Trading enterprise figures prominently in Indonesian history. Commercial activities penetrated deep into the economy, politics and society of the former Netherlands Indies. Dutch Commerce and Chinese Merchants in Java describes this, largely forgotten, world of commerce. During the period 1800-1942 this vanished world was, however, bustling. Merchants of very different background and stature cooperated and competed with each other. Trading relations were forged and dissolved, contracts were honoured and broken, fortunes were made and lost. Using unpublished archival sources in Indonesia and the Netherlands Alexander Claver recounts the diverse trading mechanisms, complex credit relations and countless participants involved. How Dutch, Chinese, and Arab traders related to each other in such demanding business environment is the fascinating story of this book.

In the period 1890-1914, the business elite in Germany turned their economy into the most dynamic in Europe. An older school of biographers tended to view the wealthiest businessmen as unique individuals - pioneers or geniuses who braved the rough waters of the business world, alone or as part of an unusual family. Other biographers placed their subject in the context of the larger questions of German history - the aristocracy's supposed eclipse of the bourgeoisie, anti-Semitism, the rise of corporate capitalism or war aims in World War I. Empirical research on businessmen as a group - an elite or a segment of the bourgeoisie - was long left to political and economic historians; social historians were primarily concerned with the working or lower-middle class. This study takes a new approach, combining comprehensive quantitative data on the 502 wealthiest businessmen of the time with material from public and private papers and 200 autobiographies to produce a many-sided study of this group. Not only business history, but family and social history, gender roles, ethnicity, class relations, consumption patterns, and broader historical factors are synthesized in the first coherent view of the social world of the wealthy business elite of Wihelmine Germany. The extensive bibliography alone will no doubt be an invaluable resource for years to come.

Arising from a disenchantment with mainstream economics - a dissatisfaction that is widespread today - A Short History of Economics and Ethics sketches the emergence and decline of the ethical tradition of economics and the crisis of modern economics. In doing so, James Alvey focuses on four of the leading ancient Greek thinkers: Socrates, Xenophon, Plato and Aristotle. The author uses insights from Amartya Sen's Capabilities approach as well as other sources to retrieve the ethical tradition of economics. Five aspects of this tradition which seem to lie outside of mainstream economics are identified: an ethical methodology; some notion of a just price; an understanding that ethical motivations are relevant to human action; a rich understanding of human well-being; and some notion of distributive justice related to human well-being. Creating a forum for further debate and research opportunity, this book will appeal to students, scholars and historians of economic thought, as well as to all those interested in the intersection of ethics with economics. Contents: 1. Introduction 2. An Introduction to Ancient Greek Political Economy 3. An Introduction to the Socratics: Socrates and Xenophon 4. Plato Part I: The Early and Middle Dialogues 5. Plato Part II: The Late Dialogues 6. Aristotle Part I: Ethics 7. Aristotle Part II: Politics (High and Low) 8. Aristotle Part III: Economics 9. Conclusion References Index

Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruninghooks into spears: let the weak say I am strong.-Joel 3:10

Beating Plowshares into Swords inaugurates an extraordinarily ambitious effort by Paul Koistinen to compose a comprehensive and wide-ranging study on the economics of American warfare from the colonial period to the present. When completed, this multi-volume project will stand as the definitive work on a complex subject that until now has been superficially treated or completely ignored.

Koistinen focuses not upon battlefields and battles but upon the means used to make and sustain the armies and navies that have fought in such horrific arenas. Drawing upon a vast array of sources in a number of diverse fields, he analyzes how America has mobilized itself for the conduct of war. He argues that to fully understand that process we must closely examine the complex interrelations among economic, political, and military institutions within the context of relentless modernization and technological innovation.

In this first volume, Koistinen describes how an undeveloped "preindustrial" economy forced Americans to fight defensive wars of attrition like the Revolution and the War of 1812. By the time of the Mexican War, however, a gradually maturing economy allowed the U.S. to use a much more offensive-minded strategy to achieve its goals. The book concludes with an exhaustive examination of the Civil War, a conflict that both anticipated and differed from the total wars of the industrialized era. Koistinen demonstrates that the North relied upon its enormous economic might to overwhelm the Confederacy through a strategy of annihilation, while the South bungled its own strategy of attrition by failing to mobilize effectively a much less-developed economy.

