Prosperity without Greed by Wagenknecht, Sahra -- Read -- Imperial Library of Trantor

Index

[Cover and Title] About the book Vita CONTENTS TRANSLATOR’S FOREWORD PREFACE

Civilization in retreat After us the flood The inheritance club How do we want to live? Less competition, more market power Labour protection as market rigidity New playgrounds for profiteers Twenty-first century economic feudalism “This economy kills” Ruled by organized money Limited liability, unlimited profit Government funds finance private property Technocratic swamp Re-democratization of states Hayek’s European Project De-democratization as a result of lost sovereignty Abolishing global capitalism instead of regulating it

PART I PERFORMANCE, INDIVIDUAL RESPONSIBILITY AND COMPETITION: THE GRAND ILLUSIONS OF CAPITALISM

1. THE ROGUE ECONOMY: IS GREED A VIRTUE?

Freedom without friends? Inequality destroys trust Not property but status God-given greed Mandeville’s Fable of the Bees False philanthropists and respectable fraudsters Repulsive people with repulsive motives

2. RISE AND DECLINE: HOW INNOVATIVE IS OUR ECONOMY?

Fairy tales Fetid sewers A conservative party in favour of a shared economy “I’m missing the future” Dead end street instead of innovation Eco-gamblers enriched Keynes imagining the year 2028 Uber and Ryanair Fat and salty Purchased, used, discarded Quick and dirty Anglo-Saxon models Inventions contra patents Blockade instead of protection Depression instead of dynamic growth

3. DISHWASHER LEGENDS, FEUDAL DYNASTIES, AND THE DISAPPEARING MIDDLE

1 Top incomes without work

Men of leisure or men of power Performance-enhancing drugs for success? From garage entrepreneur to billionaire? Men of leisure at the top Max Weber’s error Firms as investment objects Small capitalists? The Matthew effect again Different worlds Gates and Bettencourt

2 On the futility of saving as a method of accumulating capital

The assets of the middle class Money vs capital Capital holdings large and small Consumption or profit Workplace vs investment Saving does not create capital 20,000 years of drudgery

3 Inherited privilege: Capital feudalism

Thin air Family clans The brief heyday of the performance principle Inheritance or marriage Capital as an exclusive good No dishwashers Stable dynasties “Feudal-plutocratic” inheritance law

4 Upward mobility was yesterday: the “new middle class” moves to the bottom

Low wages, work contracts, and temporary work Deutsche Post and Lufthansa pushing down wages Farewell to the performance principle Subsidies for the “less capable”? Family background before talent Exclusive educational institutions The Gatsby curve

4. ROBBER BARONS AND TYCOONS—POWER INSTEAD OF COMPETITION

1 Industrial oligarchs: no chances for newcomers

Businessmen or shopkeepers? Closed markets Increased capital requirements Giants of the service industry Hegemony and dependency Fictitious diversity: the modular system Ford fights for its competitors Common ownership Organized economy State support for new competition

2 Controlled markets: market power kills innovation and quality

Absence of ideas and inertia Standard Oil and Microsoft: ambush instead of performance Low quality prevails Cut-throat competition The Sherman Act: Anti-trust law with bite

3 Data monsters: monopoly on the Internet

Monopolies for court favourites Expensive infrastructure Prices at marginal cost level Information: copy almost for free The network effect Global corporation overnight Self-propelling: Windows’ march to victory Digital giants Freedom from competition The data monsters Orwell on the Internet Uber’s statistics on extramarital affairs Trade monopolies and dependent producers The Internet of things: networked surplus generation No end to growth in storage capacity Dumping pressures Revival of the planned economy? Data monopoly and global dominance Oligarchy of unlimited corruption

4 The visible hand of the state

War, trade, and piracy War capitalism The state provides cheap labour Counter-program to the Washington Consensus Domination through free trade State innovation Apple’s government-funded technology Risk-averse capital “Small potatoes from Silicon Valley” Industry calling for government support Anti-government rhetoric as the job of neoliberal ideologues

