The financial and economic crisis that began in 2008 is the most alarming of our lifetime, if only because of the warp-speed at which it is occurring. How could it have happened, especially after all that we've learned from the Great Depression? Why wasn't it anticipated so remedial steps could be taken to avoid or mitigate it? What can be done to interrupt a slide into full-blown depression? Richard Posner presents a concise and non-technical examination of this mother of all financial disasters. Among the facts and causes he identifies are: excess savings flowing in from Asia and the consequent lowering of interest rates by the Federal Reserve Board; the relation between executive compensation, short-term profit goals, and risky lending; the housing bubble fuelled by low interest rates, aggressive mortgage marketing, and loose regulations; the low savings rate of American people; and, the highly leveraged balance sheets of large financial institutions. Although Posner's examples are drawn from recent American experience, the factors precipitating and contributing to the current crisis have international resonance. Posner analyses the two basic remedial approaches to the crisis, which correspond to the two theories of causes of the Great Depression: the monetarist - that the Federal Reserve Board allowed the money supply to shrink, thus causing deflation - and the Keynesian - that the depression was the product of a credit binge in the 1920's, a stock-market crash, and the ensuing downward spiral in economic activity. A heretofore believer in unfettered markets, Posner concludes that the pendulum swung too far and that our financial markets need to be more.
For more than 100 years, Max Weber's The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism has set the parameters for the debate over the origins of modern capitalism. Now more timely and thought provoking than ever, this esteemed classic of twentieth-century social science examines the deep cultural "frame of mind" that existed at the birth of modern capitalism and to this day influences attitudes toward work in northern America and Western Europe. In this volume, Stephen Kalberg revises his internationally acclaimed translation--using shorter sentences and more lucid language--to make the work even more accessible to students and other readers. Capturing the essence of Weber's style as well as the subtlety of his descriptions and causal arguments, this is the only translation of the revised 1920 edition of The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism published since 1930. To draw readers into the material, this engaging volume includes extensive introductions by the editor, a chronology of Weber's life, a glossary, and numerous clarifying endnotes. Detailed commentaries discuss the controversies Weber addressed, explain his complex causal argument by reference to the general contours of his sociology, summarize the history of "the Protestant Ethic debate," and examine the significance of "the Protestant Sects" essays. Ideal for courses in sociology, anthropology, political science, history, international relations, economics, and cultural studies, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism is an essential resource for anyone seeking to understand the origins and endurance of the modern West.
In this classic about economics, freedom, and the relationship between the two, Milton and Rose Friedman explain how our freedom has been eroded and our prosperity undermined through the explosion of laws, regulations, agencies, and spending in Washington, and how good intentions often produce deplorable results when government is the middleman. The Friedmans also provide remedies for these ills--they tell us what to do in order to expand our freedom and promote prosperity.
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A brilliant investigative marrative: How six average Soviet men rose to the pinnacle of Russia's battered economy. David Hoffman, former Moscow bureau chief for The Washington Post, sheds light onto the hidden lives of Russia's most feared power brokers: the oligarchs. Focusing on six of these ruthless men Hoffman reveals how a few players managed to take over Russia's cash-strapped economy and then divvy it up in loans-for-shares deals. Before perestroika, these men were normal Soviet citizens, stuck in a dead-end system, claustrophobic apartments, and long bread lines. But as Communism loosened, they found gaps in the economy and reaped huge fortunes by getting their hands on fast money. They were entrepreneurs. As the government weakened and their businesses flourished, they grew greedier. Now the stakes were higher. The state was auctioning off its own assets to the highest bidder. The tycoons go on wild borrowing sprees, taking billions of dollars from gullible western lenders. Meanwhile, Russia is building up a debt bomb. When the ruble finally collapses and Russia defaults, the tycoons try to save themselves by hiding their assets and running for cover. They turn against each other as each one faces a stark choice-annihilate or be annihilated. The story of the old Russia was spies, dissidents, and missiles. This is the new Russia, where civil society and the rule of law have little or no meaning.