With this and subsequent volumes, Koistinen's sweeping synthesis provides a panoramic view that enlarges and in significant ways alters our vision of the turbulent relationship between war and society in America.

This volume explores Japan's industrialization from the perspective of "indigenous development", focusing on what may be identified as "traditional" or "indigenous" factors. Japanese industrialization has often been described as the process of transferring or importing technology and organization from Western countries. Recent research has, however, shown that economic development had already begun in pre-modern period (Tokugawa-era) in Japan. This economic development not only prepared Japan for the transfer from the West, but also formed the basis of the particular industrialization process which paralleled transplanted industrialization in modern Japan. The aim of the volume is to demonstrate this aspect of industrialization through the detailed studies of so-called "indigenous" industries. This collection of papers looks at the industries originating in the Tokugawa-era, such as weaving, silk-reeling and pottery, as well as the newly developed small workshops engaged in manufacturing machinery, soap, brash, buttons, etc. Small businesses in the tertiary sector, transportation and commerce, are also observed. Available for the first time in English, these papers shed new light on the role of "indigenous development" and our understanding of the dualistic character of Japan's economic development.

The second volume of the Handbook describes different extractive economies in the world regions that have been outlined in the first volume. A wide range of economic actors - from kings and armies to cities and producers - are discussed within different imperial settings as well as the tools, which enabled and constrained economic outcomes. A central focus are nodes of consumption that are visible in the archaeological and textual records of royal capitals, cities, religious centers, and armies that were stationed, in some cases permanently, in imperial frontier zones. Complementary to the multipolar concentrations of consumption are the fiscal-tributary structures of the empires vis-a-vis other institutions that had the capacity to extract, mobilize, and concentrate resources and wealth. Larger volumes of state-issued coinage in various metals show the new role of coinage in taxation, local economic activities, and social practices, even where textual evidence is absent. Given the overwhelming importance of agriculture, the volume also analyses forms of agrarian development, especially around cities and in imperial frontier zones. Special consideration is given to road- and water-management systems for which there is now sufficient archaeological and documentary evidence to enable cross-disciplinary comparative research.

Chen provides an analysis of the political economy of rural development in China during the reform era. Revolving around the central theme of statecraft, Chen's study gives a concise and comprehensive treatment of the interaction of ideology and politics with central policy and economic growth. He examines China's economic reform in historical perspective, characterizes China's economic and political transformation since the reform, and proposes that the Chinese Communist Party is being transformed into a party of economics while China's ideology is becoming market-oriented communal socialism.

In addressing the issue of the Chinese path of development, Chen discusses the role of local party organizations in China's modernization drive and the microform of market-oriented communal socialism in the newly emerged village conglomerate, highlights the challenges that China faces at the turn of the new century after 20 years of economic reform, and analyzes the context of the introduction of village elections in 1990, and the establishment of Deng Xiaoping's Theory as a new ideological discourse at the 15th National Congress as well as the rationale behind them. In examining the connection between the two goals of statecraft --improving people's welfare and strengthening the state--and between central policies and local initiatives, Chen provides a study that will be of great interest to scholars, students, and other researchers involved with contemporary Chinese politics and development.

Is it possible for a democracy to include a tiny group of citizens who are vastly richer than the rest of us? What does that do to our cherished ideal of democratic equality? This timely and provocative book addresses a great paradox at the core of the American Dream: a passionate belief in the principles of democracy combined with an equally passionate celebration of wealth. Americans treasure an open, equal society, yet we also admire those fortunate few who amass riches on a scale that undermines social equality. In today's era of "too big to fail" investment banks, "vulture capitalist" hedge fund managers, Internet fortunes, and a growing concern over inequality in American life, should we cling to both parts of the paradox? Can we? To understand the problems that vast individual fortunes pose for democratic values, Robert Dalzell presents an intriguing cast of wealthy individuals from colonial times to the present, including George Washington, one of the richest Americans of his day, the "robber baron" John D. Rockefeller, and Oprah Winfrey, for all of whom extreme wealth is inextricably tied to social concerns. In the process Dalzell uncovers the sources of our contradictory feelings toward the very rich, how they have sought to be perceived as "the good rich," and the reality behind the widespread notion that wealth and generosity go hand in hand in America. Finally, in a thoughtful and balanced conclusion, the author explores the cost of our long-standing attitudes toward the rich.

