Dr Fernando Alcoforado

*Capitalism is a complex, dynamic, adaptive and non-linear system because it has elements or agents in large numbers that interact with each other – forming one or more structures that originate from the interactions between such agents.

Complex systems are characterized by their dynamism, whose fundamental characteristics are their sensitive dependence on the initial conditions, whereby minimal differences at the beginning of any process can lead to completely different and/or opposite situations over time. The opinion of Ervin Laszlo, Ph.D. of the Sorbonne and president of the Budapest Club, presented in the book O Ponto do Caos (The Point of Chaos), is that a dynamic system, in society or in a computer simulation, is governed by attractors. Keep Reading

*Keynesianism is dead. 

The economic failure of liberal capitalism from the American Revolution (1776) and the French Revolution (1789) to the Great Depression with the crack on the New York Stock Exchange (1929) led to the adoption of Keynesianism based on the ideas of the English economist, John Maynard Keynes, who unlike classical economic liberals, defended state action in the economy with the objective of achieving full employment. 

Keynesian philosophy ceased to be effective by the 1970s, due to the decline in world economic growth after the so-called “glorious years” of the 1950’s and 60’s. There were two oil crises along with the debt crisis experienced by most  countries of the world that drove insolvency at international banks. 

This situation made the conservative forces of the United Kingdom and the United States, under the leadership respectively of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, carry forward neoliberalism whose economic doctrine advocated the return of liberalism now on the world stage – which meant absolute market freedom and a restriction on state intervention on the economy. Neoliberalism was adopted after the end of the Soviet Union and the Eastern European socialist system in 1989, respectively.

With neoliberalism, social inequality has reached alarming levels throughout the world.”
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