How to Save Capitalism?

Rick MacArthur, publisher of Harper's Magazine, talks to Juan Gonzalez and Amy Goodman about the current state of US capitalism. The latest issue of Harper's Magazine poses multiple questions, two being: how to save capitalism; and, is it worth saving? James K. Galbraith puts some bullocks into discussing the need for government planning independent of today's artificial constraints, such as corporate lobbyists.

For instance, carbon prices and cap-and-trade systems will help to deal with the climate crisis, but they cannot do the whole job. Markets do not design new systems—new patterns of transport and housing, new technologies for electric power, for vehicles, for heating and cooling. To design a system, to put the pieces together, to identify the most promising lines of attack and take steps to achieve them: that is the planner’s role.

Imagine a Federal Department of Energy and Climate with real independence. It could make an honest evaluation of ethanol. It could review the prospects and assess the dangers of next-generation nuclear power. It could make a judgment on carbon capture. It could consider all the serious conservation proposals, such as Joe Kennedy’s program to retrofit housing in the snow belt. It could fund new research centers in the major universities, so that in a decade the country will have trained the experts we will need to implement the plans we make. [link.]