In fairness, the article says he's not against capitalism he just believes in regulated capitalism
In fact, though I'll be the first to admit I'm not familiar with Minsky's work, the article makes it sound like his theories are basically what we've been doing for the last 2 years (Prop up failing industries, use the government as an employer of last resort, etc...) I have two issues with this:
1. We've been doing just that for 2 years and the end result thus far is we're still in a recession and our government is dramatically poorer. When the government has to hold up "slowing job loss" as an accomplishment that doesn't impress me (It's also what FDR tried for 10 years to no avail)
2. In large part pumping money into failing institutions is what got us here. Let me cut through the economics babble and just put this in logical terms. Capitalism works because the best businesses succeed while the worst fail. If you prop up the worst so they can't fail you get a situation where they'll take crazy risks because there's no fear of failure. Hence where we are now.
Microsoft made good enough software that ran on the cheapest hardware available. So people could do everything on a PC that they could do on say...a Mac for a fraction of the cost (sure it was probably harder to do but people obviously valued the money they saved more)
Wal-Mart sells products the cheaper than anyone else. 'nuff said.
McDonalds may not be the best food but they spend millions per year making sure it's consistent. You can go to a McDonalds in Los Angeles and a McDonalds in London and it's going to essentially be the same food. People value that. Plus it's again cheap and good enough.
Exxon has actually made several innovations in customer experience that help push it up over it's rivals. Here in Southern California for example we have SpeedPass which is an RFID device on your key chain that allows you to purchase gas quicker and without pulling out your wallet.
So the point is all those companies delivered what the market wanted.
Sadly, as with kids and sweets, IMO the market doesn't demand what is best for it (and everyone else).
Otherwise Wal-Mart products would be as cheap as they could be whilst still being made to last and be repaired and low impact, low energy, etc. - all products would be traded in a way that workers were not paid immorally low wages. McDonalds would sell food that is good enough to keep you healthy rather than being carefully chemically balanced to be good enough to bring you back next time (high sugar, high salt, high fat, strong marketing). Exxon would be investing not only in ways to let you give them money more quickly but hugely into increasing fuel efficiency and alternative transport systems that would use renewable resources.
If they could pay their workers nothing and get new ones when they were too sick to work; if they could do more clear cutting of endangered forest to reduce costs; if they could manipulate the markets more to make the poor give more to the rich ... they'd be even better capitalists ...
In fact, though I'll be the first to admit I'm not familiar with Minsky's work, the article makes it sound like his theories are basically what we've been doing for the last 2 years (Prop up failing industries, use the government as an employer of last resort, etc...) I have two issues with this:
1. We've been doing just that for 2 years and the end result thus far is we're still in a recession and our government is dramatically poorer. When the government has to hold up "slowing job loss" as an accomplishment that doesn't impress me (It's also what FDR tried for 10 years to no avail)
2. In large part pumping money into failing institutions is what got us here. Let me cut through the economics babble and just put this in logical terms. Capitalism works because the best businesses succeed while the worst fail. If you prop up the worst so they can't fail you get a situation where they'll take crazy risks because there's no fear of failure. Hence where we are now.