Univ. of Cassino and Southern Lazio Lectures
Lecture 1
World Capitalism in
Crisis
Toshiaki Hirai
Introduction 1 Outline of the Lecture
I. Capitalism
and the World Economy:
The aim here is to identify what globalization has
brought about over these last three decades, examine how world capitalism has
evolved and changed through globalization, and evaluate globalization (focusing
on its light and shadow) through representative nations – the developed nations
and the emerging nations.
Focusing
on this phenomenon from diverse points of
view should prove fruitful for an
understanding not only of world capitalism as it is but also of the direction
it will be moving in.
***
Since the
mid-80s the world economy has seen the evolution of Globalization, which can be
characterized as the “phenomenon moving toward market economy on a global
scale”.
Globalization can be considered from two
viewpoints – the factors which favored it, and the phenomena which occurred as
a result of those factors.
With regard to the factors , we will single
out the following five:
(i)
Neo-Liberalism;
(ii)
financial liberalization;
(iii)
liberalization of capital transaction;
(iv)
New Industrial Revolution;
(v)
the collapse of the socialistic system.
More in detail,
(i) is the fruit of developments in thought in the broad sense, (ii) and (iii)
are steps intentionally taken by governments and financial institutions in the
direction of financial liberalization, (iv) is a conquest of the IT revolution,
initiated by many young US entrepreneurs, and (v) is the collapse of a rival to
the capitalistic system.
As
for the phenomena, four types of globalization could be identified as
constituting the great transformation of the world economic system:
(i)
Financial Globalization;
(ii) Market System
I – Globalization, with the collapse of the Cold War Order and the ensuing
convergence toward the capitalistic system
(iii) Market
System II – Globalization, with the rise of the emerging nations – the
so-called BRICs
(iv)
Globalization of Market Integration – the EU (or the Euro System).
Globalization,
in a nutshell, has offered great opportunities for the emerging
Financial globalization, on the other
hand, has proved so excessive as to make the world economy increasingly fragile
and unstable.
We
cannot and need not prevent the advent of Globalization. But we need to
Lecture 2 How Should We Grasp Capitalism?
Lecture 3 How Should We Grasp Globalization?
Lecture
4 Financial Liberalization and
Instability
Lecture
5 Lehman Shock and the US Economy
Lecture
6 The Euro Crisis
Lecture
7 Self-Trapped Japanese Economy
Lecture
8 Abenomics and Stagnant Japanese
Economy
Lecture
9 What Is Happening to Economics?
II.
On Keynes
It is widely
agreed that the greatest contribution of John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946) to
modern economics was the construction, for the first time, of a model
explaining how the level of employment is determined.
Keynes was
probably the most important and without doubt the most influential economic
thinker to emerge in the era spanning the decline and disintegration of the Pax
Britannica and ending with the Second World War.
After his death,
his influence in the spheres of macroeconomics and economic policy-making
became so overwhelmingly dominant that the period from the 1950s to the 1970s
may with some justification be designated the “Age of Keynes.”
The evolution of
Keynes’s thought was informed as much by the events of the real world, in which
he was himself deeply engaged, as by the world of theoretical economics. He
developed a monetary approach to economics, centering on the theory of
effective demand, and, on that foundation, advocated a fiscal policy to address
the crushing problem of mass unemployment which marked the inter-war years.
The stance
Keynes took in theoretical economics and in practical affairs was closely
linked to his social philosophy – the “New Liberalism”– which insisted on the
necessity for judicious intervention on the part of government to
facilitate the orderly functioning of the economy, an outlook set squarely
against nineteenth-century laissez―faire.
Keynes’s other
influence was his active involvement in policy-making. In his final years, as
the top United Kingdom representative in negotiations with the United States he
contributed important proposals for the design of the postwar world order.
Lecture
10 The Life of Keynes
Lecture
11 Social Philosophy in Interwar Cambridge
Lecture
12 Keynesian Revolution – from the Treatise to
Lecture 13 The General Theory
Lecture 14 A Treatise on Probability and My Early
Beliefs
Lecture
15 Employment Policy and Welfare System
Lecture
16 Rescue/Relief Problem and Commodity
Problem
Lecture
17 International Clearing
Union/
End of the Lecture (inc. Geopolitics)