A century after the publication of Max Weber's The Protestant Ethic and the "Spirit" of Capitalism, a major new work examines network-based organization, employee autonomy and post-Fordist horizontal work structures. Why is the critique of capitalism so ineffective today? In this major work, the sociologists Eve Chiapello and Luc Boltanski suggest that we should be addressing the crisis of anticapitalist critique by exploring its very roots. Via an unprecedented analysis of management texts which influenced the thinking of employers and contributed to reorganization of companies over the last decades, the authors trace the contours of a new spirit of capitalism. From the middle of the 1970s onwards, capitalism abandoned the hierarchical Fordist work structure and developed a new network-based form of organization which was founded on employee initiative and relative work autonomy, but at the cost of material and psychological security. This new spirit of capitalism triumphed thanks to a remarkable recuperation of the "artistic critique"—that which, after May 1968, attacked the alienation of everyday life by capitalism and bureaucracy. At the same time, the "social critique" was disarmed by the appearance of neocapitalism and remained fixated on the old schemas of hierarchical production. This book, remarkable for its scope and ambition, seeks to lay the basis for a revival of these two complementary critiques.
Adam Smith turned economic theory on its head in 1776 when he declared that the pursuit of self-interest mediated by the market itself - not by government - led, via an invisible hand, to the greatest possible welfare for society as a whole. "The Hesitant Hand" examines how subsequent economic thinkers have challenged or reaffirmed Smith's doctrine, some contending that society needs government to intervene on its behalf when the marketplace falters, others arguing that government interference ultimately benefits neither the market nor society. Steven Medema explores what has been perhaps the central controversy in modern economics from Smith to today. He traces the theory of market failure from the 1840s through the 1950s and subsequent attacks on this view by the Chicago and Virginia schools. Medema follows the debate from John Stuart Mill through the Cambridge welfare tradition of Henry Sidgwick, Alfred Marshall, and A. C. Pigou, and looks at Ronald Coase's challenge to the Cambridge approach and the rise of critiques affirming Smith's doctrine anew. He shows how, following the marginal revolution, neoclassical economists, like the preclassical theorists before Smith, believed government can mitigate the adverse consequences of self-interested behavior, yet how the backlash against this view, led by the Chicago and Virginia schools, demonstrated that self-interest can also impact government, leaving society with a choice among imperfect alternatives. "The Hesitant Hand" demonstrates how government's economic role continues to be bound up in questions about the effects of self-interest on the greater good.
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Here's the real history of our country. "How Capitalism Saved America" explodes the myths spun by Michael Moore, the liberal media, Hollywood, academia, and the rest of the anticapitalist establishment. Whether it's Michael Moore or the "New York Times," Hollywood or academia, a growing segment in America is waging a war on capitalism. We hear that greedy plutocrats exploit the American public; that capitalism harms consumers, the working class, and the environment; that the government needs to rein in capitalism; and on and on. Anticapitalist critiques have only grown more fevered in the wake of corporate scandals like Enron and WorldCom. Indeed, the 2004 presidential campaign has brought frequent calls to re-regulate the American economy. But the anticapitalist arguments are pure bunk, as Thomas J. DiLorenzo reveals in"""How Capitalism Saved America." DiLorenzo, a professor of economics, shows how capitalism has made America the most prosperous nation on earth--and how the sort of government regulation that politicians and pundits endorse has hindered economic growth, caused higher unemployment, raised prices, and created many other problems. He propels the reader along with a fresh and compelling look at critical events in American history--covering everything from the Pilgrims to Bill Gates. And just as he did in his last book, "The Real Lincoln," DiLorenzo explodes numerous myths that have become conventional wisdom."How Capitalism Saved America"reveals: - How the introduction of a capitalist system saved the Pilgrims from starvation - How the American Revolution was in large part a revolt against Britain's stifling economic controls - How the so-called robber barons actually improved the lives of millions of Americans by providing newer and better products at lower prices - How the New Deal made the Great Depression worse - How deregulation got this country out of the energy crisis of the 1970s--and was not the cause of recent blackouts in California and the N
