Thursday, August 25, 2016

Book Discussion on Confronting Capitalism: Professor Philip Kotler [Video]

Here Professor Philip Kotler talked about his book, Confronting Capitalism: Real Solutions for a Troubled Economic System. He has taught economics and marketing at the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois for 50 years, and has written 50 books. He is considered to be America's leading marketing guru, so you would tend to think that he has no time for socialism.

Philip Kotler was inspired by Milton Friedman and believed free markets was the answer to improving the conditions for mankind. But he can see now that some government regulation is needed to help the economy to work better.

I almost switched off this video at the beginning thinking that Philip Kotler was just going to go on about trickle down and come out with the same old right wing propaganda while throwing in a few crumbs for the poor, but I persevered, mainly because the intro to his book was so good, and I'm glad I did.

Philip Kotler is a moderate who can see that present day capitalism has got out of hand where the One Percent have taken all the wealth. He says that we need some Keynesianism now to stimulate the economy, and that wages should be increased to improve demand to help the economy.  He says how the One percent have outsourced all the work abroad and have forced wages and conditions right down, and that billions around the world don't get a living wage. He also says that products should have the true cost attached to them with externalities taken into consideration - you can't just pollute the environment.

Philip Kotler also believes that general happiness should be taken into consideration and not just the GDP.  Being happy at work is important, says Philip Kotler, as well as having sufficient leisure time. He says that Sweden is a good example of how to run an economy.

Philip Kotler says that education and university should be free and is an investment for society. When the interviewer asks him how that was going to be paid for, he said $trillions go missing from the military budget and the money can be found there.  

Well, what a great interview, and what a decent guy, so I bought his book, which was very inexpensive in Kindle.
 

https://www.c-span.org/video/?326474-5/book-discussion-confronting-capitalism

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

«Being happy at work is important, says Philip Kotler, as well as having sufficient leisure time.»

The problem here is who should be «happy at work», who "deserves" that happiness, and leisure time.

What so many don't realize is that 30-35 years of neoliberalism have made a lot of people happier: managers, executives, finance speculators, house owners, who can also often retire quite early and enjoy a lot of leisure time in comfort or luxury.

In particular consider house owners in "prime" locations like the UK's south east: they have enjoyed very much 100% per year profits on cash invested, effort-free and usually tax-free, by "working hard" every day at waiting for the government to push up prices and rents.

All those people are fully persuaded that it is *their* happiness that matters, not that of "looters and moochers"/"scroungers" like low-wage employees and servants.