The Utopia of Self-Regulation in the Market System
The Utopia of Self-Regulation in the Market System
This chapter questions whether the market contains self-regulating processes which can prevent the system from ending in self-destruction. There is no in-built mechanism which can internalize the external costs created by the market system. Only an external organization, the government, can do this. Capitalism itself is not capable of preventing an inevitable clash with its limits. Technological revolutions, in particular the digital revolution, do not currently raise productivity sufficiently to generate the resources needed to prevent environmental decline. Kuznets has turned out to be wrong in his belief that a highly developed capitalism would cause income inequality to drop. Piketty, Saez, and Atkinson point out that inequality in the most developed capitalist countries has recently increased. The regulatory mechanisms must therefore come from outside the market system, and indeed from the government.
Keywords: regulation, self-regulation, technological progress, role of government, inequality
Oxford Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs , and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us .