The Price We Pay for Globalization
Capitalism has solved the need to keep wages low and consumption high by bringing future consumption into the present by dramatic extensions of credit.
Leading moral philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre addresses the failings of ‘advanced modernity.’ Apologists for globalisation, he argues, treat it as a source of benefits…MacIntyre maintains that the system must be understood in terms of its vices — in particular debt. The owners and managers of capital always want to keep wages and other costs as low as possible. ‘But, insofar as they succeed, they create a recurrent problem for themselves…tension between the need to keep wages low and the need to keep consumption high.’ Capitalism has solved this dilemma by bringing future consumption into the present by dramatic extension of credit.