I think it’s time to pull out the ‘splitting’ distinction between “industrial capitalism” and “financial capitalism”. I’m an economist, but in no way enamoured

I think it’s time to pull out the ‘splitting’ distinction between “industrial capitalism” and “financial capitalism”. I’m an economist, but in no way enamoured with free markets and laissez-faire attitudes as the default for solving everything. I think Mark Fisher had it right in his Capitalist Realism that Capitalism has totally blinded modern western (and other) societies to the existence of any possible alternative form of organisation. However, the kind of financial capitalism we now live under in most of the West—the kind that generates huge income inequalities, concentrates power in the hands of the financial sector, disproportionately favours incumbents, and corrupts our political systems by means of lobbying by special interest groups—lacks all the oft-cited advantages that Capitalism is supposed to bring in tow in exchange for its shortcomings.