Capitalism’s Obituary: “After a long illness caused by a birth defect …”

Just as we cannot say when capitalism died because the dying process is continuous, we cannot say when capitalism was born.  However, we do have the effect that plagued it throughout its lifetime, namely, unequal exchange.  That unequal exchange showed itself as phenomenal growth in capital simultaneously with phenomenal growth in poverty.  Henry George developed this aspect of Capitalism’s biography in his 1879 classic, Progress and Poverty.  Elizabeth Magie Kuhn Phillips invented The Landlord’s Game in 1904 to simulate the problem and Henry George’s solution.  The first part of that game, the problem, was the basis for the game MONOPOLY.  People have played MONOPOLY without realizing that they were re-creating the fatal defect in Capitalism.

The DNA for unequal exchange was a missing component of the money gene, namely, a definition of money’s worth.  The gene only carried a name, not a definition of money’s worth.  Without a definition, money facilitated unequal exchange without it being noticed as such.  Calling it “profit” completed the disguise and did nothing to correct the defect.  The growth in capital was seen as progress and not a cause of growing poverty, which it was as well.  That is what unequal exchange does; makes some rich and others poor.