Download or read book The Delusions of Economics written by Gilbert Rist and published by Zed Books Ltd.. This book was released on 2011-11-24 with total page 213 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Delusions of Economics, Gilbert Rist presents a radical critique of neoclassical economics from a social and historical perspective. Rather than enter into existing debates between different orthodoxies, Rist instead explores the circumstances that prevailed when economics was 'invented', and the resultant biases that helped forge the construction of economics as a 'science'. In doing so, Rist demonstrates how these various presuppositions are either obsolete or just plain wrong, and that traditional economics is largely based on irrational convictions that are difficult to debunk due to their 'religious' nature. As a result, we are prevented from properly understanding the world around us and dealing with the financial, environmental, and climatic crises that lie ahead. Provocative and original, this essential book provides incontrovertible proof that the construction of a new economic paradigm - pluralistic, ecologically compatible, grounded in reality - has now become a necessity.
Download or read book Delusions of Power written by Robert Higgs and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Delusions of Power, economic historian Robert Higgs calls into question our ingrained notions concerning the nature of the state and democracy. Higgs uproots the foundation stone upon which the state's powers have rested and grown unchecked by the public. Beginning with the Founding Fathers and moving forward, Higgs reassesses the world wars, the Great Depression and the New Deal, and the financial debacle that began in 2008 with the view of demonstrating Americans' loss of liberties. He brings together the crisis in policymaking; key political actors and events; and the impact of war on the economy and civil liberties. For Higgs, war, and the cost of it, has had a major impact of war on the economy and civil liberties. For Higgs, war, and the cost of it, has had a major impact on American life and freedom. Through reading Higg's work, one will gain a new understanding of the state's power, democracy, and the issues threatening the pursuit of liberty. Book jacket.
Download or read book Equality the Third World and Economic Delusion written by Péter Tamás Bauer and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 1981 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Even in impoverished countries lacking material and human resources, P. T. Bauer argues, economic growth is possible under the right conditions. These include a certain amount of thrift and enterprise among the people, social mores and traditions which sustain them, and a firm but limited government which permits market forces to work. Challenging many views about development that are widely held, Bauer takes on squarely the notion that egalitarianism is an appropriate goal. He goes on to argue that the population explosion of less-developed countries has on the whole been a voluntary phenomenon and that each new generation has lived better than its forebears. He also critically examines the notion that the policies and practices of Western nations have been responsible for third world poverty. In a major chapter, he reviews the rationalizations for foreign aid and finds them weak; while in another he shows that powerful political clienteles have developed in the Western nations supporting the foreign aid process and probably benefiting more from it than the alleged recipients. Another chapter explores the link between the issue of Special Drawing Rights by the International Monetary Fund on the one hand and the aid process on the other. Throughout the book, Bauer carefully examines the evidence and the light it throws on the propositions of development. Although the results of his analysis contradict the conventional wisdom of development economics, anyone who is seriously concerned with the subject must take them into account.
Download or read book Delusions of Economics and the Way Forward written by Gerald A. Cory and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Growth Delusion written by David Pilling and published by Tim Duggan Books. This book was released on 2018-01-30 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A provocative critique of the pieties and fallacies of our obsession with economic growth We live in a society in which a priesthood of economists, wielding impenetrable mathematical formulas, set the framework for public debate. Ultimately, it is the perceived health of the economy which determines how much we can spend on our schools, highways, and defense; economists decide how much unemployment is acceptable and whether it is right to print money or bail out profligate banks. The backlash we are currently witnessing suggests that people are turning against the experts and their faulty understanding of our lives. Despite decades of steady economic growth, many citizens feel more pessimistic than ever, and are voting for candidates who voice undisguised contempt for the technocratic elite. For too long, economics has relied on a language which fails to resonate with people's actual experience, and we are now living with the consequences. In this powerful, incisive book, David Pilling reveals the hidden biases of economic orthodoxy and explores the alternatives to GDP, from measures of wealth, equality, and sustainability to measures of subjective wellbeing. Authoritative, provocative, and eye-opening, The Growth Delusion offers witty and unexpected insights into how our society can respond to the needs of real people instead of pursuing growth at any cost.
Download or read book The Delusions of Crowds written by William J. Bernstein and published by Grove Press. This book was released on 2021-02-23 with total page 491 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This “disturbing yet fascinating” exploration of mass mania through the ages explains the biological and psychological roots of irrationality (Kirkus Reviews). From time immemorial, contagious narratives have spread through susceptible groups—with enormous, often disastrous, consequences. Inspired by Charles Mackay’s nineteenth-century classic Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, neurologist and author William Bernstein examines mass delusion through the lens of current scientific research in The Delusions of Crowds. Bernstein tells the stories of dramatic religious and financial mania in western society over the last five hundred years—from the Anabaptist Madness of the 1530s to the dangerous End-Times beliefs that pervade today’s polarized America; and from the South Sea Bubble to the Enron scandal and dot com bubbles. Through Bernstein’s supple prose, the participants are as colorful as their “desire to improve one’s well-being in this life or the next.” Bernstein’s chronicles reveal the huge cost and alarming implications of mass mania. He observes that if we can absorb the history and biology of this all-too-human phenomenon, we can recognize it more readily in our own time, and avoid its frequently dire impact.
