The European Tribune is a forum for thoughtful dialogue of European and international issues. You are invited to post comments and your own articles.
Please REGISTER to post.
Firstly Sweden is more of a social democratic economy than a free market one.
Secondly Cuba's economy has always been strongly limited by trade sanctions from the US.
And finally, what does 'work' mean? Does the US economy, with its vast and increasing inequality, work according to Krugman's definition? Is it hard to imagine that there might be people in Cuba who are better off than people in the US?
The subtext is an obvious and rather naive or unquestioning acceptance of free market exceptionalism compared to the alternatives - when the reality is that in fact free market economies only 'work' in the libertarian sense of increasing inequality, to the point where inequality and autocratic top-down policy are a good effective definition of the political and financial output of a so-called free market.
Free market economies can only work if they're based on an imperial model which steals resources from other countries. Even then they blow up every few years, and they deny most people democratic participation. They're also suicidally bad at long-term planning and prone to outbreaks of corporate banditry and corruption.
That's a strange definition of 'work' - unless you start from the assumption that they're the best of all possible arrangements by definition, and work back from that.
by gmoke - Nov 28
by gmoke - Nov 12 7 comments
by Oui - Dec 1
by gmoke - Nov 302 comments
by Oui - Nov 3012 comments
by Oui - Nov 2837 comments
by Oui - Nov 278 comments
by Oui - Nov 2511 comments
by Oui - Nov 24
by Oui - Nov 221 comment
by Oui - Nov 22
by Oui - Nov 2119 comments
by Oui - Nov 1615 comments
by Oui - Nov 154 comments
by Oui - Nov 1319 comments
by Oui - Nov 1224 comments
by gmoke - Nov 127 comments
by Oui - Nov 1114 comments
by Oui - Nov 10
by Oui - Nov 928 comments
by Oui - Nov 8