5. WHY GENUINE ENTREPRENEURS DO NOT NEED CAPITALISM

1 Entrepreneurs without profit

Marx’s profit theory The textbook world: not a healthy biotope Keeping competition at bay

2 “Competition and capitalism are a contradiction in terms”

Monopoly price for capital “… giving up autonomy” Motivated by filthy lucre Recipe for inequality

PART II MARKET ECONOMY INSTEAD OF ECONOMIC FEUDALISM: SKETCH OF A MODERN ECONOMIC ORDER

6. WHAT MAKES US RICH?

1 The social order is of our own making

Forgotten civilization Exclusive decline The selection of the Mandarins The Venetian commenda Einstein as farm labourer Modern illiterates Labour-saving progress Inventors born before their time Faltering engine of innovation Cheap labour, low investment

2 How do ideas emerge?

Intellectual commons Legal walls High social costs Planned innovation? Fortune hunters and solar cells Competition as a method of discovery

7. HOW DO WE WANT TO LIVE?

1 Tricky measure

The sleep of Australian aborigines Not always more, but always novel The stoker on the electric train Technologies that make you sick Cared for by robots Top-of-the-line cars and happy children De-professionalization: idiots instead of skilled workers Ikea culture

2 A self-reinforcing process

Nightmares from Silicon Valley Inflatable children’s toys 3-D printing visions Lost self-respect Rare losers

8. ANOTHER WAY IS POSSIBLE: COOPERATIVE BANKS

1 Master or servant: What kind of financial industry do we need?

Paper euros Key industry financial economy Köhler’s monster State liability “They have made their own rules …” Money incest Masters of the universe Small and stable High-flying investment bankers

2 Where does money come from?

Bookkeeping of debts and assets Symbols as means of payment Paper money from the colour printer Government money Bonds as a means of payment Beheaded bankers The gold standard Deflation and crisis Fixed exchange rates Gold standard without democracy “Currency threats” Cashless credit The Bretton Woods system Electronic money’s march to victory Millions at the click of a mouse License to print money Bank saviour European Central Bank Bubble instead of small business loans The suffering of the Cypriots

3 Money is a public good

Banks as monetary intermediaries? Capital originates in work Sovereign-money theory Bank runs and government guarantees Financial alchemists at work The market doesn’t work for public goods The 3-6-3 rule Small is beautiful Capital controls are necessary Gang of technocrats and euro dictatorship “Restricting the room to act …” De-industrialization and a lost generation Keynes’s Bancor Plan as a European currency system Financial check-up Successful credit allocation Failure rate of 90 percent Innovation as risk Central banks as state financiers Free lunch Government bonds instead of money for gambling Rules for a market economy The Icelandic model

9. RETHINKING PROPERTY

1 Property theories since Aristotle

Finding the right measure Right of use and misuse New Masters Property as a natural right Why don’t you just leave The disappearing commons Property rights versus democracy Personal property and economic property Protected power Legitimate profit expectations? Wage-dumping as a human right? Property as a convention Property as performance motivation

2 Ownership without liability: the genius of capitalism

Personal liability Limited risk, unlimited profit Parliamentary right of reservation concerning corporations Sold off by the owners Separating investor and entrepreneur Leave the work to others Family feuds as a business risk Control for personal benefit Owner Aladdin Increasing concentration of economic power Companies owned by foundations Personal benefit instead of collective benefit Heirs at the receiving end Abbe establishes the Zeiss Foundation

3 Profits as a “public good”

Ingenious statute for foundations A successful enterprise Neutralization of capital Internal enterprise growth

4 Entrepreneurial freedom without neo-feudalism

Personal liability company: getting rich with full risk Employee-owned company: can’t be sold or milked Control as the sole ownership right Interested in long-term success Motivated employees Public risk fund The Public Company: public participation Common-good company: social services High-speed Internet for all No escaping … Reduced to the smallest size Deconcentration Property only through individual work

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ENDNOTES [Copyright notice]

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