Branko Milanovic, Capitalism Alone: The Future of the System that Rules the World (2019)

I read this book a few years ago and thought highly of it, but realized, as I was recently reading Mike Davis's Planet of Slums for my book club, that I remembered very little of Milanovic. So I reread it. Milanovic is a highly respected economist, who served in a senior post in the World Bank and has made his name by gathering and analyzing data on global inequality. In this book, he casts a sober eye on the system that, as the subtitle says, rules the world. Today capitalism comes in two forms, liberal meritocratic capitalism (the US, Western Europe, etc.) and political capitalism (China, above all, but also Russia and some others). One of the great strengths of the book is that Milanovic carefully, and to my mind, very judiciously, assesses both the advantages and disadvantages of each. The main problem of the liberal variant at present are the several, mutually reinforcing tendencies that are strengthening a closed elite. The US, in particular, is moving in the direction of becoming a plutocracy. In contrast with classical capitalism (late 19th century), those today who are capital rich are also rich in terms of income from labor. The main problems of political capitalism are, similarly, income and wealth polarization, but also the corruption that's endemic to the system. Milanovic is a somewhat heterodox economist as he credits Marx (and Marxists) with getting some things right, for example, that the bourgeoisie has captured the political system in liberal meritocratic capitalism and that capitalism was the main cause of WWI. He also explains why communism was necessary for creating the conditions in which political capitalism might emerge. Finally, Milanovic sketches out some potential positive future developments, but he seems to think that we are most likely headed toward ever greater atomization and commercialization, as market relations dissolve (nearly?) all others. This sober and tragic view reminded me of Weber.