Liberalism and Capitalism Today

PART 2The Evolution of Liberalism and Capitalism

Introduction to Part 2

The events that have shaken the economic planet since the subprime real estate bubble was triggered in 2007 and the consequences of the COVID-19 health crisis at the beginning of 2020 have only amplified the number of those who reject liberalism and capitalism. Indeed, while capitalism has always been criticized in certain intellectual circles because of the principles on which it is based, the various difficulties it has generated, particularly since the stock market crash of 1929, now exacerbate the rejection of capitalism by the majority of citizens on the planet. It is, today, the object of a real crisis of legitimacy and condemnation in many countries, because the abuses to which it leads are considered to be the main cause of all the misfortunes that afflict people in their daily lives.

It is therefore necessary to try to analyze the events as they really took place, the causes of the dysfunctions observed, in order to be able to make the most objective judgment possible, to draw the consequences in order to propose not recipes or even less solutions – which would be quite pretentious – but avenues of reflection to try to prevent such situations from happening again. As already indicated in the first historical part of this book, no one can deny that capitalism is at the origin of considerable progress in the economic field, with ever-increasing wealth, and in the social field, with a general decline ...