Dirk Ehnts — End of capitalism as ‘they’ know it?

The negative interest rate of the deposit facility has prompted an article by Christian Rickens at Spiegel Online, head of the economics and business section, in which he writes:

Zunächst einmal müssten wir dann wahrscheinlich aufhören, unser System als Kapitalismus zu bezeichnen – denn der beruht ja gerade darauf, dass Kapital einen Preis hat und auch in risikofreien Anlageformen Rendite erzielt.

My translation looks like this:

First of all we must probably stop to call our system capitalism – because it is based on the idea that capital has a price and that also with riskless assets you can get a positive rent (or profit or yield).

This is at the same time deeply revealing and deeply disturbing. The head of business and economics at the biggest online magazine of Germany defines capitalism as basically and before everything else a system in which capital has a price and those holding riskless assets should be rewarded.

econoblog 101
End of capitalism as ‘they’ know it?
Dirk Ehnts | Berlin School for Economics and Law