As the most important figures in the history of economics, the work of John Maynard Keynes is nearly without precedent in the history of economics. THE ECONOMIC CONSEQUENCES OF PEACE, first published in 1919, achieved great notoriety due of its contemptuous critique of the French premier as well as President Woodrow Wilson. Keynes criticized the Allied victors for signing the Treaty of Versailles in 1920, which would have ruinous consequences for Europe. At the time, few world and economic leaders appreciated his criticisms as Keynes saw his worst fears realized in the rise of Adolf Hitler and the resulting devastation of World War II. JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES (1883-1946) was born into an academic family. His father, John Nevile Keynes, was a lecturer at the University of Cambridge where he taught logic and political economy while his son was educated at Eton and Cambridge. Most importantly, Keynes revolutionized economics with his classic book, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (1936). This work is generally regarded as perhaps the most influential social science treatise of the 20th Century, as it quickly and permanently changed the scope of economic thought. Interestingly, Keynes was a central member of the Bloomsbury Group, a collection of upper-class Edwardian aesthetes that served as his life outside of economics, which included Virginia Woolf, Clive Bell, and Lytton Strachey.

The growth of China's foreign trade in recent years has been widely attributed to its economic reforms and open door policies. This book outlines the process of China's trade reforms over the past two decades and assesses the impact of these reforms on the economy. The author provides a quantitative analysis to trace China's evolving commodity pattern of trade and changing comparative advantage structure over the entire reform period. Comparison is made between the trade patterns and comparative advantage to reveal the dynamic effects of the recent economic reform on resource allocation efficiency.

This book analyzes the evolution of the institutional structure of the Dutch political economy since 1950. It sketches in broad strokes the origin and economic role of coordination in the Netherlands. The Dutch economy is compared with other OECD countries by using the 'varieties of capitalism' theory and distinguishing between coordinated and liberal market economies. The author focuses on the constant adaptation of deliberative institutions in the business system, in labor relations, and in welfare policy. The complex institutional setting did not prevent the economy from participating in the globalization of markets and capital that took place since ca. 1980. The book is located at the intersection of two quite different literatures: modern economic history and the political science literature on 'varieties of capitalism'.

This book illustrates the role of international economic advisors in the development of Israel's economic policies. Based on extensive archival and historical research, it presents case studies on the policy impacts of the world-renowned advisors Michal Kalecki, Abba Lerner, Richard Kahn, Milton Friedman, Herbert Stein and Stanley Fischer. The authors evaluate the contributions of these advisors to policy developments in various fields, including international trade and capital flows, exchange rates, fiscal and monetary policy, industrial policy and labor relations. Readers will discover a wealth of previously unpublished information on these advisors' activities, perspectives on policy and interactions with policymakers and the public. Using the Israeli experience as a guide, the authors subsequently derive general hypotheses regarding the conditions that are conducive to the success of economic advisors.

The book is a dialogue between a money manager and a young man who asks whether or not he should invest. Their conversation explores How for money and not-for-money investment differ; How accounting and economic assets compare with social and natural assets; How time is central to all of investment, building capabilities in the present which can deliver resources in the future; How banks collectively create and destroy money; How the yield curve shows the market interest rates for financial assets of different durations; How competitive advantage is important in determining the returns achieved on real assets; How fundamental value differs from price, or what someone is prepared to pay; How fundamental analysis and technical analysis of price data provide insights into risk; How mean-variance analysis of price data is the conventional approach to risk; How the economic ecosystem creates prices How capitalism may be a lousy system and yet the best available as it adapts continuously to align money prices and human values. The book is for people who want to know how investment works and how they can invest their savings. I think of it as an amalgam of an everyman's guide to business and economics, an introduction to investment, and an apology for 'capitalism'. Ben Paton

