Follow-up paper

Varieties of Capitalism in the Globalizing World

2010- St. Petersburg

 

Contents

 

Introduction

Capitalism

Types and Models of the Capitalism in the Globalizing World

Globalization

Globalization and Capitalism

Global Financial Crisis

Conclusion

 

Introduction

 

In our work on the topic “Varieties of capitalism in the globalizing world” we consider the following questions: what is capitalism, the main points of this system and we give a brief historical background to the emergence of capitalism. In the first part of our work we describe the main existing forms and models of capitalism in the world.

The second part of our topic is devoted to the phenomenon of globalization. We also give basic information about globalization and consider capitalism in the era of globalization.

In the third part of our work, we consider all the exciting topic of the crisis and look at capitalism in the era of the global financial crisis.

And in the end we will make some conclusions on the above information.

In our opinion, our topic “Varieties of capitalism in the globalizing world” is quite interesting and relevant, global financial crisis, according to many sources, has not yet ended, and capitalism has not changed to any other system.

Capitalism

 

Below is an attempt to give a working definition of the term 'capitalism', to trace the emergence of capitalism in a historical context.

The Oxford English Dictionary notes that the word "capitalism" first used in 1854 by the novelist William Makepeace Thackeray to denote the set of conditions of ownership of capital. In 1867, in his book Das Kapital Karl Marx used the term "capitalism" to refer to the capitalist mode of production, as well as "capitalist" - the owner of capital. To indicate the economic system for the first time the term was used in 1884 in the book Douai "Best of Times."[1]

Many economists give approximately the following definition of capitalism: a system of property rights, coexisting with the markets of production and consumption of goods and services, which the famous words of Adam Smith, manages the "invisible hand" that sets the price depending on supply and demand.

Despite the fact that democracy at the level of city-states emerged, apparently in ancient Greece and Rome, explicit examples of democracies in history have been observed to de Tocqueville observations with his American: he described the American example enables some researchers to argue that since about from 1630, simultaneously developed two systems - democratic rule and capitalism.

Historian Fernand Braudel, who attributed the rise of capitalism to the period of 1400-1800 years, admitted that he failed to define this phenomenon, but it is aware of the most important characteristic of capitalism as a system of economic relationships that are incompatible with feudalism, which is a different system of economic relationships. Trade in goods and services exist in many of the feudal system, such as the Aztecs, the Incas, in Japan of the Shoguns, in imperial China, India and the Ottoman Empire.

Capitalism has the following distinctive features:

1. The economy is producing goods and services, as well as commerce and other types of legitimate economic activity.

2. The means of production are privately owned.

3. The source of subsistence for the majority of society is the work not under duress, as is the case in other economic systems, and on the free recruitment, sale of labor in the form of wages.

Types of Capitalism

 

There are two types of capitalism in a modern world:

1st type: capitalism in imperialistic and other developed capitalistic countries: USA, Western Europe, Japan, Canada;

2nd type: neo-colonial capitalism, that is works as a basis for the functioning of the 1st type capitalism (incl. Russia).

Models of capitalism according the theory of Benjamin D. Suarez

 

There are a lot of classifications of capitalistic models in the today’s world, made by different scientists. For our work we have chosen the classification of capitalistic models according the theory of Benjamin D.Suarez.

There are many forms of capitalism and they all very much differ from each other, but all of them come to several models of capitalism.

Imperialistic models

 

Japanese model

It is a national state monopolistic capitalism based on market and government regulation. Democracy in Japan means submission of private interests to common interests. It is a variant of collectivism democracy. Nation in Japan is above all things. Japanese culture plays an important role. Japanese democracy: subordination of private interests in favour of public interests. Japanese model of capitalism can be characterised by stable economics, high level of life and sustainable development of economics.

European models of capitalism

There are two main types of European models of capitalism:

A)  social-democratic model of Scandinavian type:

Small and medium-sized business acts as a basis. It is characterized by high level of life, stability, social protection;

B)  social-market model of Common market countries:

Such countries have developed economics, high level of social protection of citizens by the government (France) or monopolistic banks (Germany). These countries typically have high level of life, high stability, sometimes they have high level of unemployment and crime (esp. ............