A Failure of Capitalism
non-fiction work by Richard Posner
A Failure of Capitalism: The Crisis of '08 and the Descent into Depression is a 2009 book by legal scholar Richard Posner. The text was initially published on May 1, 2009, by Harvard University Press. Posner criticizes President George W. Bush and his administration's policies and the response to the fiscal crisis, and moves away from his past well-known advocacy of free-market capitalism. The book has been primarily noted not for his criticism of progressive government policies, but rather his critique of laissez-faire capitalism and its ideologues.
The book has been received with generally good reviews from the press, including The New York Times, but the reception has not been universally positive.
Synopsis
The primary argument of the book is that we have gone from a recession into a depression (the "D" word, as one reviewer calls it) in 2009, and Posner suggests several possible short-term and long-term solutions to this fiscal crisis. His thesis is not that government, politicians, or even bankers primarily caused this depression, but rather that the capitalist system is to blame for its faults.
Some of the causes of the depression that Posner cites are the lack of enforceable usury laws, which would discourage risky loans, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and central banks taking risks, securitization of mortgages, illiquidity and insolvency of the banking system, the housing bubble, blindness to warning signs of a crisis, and the preconceptions of ideology.
Posner wraps up the book with a chapter containing several suggestions, including eventual re-regulation of the banking industry, but warns that "this is not the time" to do so—a long-term solution after the economy recovers—that can "wait calmer days." He also suggests putting off a reorganization of the Treasury and the Federal Reserve until a later time. In the meanwhile, he writes, "piecemeal reforms may be feasible and helpful." These include a halt on government marketing of home ownership, requiring banks and financial institutions to "disclose the full compensation of all senior executives", backloading of compensation, increasing marginal income tax rates on the highest incomes, and usury laws to discourage risky loans.
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