This influential volume, which has been revised and updated for the twenty-first century, includes both new material and more detailed expositions of existing arguments. Although so-called 'real' theories of business cycles and growth are prevalent in contemporary mainstream economics, Controversies in Monetary Economics suggests that those economists who have instinctively focused on monetary factors in explaining macroeconomic behaviour are more genuinely 'realistic'. The author combines an explanation of past and present monetary controversy with practical proposals for the conduct of monetary policy in the contemporary global economy. Several alternative approaches are discussed, ranging from the traditional quantity theory to post Keynesian theories of endogenous money. This insightful book will be of interest to all those concerned with monetary economics and macroeconomics, including academic researchers, graduate and senior undergraduate students - particularly those looking for an alternative to current economic orthodoxy - and historians of economic thought. Practitioners in central banks, international financial institutions, the financial markets and finance ministries will also find this work invaluable.

Wages have always been a major expense for businesses. This fascinating book studies the impact of spiralling wage demands in a cotton factory in Ghent during the 19th century and the efforts of management to reduce this cost through investment in new technology and stricter employment policies. The workers' responses to wage cutting are also considered.
The importance of this study lies in its unique collection of wage data -- more than 200 pay books and 100 ledgers from the Voortman cotton factory -- which show, in great detail, the hourly, daily and yearly wages for all categories of workers between 1835-1913. Various aspects of wages are addressed including: changing living and working conditions; wages of women and children in relation to the 'family wage economy'; wage comparison between workers at Voortman and workers in other industries and regions; productivity, purchasing power and industrial relations.

View the Table of Contents.
Read the Introduction.

aI am not aware of a book that covers the same ground as this one--let alone one that does so using such thorough research and with such technical competence.a
Anthony M. Gould, Universite Laval

"Jacobs offers a history of the federal government's efforts to curb labor racketeering. The heart of his text focuses on the results achieved by employing Civil RICO suits to weed out organized crime from unions long mired in corruption. The Justice Department has mounted twenty such efforts since 1982, and Jacobs's book is the first to provide a comprehensive assessment of this controversial tactic. He tackles this ambitious project with a combination of detailed research, clear writing, and judicious consideration, all of which have been a hallmark of his previous texts on corruption and organized crime. The result is a must read book for anyone interested in the problem of union corruption and what to do about it."
--"Industrial and Labor Relations Review"

"Jacobs, legal scholar and expert on the Mafia, sets out to show how the Mob has distorted American labor history, explaining the relationship between organized crime and organized labor, as well as recent federal efforts to clean up unions"
--"Booklist"

"James Jacobs, a New York University law professor and author of Mobsters, Unions and Feds, says Mafiosi were hired by union organizers in the early twentieth century to combat company toughs. Now, he says, they specialize in 'selling the rights of workers.'"
--"USA Today"

"Jacobs further burnishes his reputation for advancing the study of organized crime in America with his latest work of scholarship, billed by the publisher as 'the only book to investigate how the mob has distorted American labor history.' This worthy successor to "Gotham Unbound" and "Busting the Mob" is an exhaustive, albeit sometimes repetitive, survey of the grip La Cosa Nostra has exerted on the country's most powerful unions. While many will be familiar with the broad outlines of the corruption that riddled the Teamsters, which is recounted by the author, his summary of some lesser-known examples of pervasive labor corruption help illustrate his thesis that the entire American union movement has suffered from the intimidation and fear the mob used to gain and maintain control of unions. Especially valuable is Jacobs's examination of the relatively recent use of the RICO law to bring dirty unions under the control of a federally appointed independent trustee, and the book's posing of hard questions about the mixed success those monitorships have had."
--"Publishers Weekly"

"Jacobs has covered a wide range of legal issues, including such hot-button topics as hate crime laws and gun control, but he always returns to the world of mobsters and the men and women who investigate, prosecute, and sentence them."
--"NYU Today"

"James Jacobs brilliantly documents and analyzes a remarkable and untold chapter in the history of American law enforcement. This groundbreaking book should be a starting point for officials around the world who confront powerful organized crime groups."
--Jeremy Travis, President, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, The City University of New York and former Director, National Institute of Justice

