Capitalism has, for centuries, been held up as the best economic system to underpin and support democratic governments. Yet, capitalism has come under increased fire during the past couple decades for failing to provide economic stability, political enfranchisement, and moral direction.
Let’s consider some examples of events that evidence the system’s failings:
•The 2000 dot-com bubble that burst in March 2000, which was caused by outrageous valuations of tech companies that couldn’t be sustained, saw market indexes to fall between 50 and 77 percent (with NASDAQ not recovering for 15 years).
•The “Great Recession” of 2007 to 2009, which started in the United States but rippled across the globe, created conditions within which the United States that launched a bailout of banks “too big to fail” and resulted in the enactment the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to assist consumers and the many people who lost their jobs.
•The “rise of the one percent,” documented by Thomas Piketty in 2013, brought into sharp focus the true disparity of wealth across the globe – a disparity that has only worsened: a recent Oxfam report indicated the richest one percent has pocketed nearly twice as much in new wealth in 2020 as the other 99% of the world’s population combined.1