Four books on capitalism

Suddenly it is capitalism all over again. The current crisis, more severe than anything since 1945, or for that matter since 1929, has once again made it respectable and sometimes even de rigueur to speak of capitalism instead of ‘the economy’. What does the social science bookstore have to offer to those who have become newly curious, not just about the ‘varieties’ but about the nature of the beast? What did the authors of books written before the crash know, and what did they dare say, about capitalism's specific vulnerabilities, the risks it poses for the society that it inhabits and for itself, its periodic breakdowns and recurring fits of destructive insanity, and its seemingly unending need for reconstructive public intervention? Frederic Pryor, the author of the most ‘economic’ of the four more or less randomly selected books reviewed here, is, according to Wikipedia, ‘best known for his role in a Cold War spy swap’. In August 1961, as a student in West Berlin, ‘Pryor was arrested and held without charge by the East German Police’, to be freed six months later ‘along with American U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers’ in exchange for ‘Soviet KGB Colonel Vilyam Fisher (aka Rudolf Abel)’. Whatever this may mean, the book testifies that Pryor would deserve to be equally well known for his scholarly achievements—which, as his website indicates, are very impressive indeed. Clearly, Pryor's early Berlin experience has not affected his critical judgement, or made him feel obliged to project unshakable confidence in the economic system of the country that once bailed him out. Now a Professor Emeritus at Swarthmore, Pryor offers his readers a truly encyclopaedic review of the situation of American capitalism at the turn of the millennium, based on broad knowledge of the relevant literature inside and outside of economics, mainstream or not, surveying a wealth of data from a wide range of disciplines and ending with a well-reasoned, deeply sceptical view of his book's subject, ‘The Future of U.S. Capitalism’.