Choice Review

Wolff (economics, Univ. of Massachusetts, Amherst) contends that the public needs to replace the so-called stale, old debates on the proper size of government and instead consider socialist economic systems to avoid capitalism's inherent, systematic business cycle disasters. This volume, which reprints 28 of Wolff's articles from Monthly Review, attributes the recent financial crisis to global mismanagement by tiny, elite, corporate boards of directors and by unworkable democratic state planners and regulators, as demonstrated by the Bush and Obama administrations. Wolff asserts the current crisis began in the 1970s, when a century of steady increases in the average US real worker wage permanently ceased. As a result, consumers overexpanded household debt while corporate profits flourished. Wolff's assertion regarding wage stagnation, a crucial element in his overall criticism of capitalism, cannot be supported. When benefits are added to wages, worker compensation shows steady expansion in nearly every year since 1973. In addition, hardly any attention is given to a record of failure whenever and wherever socialist economies prevailed. In Wolff's plans, the production and distribution systems are directed solely by workers and depend on layers of directors in regional and political bodies; agents of monetary policies and authorities are only implied. Who controls inflation? Summing Up: Not recommended. H. I. Liebling emeritus, Lafayette College