Capitalism - Tapa dura

Arthur Seldon's new book is a tenacious and elegant 'celebration' of capitalism despite its faults. Traditionally, socialist critics have contrasted capitalism as it is in the world we have known with socialism as it is envisaged in a world they have yet to demonstrate is possible. It creates a false debate that socialism must win and capitalism cannot win whatsoever its achievements. Furthermore, it confuses the people's choice between the 'capitalist hell' they know and the 'socialist heaven' they are promised. Using the methodology of the critics of capitalism in the opposite direction, the book places socialism as it is against capitalism as it could be.Arthur Seldon argues that neither system is without faults and failures, but that an informed choice is properly made by assessing the degree to which they can be corrected. The book argues that, unlike socialism, the waknesses of capitalism are not inevitable nor fundamental to the system it creates and concludes that it is with capitalism that the choice must lie.

Arthur Seldon is a Founder President of the Institute of Economic Affairs. The classical liberal ideas he re-animated over 30 years in hundreds of its publications on the market process and the economics of political democracy, and in his own writings, have had a revolutionary impact on the political and intellectual life of our day. He is a First Class Honours graduate of the London School of Economics, and has been a university tutor in economics, and economist in industry, adviser to the Government of Australia, and Vice-Present of the Mont Pelerin Society of world liberal scholars.