Download or read book Money Politics and Power written by Richard A. Kleer and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2017-05-12 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Nine Years’ War with France was a period of great institutional innovation in public finance and of severe monetary turmoil for England. It saw the creation of the Bank of England; a sudden sharp fall in the external value of the pound; a massive undertaking to melt down and recoin most of the nation’s silver currency; a failed attempt to create a National Land Bank as a competitor to the Bank of England; and the ensuing outbreak of a sharp monetary and financial crisis. Histories of this period usually divide these events into two main topics, treated in isolation from one another: the recoinage debate and ensuing monetary crisis and a ‘battle of the banks’. The first is often interpreted as the pyrrhic victory of a creditor-dominated parliament over the nation’s debtors, one that led very predictably to the ensuing monetary crisis. The second has been construed as a contest between whig-merchant and tory-gentry visions of the proper place of banking in England’s future. This book binds the two strands into a single narrative, resulting in a very different interpretation of both. Parliamentary debate over the recoinage was superficial and misleading; beneath the surface, it was just another front for the battle of the banks. And the latter had little to do with competing philosophies of economic development; it was rather a pragmatic struggle for profit and power, involving interlocking contests between two groups of financiers and two sets of politicians within the royal administration. The monetary crisis of summer 1696 was not the result of poor planning by the Treasury; rather it was a continuation of the battle of the banks, fought on new ground but with the same ultimate intent – to establish dominance in the lucrative business of private lending to the crown.

Download or read book Democracy in America written by Benjamin I. Page and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2020-04-02 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: America faces daunting problems—stagnant wages, high health care costs, neglected schools, deteriorating public services. How did we get here? Through decades of dysfunctional government. In Democracy in America? veteran political observers Benjamin I. Page and Martin Gilens marshal an unprecedented array of evidence to show that while other countries have responded to a rapidly changing economy by helping people who’ve been left behind, the United States has failed to do so. Instead, we have actually exacerbated inequality, enriching corporations and the wealthy while leaving ordinary citizens to fend for themselves. What’s the solution? More democracy. More opportunities for citizens to shape what their government does. To repair our democracy, Page and Gilens argue, we must change the way we choose candidates and conduct our elections, reform our governing institutions, and curb the power of money in politics. By doing so, we can reduce polarization and gridlock, address pressing challenges, and enact policies that truly reflect the interests of average Americans. Updated with new information, this book lays out a set of proposals that would boost citizen participation, curb the power of money, and democratize the House and Senate.

Download or read book The Currency of Politics written by Stefan Eich and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2023-08-22 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Money in the history of political thought, from ancient Greece to the Great Inflation of the 1970s In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, critical attention has shifted from the economy to the most fundamental feature of all market economies—money. Yet despite the centrality of political struggles over money, it remains difficult to articulate its democratic possibilities and limits. The Currency of Politics takes readers from ancient Greece to today to provide an intellectual history of money, drawing on the insights of key political philosophers to show how money is not just a medium of exchange but also a central institution of political rule. Money appears to be beyond the reach of democratic politics, but this appearance—like so much about money—is deceptive. Even when the politics of money is impossible to ignore, its proper democratic role can be difficult to discern. Stefan Eich examines six crucial episodes of monetary crisis, recovering the neglected political theories of money in the thought of such figures as Aristotle, John Locke, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Karl Marx, and John Maynard Keynes. He shows how these layers of crisis have come to define the way we look at money, and argues that informed public debate about money requires a better appreciation of the diverse political struggles over its meaning. Recovering foundational ideas at the intersection of monetary rule and democratic politics, The Currency of Politics explains why only through greater awareness of the historical limits of monetary politics can we begin to articulate more democratic conceptions of money.

Download or read book Money Power and Elections written by Rodney A. Smith and published by LSU Press. This book was released on 2014-04-07 with total page 267 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Have campaign finance reform laws actually worked? Is money less influential in electing candidates today than it was thirty years ago when legislation was first enacted? Absolutely not, argues Rodney A. Smith in this passionately written, fact-filled, and provocative book. According to Smith, the laws have had exactly the opposite of their intended effect. They have increased the likelihood that incumbents in the House and Senate will be reelected, and they have greatly diminished the chances that candidates who are not wealthy will be elected. Smith's claims are supported by convincing data; he collected and analyzed information about all federal elections since 1920. These data show clearly that money matters now more than ever. Smith thinks that reform legislation has created a new inequality for candidates that, if left unchecked, threatens to destroy the American electoral process by obliterating the foundational principle of free speech. He argues that "money buys speech" and when candidates lack money to buy media time and space they are effectively silenced. Their inability to "speak freely" violates the most significant intentions of our nation's founders: that a sovereign citizenry elect its own leaders based on a free exchange of ideas. For Smith, campaign finance reform has unwittingly unbalanced the checks and balances created by the Framers of the Constitution.After presenting a detailed historical overview of how we have reached the present crisis, Smith proposes a simple solution: institute a process that completely discloses relevant information about campaign donors and recipients of donations. All disclosures would be available to the media, which would be able to investigate and report them fully. Only then, Smith believes, will the United States have the opportunity to be the democratic republic that its founders intended.