Download or read book Debt and Delusion written by Peter Warburton and published by . This book was released on 1999 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Economics in One Lesson written by Henry Hazlitt and published by Crown Currency. This book was released on 2010-08-11 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With over a million copies sold, Economics in One Lesson is an essential guide to the basics of economic theory. A fundamental influence on modern libertarianism, Hazlitt defends capitalism and the free market from economic myths that persist to this day. Considered among the leading economic thinkers of the “Austrian School,” which includes Carl Menger, Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich (F.A.) Hayek, and others, Henry Hazlitt (1894-1993), was a libertarian philosopher, an economist, and a journalist. He was the founding vice-president of the Foundation for Economic Education and an early editor of The Freeman magazine, an influential libertarian publication. Hazlitt wrote Economics in One Lesson, his seminal work, in 1946. Concise and instructive, it is also deceptively prescient and far-reaching in its efforts to dissemble economic fallacies that are so prevalent they have almost become a new orthodoxy. Economic commentators across the political spectrum have credited Hazlitt with foreseeing the collapse of the global economy which occurred more than 50 years after the initial publication of Economics in One Lesson. Hazlitt’s focus on non-governmental solutions, strong — and strongly reasoned — anti-deficit position, and general emphasis on free markets, economic liberty of individuals, and the dangers of government intervention make Economics in One Lesson every bit as relevant and valuable today as it has been since publication.
Download or read book Delusions of Gender How Our Minds Society and Neurosexism Create Difference written by Cordelia Fine and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2011-08-08 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sex discrimination is supposedly a distant memory. Yet popular books, magazines and even scientific articles defend inequalities by citing immutable biological differences between the male and female brain. Why are there so few women in science and engineering, so few men in the laundry room? Well, they say, it's our brains.
Download or read book The Growth Delusion written by David Pilling and published by Crown. This book was released on 2019-01-29 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A provocative critique of the pieties and fallacies of our obsession with economic growth We live in a society in which a priesthood of economists, wielding impenetrable mathematical formulas, set the framework for public debate. Ultimately, it is the perceived health of the economy which determines how much we can spend on our schools, highways, and defense; economists decide how much unemployment is acceptable and whether it is right to print money or bail out profligate banks. The backlash we are currently witnessing suggests that people are turning against the experts and their faulty understanding of our lives. Despite decades of steady economic growth, many citizens feel more pessimistic than ever, and are voting for candidates who voice undisguised contempt for the technocratic elite. For too long, economics has relied on a language which fails to resonate with people's actual experience, and we are now living with the consequences. In this powerful, incisive book, David Pilling reveals the hidden biases of economic orthodoxy and explores the alternatives to GDP, from measures of wealth, equality, and sustainability to measures of subjective wellbeing. Authoritative, provocative, and eye-opening, The Growth Delusion offers witty and unexpected insights into how our society can respond to the needs of real people instead of pursuing growth at any cost.
Download or read book False Dawn written by John Gray and published by ReadHowYouWant.com. This book was released on 2010-09 with total page 466 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: powerful and prophetic challenge to globalization from a former partisan of the New Right. Hailed by Kirkus Reviews as both ''a convincing analysis of an international economy '' and a ''powerful challenge to economic orthodoxy, '' False Dawn shows that the attempt to impose the Anglo-American-style free market on the world will create a disaster, possibly on the scale of Soviet communism. Even America, the supposed flagship of the new civilization, risks moral and social disintegration as it loses ground to other cultures that have never forgotten that the market works best when it is embedded in society. John Gray, well known in the 1980s as an important conservative political thinker, whose writings were relied upon by Margaret Thatcher and the New Right in Britain, has concluded that the conservative agenda is no longer viable. In his examination of the ripple effects of the economic turmoil in Russia and Asia on our collective future, Gray provides one of the most passionate polemics against the utopia of the free market since Carlyle and Marx.
Download or read book The Future of US Global Power written by S. Brown and published by Springer. This book was released on 2012-12-14 with total page 435 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dispelling the myth of decline, Stuart Brown argues that the US continues to enjoy the economic, political, cultural and military underpinnings befitting a pre-eminent global power. He provides an analytical tour through the major domestic and foreign policy issues that will impact the United States' future position and role in the global system.
