state had made moves to underwrite the banks. Thus the global market is also alive and well.

Yet as Paul also points out  Fukuyma's "end of history" would seem to have been debunked by recent events, which thus begs the question "are we seeing the re-birth of the state in these events rather than the death of a particular economic system?"