Download or read book The Federal Reserve and Its Founders written by Richard A. Naclerio and published by Agenda Publishing. This book was released on 2018 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Richard A. Naclerio investigates the events that surrounded the U.S. Federal Reserve's creation and the bankers, financiers, and economists who shaped its role over the next century. He sheds new light on the making of one of the world's most important financial institutions and how it came to have such crucial national and international influence.

Download or read book Money Power and the People written by Christopher W. Shaw and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2019-09-05 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An “engaging and well-researched study [of] ordinary people who joined together to challenge financial institutions” (Choice). Banks and bankers are hardly the most beloved institutions and people in this country. With its corruptive influence on politics and stranglehold on the American economy, Wall Street is held in high regard by few outside the financial sector. But the pitchforks raised against this behemoth are largely rhetorical: We rarely see riots in the streets or public demands for an equitable and democratic banking system that result in serious national changes. Yet the situation was vastly different a century ago, as Christopher W. Shaw shows. This book upends the conventional thinking that financial policy in the early twentieth century was set primarily by the needs and demands of bankers. Shaw shows that banking and politics were directly shaped by the literal and symbolic investments of the grassroots. This engagement remade financial institutions and the national economy, through populist pressure and the establishment of federal regulatory programs and agencies like the Farm Credit System and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. Shaw reveals the surprising groundswell behind seemingly arcane legislation, as well as the power of the people to demand serious political repercussions for the banks that caused the Great Depression. One result of this sustained interest and pressure was legislation and regulation that brought on a long period of relative financial stability, with a reduced frequency of economic booms and busts. Ironically, this stability led to the decline of the very banking politics that brought it about. Giving voice to a broad swath of American figures, including workers, farmers, politicians, and bankers alike, Money, Power, and the People recasts our understanding of what might be possible in balancing the needs of the people with those of their financial institutions.

Download or read book The Price of Democracy written by Julia Cagé and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2020-03-31 with total page 465 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why and how systems of political financing and representation in Europe and North America give outsized influence to the wealthy and undermine democracy, and what we can do about it. One person, one vote. In theory, everyone in a democracy has equal power to decide elections. But it’s hardly news that, in reality, political outcomes are heavily determined by the logic of one dollar, one vote. We take the political power of money for granted. But does it have to be this way? In The Price of Democracy, Julia Cagé combines economic and historical analysis with political theory to show how profoundly our systems in North America and Europe, from think tanks and the media to election campaigns, are shaped by money. She proposes fundamental reforms to bring democracy back into line with its egalitarian promise. Cagé shows how different countries have tried to develop legislation to curb the power of private money and to develop public systems to fund campaigns and parties. But these attempts have been incoherent and unsystematic. She demonstrates that it is possible to learn from these experiments in the United States, Europe, and elsewhere to design a better system that would increase political participation and trust. This would involve setting a strict cap on private donations and creating a public voucher system to give each voter an equal amount to spend in support of political parties. More radically, Cagé argues that a significant fraction of seats in parliamentary assemblies should be set aside for representatives from disadvantaged socioeconomic groups. At a time of widespread political disenchantment, The Price of Democracy is a bracing reminder of the problems we face and an inspirational guide to the potential for reform.

