"As Martin Wolf put it: 'the financially-driven capitalism that emerged after the market-orientated counter-revolution has proved too much of a good thing'. From this perspective, unrestrained market forces, expressed in diverse forms of speculation, lavish executive bonuses and increasing social inequalities, led inexorably to the crash....we question this consensus, which is often proclaimed mistakenly as the triumph of 'neoliberalism'. Rather, markets are even less free than they used to be. The state did not retreat from economic life in the 1980s. Under the banner of deregulation', the form of state intervention changed significantly. While retreating from the traditions of economic policy aiming to encourage growth, the state offered subsidies to sustain industry and encouragements to the financial sector. Nor was there much evidence of an unleashed entrepreneurial spirit among capitalists. They preferred to avoid the risk of investment in new technologies or new areas of production, in pursuit of quick returns through financialised activities.Policymakers have generally stumbled into solutions for immediate problems when they could no longer evade them....Government policies have attempted to restore economic stability at the expense of establishing a solid dynamic for growth. Yet such state-led measures are ultimately counterproductive. Trying to stabilise the economy in its current state has the perverse effect of preserving its moribund features and stunting its development. While state intervention has moderated the worst features of decay, the economy has become increasingly sclerotic.Short-term expedients have brought temporary respite while allowing deeper problems to fester. These policies have ultimately made the slump worse. By sustaining a stagnant productive base, the state has forestalled the process that Joseph Schumpeter named 'creative destruction'. Instead of encouraging the replacement of ailing companies by more dynamic enterprises, the government has opted to maintain a 'zombie' economy. Various forms of state support prop up firms that are incapable of boosting productivity through investing in new technologies. A dead economy is thus given the semblance of life and the appearance of resilience disguises a continuing process of decay. It will not be easy to escape the grip of the Long Depression. Though a comprehensive restructuring of production is needed to restore capitalism's value-creating capacity, the default option is always to avoid disruption. But 'creative destruction' on a significant scale is essential to restore growth. Older, less productive capital assets will have to be written off and replaced by a wave of transformative outlays on the latest technologies in newly emerging sectors of production."
Total alinhamento com o que aprendi com Maliranta em 2007:
"It is widely believed that restructuring has boosted productivity by displacing low-skilled workers and creating jobs for the high skilled."Mas, e como isto é profundo:"In essence, creative destruction means that low productivity plants are displaced by high productivity plants."
Trechos retirados de "Creative destruction" de Phil Mullan.
