● Pathology of the Capitalist Spirit: An Essay on Greed, Loss, and Hope
By David Levine
Excerpt via publisher, Palgrave
Since the eighteenth century, economists have defined the terms in which we think about capitalism: economic growth, freedom, and power. Originally, capitalism was understood as the form of economic organization that created a new world of wealth and the alleviation of poverty, or, at least it created the possibility that there might be such a world. Subsequently, the matter of freedom became increasingly important. Capitalism was either equated with freedom or considered an essential precondition for it. At the same time that these two themes were being explored, a third gained traction, which is that capitalism is essentially an institutional–legal mechanism for enabling the few to gain wealth at the expense of the many.
