Inside Capitalism: An Introduction to Political Economy

These days almost anyone is bound to be depressed by the litany of economic woes besieging Canada. Mainstream economists, politicians and business leaders claim that workers’ wages must fall, that the social safety net must be stripped away that taxes must be cut and that environmental regulations must be relaxed. "There is no alternative", we are told, if Canada is to be competitive. But is this really the case? If we are to even begin to respond to this new economic mantra we have to know what makes our economy tick. In Inside Capitalism, Paul Phillips introduces us to political economic analysis that explains why firms behave as they do, why we have such a high level of economic monopoly and who benefits from the economic structure of capitalism. In so doing, Phillips shows us that traditional economic analysis is mainly ideology. Clearly the dismal prospects that average Canadians face are not the result of immutable economic laws but rather due to the political and economic power that business has amassed with the aid of successive governments and the Bank of Canada.