Download or read book Economic and Industrial Delusions written by Arthur B. Farquhar and published by . This book was released on 1891 with total page 464 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Economic Superorganism written by Carey W. King and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-10-07 with total page 474 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Energy drives the economy, economics informs policy, and policy affects social outcomes. Since the oil crises of the 1970s, pundits have debated the validity of this sequence, but most economists and politicians still ignore it. Thus, they delude the public about the underlying influence of energy costs and constraints on economic policies that address such pressing contemporary issues as income inequality, growth, debt, and climate change. To understand why, Carey King explores the scientific and rhetorical basis of the competing narratives both within and between energy technology and economics. Energy and economic discourse seems to mirror Newton’s 3rd Law of Motion: For every narrative there is an equal and opposite counter-narrative. The competing energy narratives pit "drill, baby, drill!" against renewable technologies such as wind and solar. Both claim to provide secure, reliable, clean, and affordable energy to support economic growth with the most benefit to society, but how? To answer this question, we need to understand the competing economic narratives, techno-optimism and techno-realism. Techno-optimism claims that innovation overcomes any physical resource constraints and enables the social outcomes and economic growth we desire. Techno-realism, in contrast, states that no matter what energy technologies we use, feedbacks from physical growth on a finite planet constrain economic growth and create an uneven distribution of social impacts. In The Economic Superorganism, you will discover stories, data, science, and philosophy to guide you through the arguments from competing narratives on energy, growth, and policy. You will be able to distinguish the technically possible from the socially viable, and understand how our future depends on this distinction.
Download or read book The Delusion of Progress written by Pierre Chomat and published by Universal-Publishers. This book was released on 2008 with total page 227 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Delusion of Progress Pierre-Auguste Chomat portrays a young individual who gradually becomes an unconditional believer in progress and a full member of an industrial society that sets almost no limits to its material development. The case presented by the author defines Western Society as a whole. Industrialized countries take for granted that Progress characterizes Man and is a natural movement of his being. We have faith in Progress. We do not question its values. Progress "exists" the way God "exists." We have become fundamentalists of Progress. Our societal behavior has some severe flaws. Most critically, it is exhausting the resources on which it is based and the damage that it is inflicting on Earth is often irreversible, putting life as we know it in jeopardy. The momentum that maintains our civilization is suicidal. We are on the brink of an ecosystem and economic planetary crisis never before seen in human history. Chomat thrusts upon us quintessential questions. Why, in the name of Progress, do we behave like an irresponsible species? Will we be able to exist outside our cybernetic world? Do we still know how to live in a sustainable manner? How to be a being?
Download or read book The Halo Effect written by Phil Rosenzweig and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2008-12-09 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why do some companies prosper while others fail? Despite great amounts of research, many of the studies that claim to pin down the secret of success are based in pseudoscience. THE HALO EFFECT is the outcome of that pseudoscience, a myth that Philip Rosenzweig masterfully debunks in THE HALO EFFECT. THE HALO EFFECT highlights the tendency of experts to point to the high financial performance of a successful company and then spread its golden glow to all of the company's attributes - clear strategy, strong values, and brilliant leadership. But in fact, as Rosenzweig clearly illustrates, the experts are not just wrong, but deluded. Rosenzweig suggests a more accurate way to think about leading a company, a robust and clearheaded approach that can save any business from ultimate failure.
Download or read book Economist on Wall Street Peter L Bernstein s Finance Classics written by Peter L. Bernstein and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2008-10-03 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the foremost financial writers of his generation, Peter Bernstein has the unique ability to synthesize intellectual history and economics with the theory and practice of investment management. Now, with classic titles such as Economist on Wall Street, A Primer on Money, Banking, and Gold, and The Price of Prosperity—which have forewords by financial luminaries and new introductions by the author—you can enjoy some of the best of Bernstein in his earlier Wall Street days. Peter Bernstein's Economist on Wall Street is a collection of writings from 1955 to 1970. The book is especially interesting because so many of Bernstein's observations reflect the most important issues of the present—the outlook for inflation and its control, the intricacies of monetary policy, the future of the dollar, and the dilemmas of household finances. Bernstein was also concerned with developments in portfolio management, including the new influence of institutional investors and rules for optimal asset mixes. He provides light touches, too, as he indulges in fantasies and philosophical musings over a wide variety of topics. With so many years of hindsight, we should not be surprised to find some of Bernstein's predictions running awry. But why? In each instance, these forecasts were biased by memories of the past. There is a big lesson to be learned there. Economist on Wall Street is a remarkable book, with lasting relevance and keen insights into the art of investment management, the capital markets, gold and the dollar, and the fun of being alive.
