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In Our Time

Capitalism

In Our Time

BBC

History

4.69.9K Ratings

🗓️ 24 June 1999

⏱️ 28 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss capitalism throughout the last two centuries. In 1848 Karl Marx in The Communist Manifesto described the dynamic force of capitalism as it swept through the 19th century: Constant revolutionising of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation. ‘All that is solid melts into air’. Was Karl Marx, in criticizing capitalism, actually responsible for defining it? From Marx’s critique of capitalism in the 19th Century through to the collapse of Communism at the end of the twentieth century, have we witnessed the triumph of capitalism? Or are we only now learning the full costs and the social impact of unfettered capitalism?With Anatole Kaletsky, economics commentator and Associate Editor of The Times, and author of The Costs of Default and In the Shadow of Debt; Edward Luttwak, Senior Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington DC and author of Turbo Capitalism: Winners and Losers in the Global Economy.

Transcript

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0:00.0

Thanks for downloading the NRTIME podcast. For more details about NRTIME and for our terms of use, please go to bbc.co.uk forward slash radio for.

0:09.0

I hope you enjoy the program.

0:12.0

Hello, I'm joined today by two economic commentators Edward Lutvarke and Anatole Kalecki to look at capitalism through the century.

0:19.0

In 1848 Karl Marx in the Communist Manifesto described the dynamic force of capitalism as its swept through the 19th century.

0:27.0

Constant revolutionizing of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation.

0:35.0

All that is solid melts into air.

0:38.0

From Marx's critique of capitalism in the 19th century through to the collapse of communism at the end of the 20th century, have we witnessed the triumph of capitalism?

0:46.0

Or are we only now learning the full costs and the social impact of unfettered capitalism?

0:52.0

Edward Lutvarke is senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC.

0:58.0

A native of Romania, he lived much of his early life in Italy and was educated in Europe and the United States where he now lives.

1:04.0

He's the author of The Pentagon and the Art of War, The Endangered American Dream, and his latest book is called Turbo Capitalism, winners and losers in the global economy.

1:14.0

He's been in London giving a last word in the city lecture on the future of the European Monetary Union.

1:20.0

Anatole Kaletsky's economics commentator and associate editor of The Times, educated at Cambridge University in Harvard, is very extensively for the economist and the financial times.

1:29.0

As well as a regular contribution to The Times, he's the author of The Costs of Default and In The Shadow of Death.

1:36.0

How far Edward Lutvarke do we owe our definition of capitalism to Marx?

1:41.0

Not much really. He never used the word capitalism as it happens.

1:47.0

The origin of the concept and the understanding of the phenomena is really some part, where there's some part, now really forgotten, much read, and by the way a wonderful writer.

2:00.0

His attitude is mine, that is unlike Marx, not hostile to capitalism, but ambivalent about it.

2:08.0

By being hostile to capitalism, do you think Marx in that sense helped to define it, even though he didn't name it?

2:13.0

Well, yes, but he defined it in a way that was really quite useless. Some part captured the dynamism.

2:22.0

Stress to fight the capitalism is born from the restless soul of the European civilization, which wants to conquer and discover and create and reshape.

2:33.0

He did focus on the human engine of it, the entrepreneur, the creator of the company, the creator of the business, and he did systematically explain how it could transform areas of poverty and raise general prosperity.

...

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