"A pathbreaking work. For 50 years, organized crime has been the elephant inorganized labor's living room, unacknowledged and unexplained. Jacobs has critically analyzed every facet of this apparently intractable problem--from its roots to the federal government's various efforts to challenge organized crime's influence. From this point forward, no one can think critically about this problem without relying on Jacobs' work."
--Robert Luskin, General Executive Board Attorney, Laborers' International Union of North America

"Jacobs presents a near encyclopedic account of the Mafia's infiltration, control and exploitation of four major national unions and a number of large local unions. It is a sordid frightening story of violence, corruption and oppression, the betrayal of union members and extortion of employers, defiance of the law and disregard for human decency. This disturbing story should be required reading for all who seek strong and more democratic unions, all who would protect the rights of workers, and all who are concerned for the health of our political and social processes."
--Clyde Summers, Jefferson B. Fordham Professor of Law, Emeritus, University of Pennsylvania Law School

"A fabulous and fascinating book. Jacobs demonstrates the continuing impact of organized crime on the American union movement, and details the legal mechanisms developed in recent years to combat mob influence. History has come home to haunt us, and Jacobs makes the case for using law to fight against the mob for union democracy."
--Stanley N. Katz, Professor of Public Affairs, Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University

"Jacobs demonstrates that while it has been remarkably difficult to defeat labor racketeering, much has been achieved. This will be welcomenews to all who root for the revitalization of the labor movement."
--Ronald G. Ehrenberg, Irving M. Ives Professor of Industrial and Labor Relations and Economics, Cornell University

Nowhere in the world has organized crime infiltrated the labor movement as effectively as in the United States. Yet the government, the AFL-CIO, and the civil liberties community all but ignored the situation for most of the twentieth century. Since 1975, however, the FBI, Department of Justice, and the federal judiciary have relentlessly battled against labor racketeering, even in some of the nation's most powerful unions.

Mobsters, Unions, and Feds is the first book to document organized crime's exploitation of organized labor and the massive federal clean-up effort. A renown criminologist who for twenty years has been assessing the government's attack on the Mafia, James B. Jacobs explains how Cosa Nostra families first gained a foothold in the labor movement, then consolidated their power through patronage, fraud, and violence and finally used this power to become part of the political and economic power structure of 20th century urban America.

Since FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover's death in 1972, federal law enforcement has aggressively investigated and prosecuted labor racketeers, as well as utilized the civil remedies provided for by the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization (RICO) statute to impose long-term court-supervised remedial trusteeships on mobbed-up unions. There have been some impressive victories, including substantial progress toward liberating the four most racketeer-ridden national unions from the grip of organized crime, but victory cannot yet be claimed.

The only book to investigate how the mob has exploited the American labor movement, Mobsters, Unions, and Feds is the most comprehensive study to date of how labor racketeering evolved and how the government has finally resolved to eradicate it.

This monograph aims to analyze the economic and business history of colonial India from a corporate perspective by clarifying the historical role of institutional developments based on archival evidence of a representative enterprise. The perspective is distinctively unique in that it highlights the salience of corporate-level institutional responses to explain the causes of colonial India's industrial growth, in addition to two renowned perspectives focusing on government economic policy or factor endowment. One of the driving forces of India's high growth rate since the 1980s is the expansion of modern business corporations whose origins date back to the colonial era in the mid-nineteenth century. This monograph explores the historical foundation of the growth of such corporations in colonial India, guided by a substantial collection of documents of Tata Iron and Steel Company, whose rich records have not received the due attention they have long deserved. As clarified by numerous economic and business historians of leading industrialized countries since the works of Douglass North and Alfred Chandler, this study as well proposes that the development of modern business corporations in colonial India was broadly supported by the reciprocal evolution of economic institutions and corporate organizations. Adding a new perspective to the business and economic history of colonial India, the analysis also provides an important case study of the development of corporate business in the non-Western world to the study of global business history.

The current political trend toward a drastically reduced government role in the economy and civil society begs a thorough discussion of the recent history of the free market movement in the United States. By providing a history of the political revitalization of classical liberalism since the 1960s, Bringing the Market Back In makes a significant step in understanding this discussion. When the market liberals came to power with the election of Ronald Reagan, they failed to translate their economic theories into dramatic political change. Although market liberals had developed remarkable intellectual strengths by 1980, the political movement to roll back the state was still in its infancy. The Gingrich Revolution of 1994 suggests that a better test of market liberalism's political feasibility may come in the last half of the 1990's.

