The Locust and the Bee
Predators and Creators in Capitalism’s Future
Number of pages: 344
Publisher: Princeton University Press
BBB Library: Economics and Investment, Technology and Globalization
ISBN: 9780691146966
Editorial Review
The recent economic crisis was a dramatic reminder that capitalism can both produce and destroy. It's a system that by its very nature encourages predators and creators, locusts and bees. But, as Geoff Mulgan argues in this compelling, imaginative, and important book, the economic crisis also presents a historic opportunity to choose a radically different future for capitalism, one that maximizes its creative power and minimizes its destructive force. In an engaging and wide-ranging argument, Mulgan digs into the history of capitalism across the world to show its animating ideas, its utopias and dystopias, as well as its contradictions and possibilities. Drawing on a subtle framework for understanding systemic change, he shows how new political settlements reshaped capitalism in the past and are likely to do so in the future. By reconnecting value to real-life ideas of growth, he argues, efficiency and entrepreneurship can be harnessed to promote better lives and relationships rather than just a growth in the quantity of material consumption. Healthcare, education, and green industries are already becoming dominant sectors in the wealthier economies, and the fields of social innovation, enterprise, and investment are rapidly moving into the mainstream--all indicators of how capital could be made more of a servant and less a master. This is a book for anyone who wonders where capitalism might be heading next--and who wants to help make sure that its future avoids the mistakes of the past.
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Wisdom to Share
If you want to make money, you can choose between two fundamentally different strategies. One is to create genuinely new value by bringing resources together in ways that serve people’s wants and needs. The other is to seize value through predation, taking resources, money, or time from others, whether they like it or not. Your choice, in short, is whether to be a bee or a locust.
The advocates of capitalism claimed to offer an alternative to the predatory instincts, while the critics castigated it for legitimating the greed of the speculator and the rapaciousness of the factory owner.
The more concentrated the power, the more opportunities for predation; the more invisible the relationships of power, the more chances there are to take advantage of others.
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