ABSTRACT
I can already see minds at work thinking here comes another character from the US crossing the St Lawrence to take a few pot shots at American capitalism. Not so. In the first place, capitalism is not an American invention. We are products of it. As for me, in the second place, I will rely on Lord Keynes: “I can be influenced by what seems to me to be justice and good sense; but the Class war will find me on the side of the educated bourgeoisie” (Keynes, 1963: 323-4, italics in original). I come here neither to praise nor to curse capitalism but to explore some of its problematics. Political economy is, like medicine, an impure science of pathology. Economics is a pure science of wellness. And here I find my position supported by Joseph Schumpeter, who sounded like a pessimist about capitalism but was actually a pathologist: “Prognosis does not imply anything about the desirability of the course of events that one predicts. If the doctor predicts that his patient will die presently, this does not mean that he desires it” (Schumpeter, 1942: 61).