Moving beyond the political polemics so common in the arena of contemporary economic policy, Kelley grounds his study in the little-known archival materials from the Libertarian Party and personal collections from the Hoover Institution Archives.

This is the story of one of the most dynamic entrepreneurs in modern French history. Drawing upon a wealth of archival and private documentation. Lewis uncovers the history of Pierre-Francois Tubeuf and assesses his contribution to the development of industry in France. Lewis explores the relationship between seigneurial, proto-industrial, and modern forms of capitalism in the Cevennes region of southeastern France in the eighteenth century, and demonstrates the international scope of proto-industrialization. This subtle and scholarly study seeks to unravel the complex problems associated with the impact of the French Revolution on the processes of modern French capitalism. Lewis traces the responses of a wide variety of individuals, including Tubeuf and his greatest rival, the marechal de Castries. He examines the epic struggle of these two powerful men for control of the rich coal-mines of the region, and their legacy to succeeding generations.

Volume 39C of Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology, features a symposium marking the 100th anniversary of the publication of Frank H. Knight's Risk, Uncertainty, and Profit. The symposium features contributions from Per Bylund, Richard E. Wagner, our own Carlos Eduardo Suprinyak and his co-author, Thiago Oliveira, as well as an essay from guest editor Ross B. Emmett. The Volume also includes general-research essays from David C. Coker, J. Patrick Higgins, and Charles R. McCann, Jr.

This fascinating volume offers a comprehensive synthesis of the events, causes and outcomes of the major financial crises from 1929 to the present day. Beginning with an overview of the global financial system, Sara Hsu presents both theoretical and empirical evidence to explain the roots of financial crises and financial instability in general. She then provides a thorough breakdown of a number of major crises of the past century, both in the United States and around the world. Hsu's thorough and ambitious survey begins with the Great Depression of 1929, the first crisis created within the institutions of our current financial system, and moves through the aftermath of the Depression in the 1930s and 1940s, the inter-crisis period of the 1950s through the 1970s, and the emerging market debt default crisis of the 1980s. From there, she tackles major crises in specific countries from the 1990s on, including those in Mexico, Asia (Thailand, Indonesia, South Korea and Malaysia), Russia, Brazil and Argentina, as well as the Great Recession of 2008. The book concludes with a chapter detailing insightful policy recommendations for preventing future crises. Students and professors of economic history, financial and regulatory economics and banking will find this an invaluable resource, both for its comprehensive historical approach and its thoughtful look toward the future of the global economy.

This study examines the process of capital accumulation at the level of the business firm, linking it to the macro-level of the world-economy as explicated by Hopkins and Wallerstein. Focusing upon the timber industry in the nineteenth century, and using primary archival material, the work analyzes how capital operates in the resource sector in the world-economy. The purpose is to refine further our understanding of capitalism as a mode of social organization and production, and in the process, refine contemporary theories of social change. In terms of coverage, the book addresses the timber industry over the course of the nineteenth century and provides an historical reconstruction of that industry. Its primary focus, however, is on the main features of timber and lumber production as a process of capital accumulation. The study will be of interest to scholars of social change and economic transformation, economic history, and political sociology.

Comparative Public Policy provides the first truly systematic and comprehensive account of the transformation of the post-war state in the advanced countries of the Western world. The author generates new research findings which show how the economic, social and political changes of the post-war era have reshaped modern public policy across the OECD region. Francis G. Castles examines the growth of big government and the emergence of the modern welfare state and identifies ways in which the role of the state has impacted on labour markets and such personal issues as home ownership, fertility and divorce. He explains why the trajectory of policy transformation has varied from country to country, with immediate post-war policy laggards sometimes becoming leaders, and erstwhile policy pioneers on occasions stagnating. This innovative book presents a wealth of background data and a huge range of new findings, covering 12 policy areas in 21 advanced industrialized countries over a period of more than three decades. Comparative Public Policy is essential reading for students and scholars who wish to understand the dynamics of contemporary social and political development.