Download or read book Follow the Money written by Sarah Reckhow and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2013-01-17 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Some of the nation's wealthiest philanthropies, including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Walton Family Foundation, and the Broad Foundation have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in education reform. With vast wealth and a political agenda, these foundations have helped to reshape the reform landscape in urban education. In Follow the Money, Sarah Reckhow shows where and how foundation investment in education is occurring and presents in-depth analysis of the effects of these investments within the two largest urban districts in the United States: New York City and Los Angeles. In New York City, centralized political control and the use of private resources have enabled rapid implementation of reform proposals. Yet this potent combination of top-down authority and outside funding also poses serious questions about transparency, responsiveness, and democratic accountability in New York. Furthermore, the sustainability of reform policies is closely linked to the political fortunes of the current mayor and his chosen school leader. While the media has highlighted the efforts of drastic reformers and dominating leaders such as Joel Klein in New York City and Michelle Rhee in Washington, D.C., a slower, but possibly more transformative, set of reforms have been taking place in Los Angeles. These reforms were also funded and shaped by major foundations, but they work from the bottom up, through charter school operators managing networks of schools. This strategy has built grassroots political momentum and demand for reform in Los Angeles that is unmatched in New York City and other districts with mayoral control. Reckhow's study of Los Angeles's education system shows how democratically responsive urban school reform could occur-pairing foundation investment with broad grassroots involvement. Bringing a sharp analytical eye and a wealth of evidence to one of the most politicized issues of our day, Follow the Money will reshape our thinking about educational reform in America.

Download or read book Politics Money and Persuasion written by John Russon and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2021-09-14 with total page 227 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Politics, Money, and Persuasion, distinguished philosopher John Russon offers a new framework for interpreting Plato's The Republic. For Russon, Plato's work is about the distinctive nature of what it is to be a human being and, correspondingly, what is distinctive about the nature of human society. Russon focuses on the realities of our everyday experience to come to profoundly insightful assessments of our human realities: the nature of the city, the nature of knowledge, and the nature of human psychology. Russon's argument concentrates on the ambivalence of logos, which includes reflections on politics and philosophy and their place in human life, how humans have shaped the environment, our interactions with money, the economy, and the pursuit of the good in social and political systems. Politics, Money, and Persuasion offers a deeply personal but also practical kind of philosophical reading of Plato's classic text. It emphasizes the tight connection between the life of city and the life of the soul, demonstrating both the crucial role that human cognitive excellence and psychological health play in political and social life.

Download or read book The Power of Money written by Henry L. Bretton and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 1980-06-30 with total page 466 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Money is both a vibrant, dynamic material substance and a social force that permeates industrial societies in their entirety. Yet significant aspects of how money works in society are concealed by myths, dogmas, and misperceptions. In The Power of Money Henry Bretton focuses on how money works in a democracy. He contends that the well-being of political democracy depends on a fuller understanding of the centrality of money in politics, and he presents his ideas on monetary policy, corruption and reform, banking and politics, private power within a democracy, money in international relations, and the system-destroying effects of money. Bretton considers the subject of money and democracy in the context of how monetarization of societies proceeded form antiquity to the Industrial Revolution, and he analyzes the formative years of the United States in terms of being based on political ideas that did not take account of monetarization. He reviews what social theorists and economists from Aristotle to Friedman have thought about the role of money in society and how it affects individual behavior and social norms. The link between economics and politics has been only partially explored, he contends, and he sees the major task for social scientists as developing a fuller integration of the two mainstreams of social theory, the political and the economic.

Download or read book Dark Money written by Jane Mayer and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2017-01-24 with total page 577 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NATIONAL BESTSELLER ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES 10 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR Who are the immensely wealthy right-wing ideologues shaping the fate of America today? From the bestselling author of The Dark Side, an electrifying work of investigative journalism that uncovers the agenda of this powerful group. In her new preface, Jane Mayer discusses the results of the most recent election and Donald Trump's victory, and how, despite much discussion to the contrary, this was a huge victory for the billionaires who have been pouring money in the American political system. Why is America living in an age of profound and widening economic inequality? Why have even modest attempts to address climate change been defeated again and again? Why do hedge-fund billionaires pay a far lower tax rate than middle-class workers? In a riveting and indelible feat of reporting, Jane Mayer illuminates the history of an elite cadre of plutocrats—headed by the Kochs, the Scaifes, the Olins, and the Bradleys—who have bankrolled a systematic plan to fundamentally alter the American political system. Mayer traces a byzantine trail of billions of dollars spent by the network, revealing a staggering conglomeration of think tanks, academic institutions, media groups, courthouses, and government allies that have fallen under their sphere of influence. Drawing from hundreds of exclusive interviews, as well as extensive scrutiny of public records, private papers, and court proceedings, Mayer provides vivid portraits of the secretive figures behind the new American oligarchy and a searing look at the carefully concealed agendas steering the nation. Dark Money is an essential book for anyone who cares about the future of American democracy. National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist LA Times Book Prize Finalist PEN/Jean Stein Book Award Finalist Shortlisted for the Lukas Prize

Download or read book When Crime Pays written by Milan Vaishnav and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2017-01-01 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first thorough study of the co-existence of crime and democratic processes in Indian politics In India, the world's largest democracy, the symbiotic relationship between crime and politics raises complex questions. For instance, how can free and fair democratic processes exist alongside rampant criminality? Why do political parties recruit candidates with reputations for wrongdoing? Why are one-third of state and national legislators elected--and often re-elected--in spite of criminal charges pending against them? In this eye-opening study, political scientist Milan Vaishnav mines a rich array of sources, including fieldwork on political campaigns and interviews with candidates, party workers, and voters, large surveys, and an original database on politicians' backgrounds to offer the first comprehensive study of an issue that has implications for the study of democracy both within and beyond India's borders.

