But quite apart from whether you think capitalism is good or bad, capitalism issomething we must study. It’s the economy we live in, the economy we know. Andthe more ordinary people understand about capitalism
Capitalism is something we must understand as people of society. I am interested to learn about all the different aspects of it and how it influences our economy.
I alsobelieve that it is ultimately possible to build an alternative economic system guideddirectly by our desire to improve the human condition, rather than by a hunger forprivate profit. (Exactly what that alternative system would look like, however, isnot at all clear today.) We’ll consider these criticisms of capitalism, and alternativevisions, in the last chapters of this book
How different would the economy be with this alternate system? Would it be better for the people?
Unfortunately, most professional economists don’t think about economics inthis common-sense, grass-roots context. To the contrary, they tend to adopt arather superior attitude in their dealings with the untrained masses. They invokecomplicated technical mumbo-jumbo – usually utterly unnecessary to theirarguments – to make their case. They claim to know what’s good for the people
What would it be like if economists did not have such superio attitudes and came from a more "for the people" perspective? How different would the economy be?
Most production of goods and services is undertaken by privately-ownedcompanies, which produce and sell their output in hopes of making a profit.This is called production for profit.2. Most work in the economy is performed by people who do not own theircompany or their output, but are hired by someone else to work in return for amoney wage or salary. This is called wage labour.
Stanford tends to focus on how important production is, what they sell, who they hire, and how much they pay. While Kling focuses on specialization and free-market. Stanford also writes as if his audience is not very economic educated while Kling writes like his audience has economic background knowledge.