Download or read book Oil written by Tom Bower and published by Grand Central Publishing. This book was released on 2010-06-03 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With unparalleled insight into BP and its safety record leading up to the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, Tom Bower gives us a groundbreaking, in-depth, and authoritative twenty-year history of the hunt and speculation for our most vital natural resource. Oil Money, Politics, and Power in the 21st Century Twenty years ago oil cost about $7 a barrel. In 2008 the price soared to $148 and then fell to below $40. In the midst of this extraordinary volatility, the major oil conglomerates still spent over a trillion dollars in an increasingly frantic search for more. The story of oil is a story of high stakes and extreme risk. It is the story of the crushing rivalries between men and women exploring for oil five miles beneath the sea, battling for control of the world's biggest corporations, and gambling billions of dollars twenty-four hours every day on oil's prices. It is the story of corporate chieftains in Dallas and London, traders in New York, oil-oligarchs in Moscow, and globe-trotting politicians-all maneuvering for power. With the world as his canvas, acclaimed investigative reporter Tom Bower gathers unprecedented firsthand information from hundreds of sources to give readers the definitive, untold modern history of oil . . . the ultimate story of arrogance, intrigue, and greed.

Download or read book The Purchasing Power of Money written by Irving Fisher and published by . This book was released on 1925 with total page 568 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Money Politics and Democracy written by Harold J. Jansen and published by UBC Press. This book was released on 2011-02-08 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 2004, Jean Chrtien's Liberals banned corporations and unions from contributing financially to political parties. In 2008, opposition leaders were prepared to defeat the Conservative Party over its proposal to eliminate public subsidies to parties. In this book, prominent political scientists explore the underlying issues that led to the showdown. Are publicly funded parties compatible with democracy? What effects has party finance reform had on elections and on the balance of power between parties and donors and between national parties and local organizations? Contributors show that campaign finance reforms have shaped party organization and electoral competition, contributing to successive minority governments.

Download or read book Hot Money and the Politics of Debt written by R.T. Naylor and published by McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP. This book was released on 2004-08-17 with total page 563 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A ball of hot money rolls around the world. It seeks anonymity and political refuge. It dodges taxes and sidesteps currency controls. It rolls through offshore shell companies and secret bank accounts, phoney charities and fraudulent religious foundations. It is kept rolling by white-collar criminals, gun-runners, drug dealers, insurgent groups, scam artists, tax evaders, gold and gem smugglers, and, not least, secret service agents plotting coups and financing revolutions. R.T. Naylor explains the origins of this pool of hot and homeless money, its origins, its uses and abuses, how the world of high finance, corporate and governmental, became hostage to it, and the price the world is paying and will continue to pay until the hostages are released. This book was one of the first, and remains the most comprehensive, to dissect the world of offshore finance, capital flight, money laundering, and tax evasion. Once a subject of concern principally to tax authorities and finance ministries, since the September 11, 2001 hot and homeless money has now become a central preoccupation for police forces and intelligence services around the world.

Download or read book The Moral Power of Money written by Ariel Wilkis and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2017-12-19 with total page 177 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Looking beneath the surface of seemingly ordinary social interactions, The Moral Power of Money investigates the forces of power and morality at play, particularly among the poor. Drawing on fieldwork in a slum of Buenos Aires, Ariel Wilkis argues that money is a critical symbol used to negotiate not only material possessions, but also the political, economic, class, gender, and generational bonds between people. Through vivid accounts of the stark realities of life in Villa Olimpia, Wilkis highlights the interplay of money, morality, and power. Drawing out the theoretical implications of these stories, he proposes a new concept of moral capital based on different kinds, or "pieces," of money. Each chapter covers a different "piece"—money earned from the informal and illegal economies, money lent through family and market relations, money donated with conditional cash transfers, political money that binds politicians and their supporters, sacrificed money offered to the church, and safeguarded money used to support people facing hardships. This book builds an original theory of the moral sociology of money, providing the tools for understanding the role money plays in social life today.