The historical record concerning industrialization since 1770 is consistent with the classical view of economic growth, but not with the currently accepted neo-classical growth theory. Flaws in the logic and empirical short-comings of the neo-classical theory suggest that it should be rejected. Specifically, ideas that originate in static concepts cannot be applied to growth, a dynamic process. Nineteenth-century industrialization, the world wars and the Depression, the post-war boom, and the more recent slowdown in growth are discussed.

In this unique contribution to economic sociology, Jeffrey Hass examines the impact of culture, norms and political authority on Russia's post-socialist transition. The interactions and contradictions of moral economies and market relations are examined, exploring the often overlooked social dimension to market-building in Russia.

Adam Smith revolutionized economic theory with his 1776 work An Inquiry to the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. He proposed rules governing labor, supply, and demand; and describes division of labor, stockpiling of wealth, lending, and interest. Smith also discusses how economies lead to opulence. Wealth of Nations also offers a defense for free-market capitalism. This edition of Wealth of Nations is an abridged version edited by Harvard economics professor CHARLES JESSE BULLOCK (1869-1941) and published in 1901 by Harvard Classics, a series that offered the essential readings for anyone who wanted the functional equivalent of a liberal arts education. Any student of economics should be familiar with the concepts and laws that Smith developed, as much of economic theory is still based upon his work. Scottish economist and philosopher ADAM SMITH (1723-1790) helped set standards in the fields of political economics and moral philosophy, playing a key role in the early development of the scholarship of economics. His other writings include Essays on Philosophical Subjects.

This book examines the relationship that prevails between the state and freedom in the works of Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek, as well as those of some of their peers, including Gary Becker, James Buchanan, and George Stigler. The author explains that their concept of freedom was largely derived from the principles and values of neo-liberalism. However, she maintains that neo-liberals never cared about providing the masses with genuine freedom; rather, they value freedom for its instrumental value in terms of facilitating the global spread of free-market capitalism. The author explains that the neo-liberal concept of freedom has been a very useful tool in promoting the superiority of free-market capitalism over centrally planned economies aimed at achieving the common good. She argues that even though neo-liberals are strongly opposed to central planning, they are tolerant of state planning intended to help establish and sustain the conditions of a free-market system. She also contends that the extensive implementation of neo-liberal reforms and policies has led to states losing their sovereignty and moving away from their traditional role of achieving the common good. The author claims that the world has essentially become the sum of many neo-liberal societies, particularly during the last four decades. She also maintains that, throughout human history, no other ideology, school of thought, political, religious or military institution, kingdom, or empire has been as successful as neo-liberalism, when it comes to shaping people's beliefs, ideals, goals, and lifestyle on a global scale. Unfortunately, neo-liberalism has proven to be very detrimental for civilization and the future of the planet. The author concludes that the widespread adoption of the neo-liberal concept of freedom, in combination with the pretense that economics is a natural, ahistorical and value-free science, has triggered the emergence of methodological monism, which has resulted in unfreedom and the poverty of economics, while also delaying the progress of the entire discipline.

We have seen many empires come and go. From the Roman Empire to the British Empire, we are now witnessing the decline of the US as a superpower. How do economic innovations foster global economic dominance, and how does the natural evolution of an economic empire eventually bring about its demise and replacement by other economic superpowers?

This book demonstrates the continuing relevance of Marx's critique of the capitalist system, in which value is simply equated with market price. It includes chapters specifically on the environment and financialisation, and presents Marx's qualitative theory of value and the associated concept of fetishism in a clear and comprehensive manner. Section I demonstrates how fetishism developed in Marx's writing from a journalistic metaphor to an analytical device central to his critique. In Section II, commodity fetishism is distinguished from other forms: of money, capital and interest-bearing capital. There follows an analysis of Marx's complex attempt to distinguish his argument from that of Ricardo, and Samuel Bailey. The section ends with a discussion of the ontological status of value: as a social rather than a natural phenomenon. Section III considers the merits of understanding value by analogy with language, and critically assesses the merits of structural Marxism. Section IV challenges Marx's emphasis solely on production, and considers also exchange and consumption as social relations. Section V critically assesses recent Marx-inspired literature relating to the two key crises of our time, finance and the environment, and identifies strong similarities between the key analytical questions that have been debated in each case.

`Here is a feast of diagrams, presented by many expert authors in a context of history of thought. It will be very useful for researchers, students and textbook writers.' - Max Corden, University of Melbourne, Australia `Francis Collins oversaw the human genome project. Mark Blaug and Peter Lloyd have done the same for economics, demonstrating that figures and diagrams are the DNA building blocks of the discipline. This book has them all: backward-bending labor supply, cobweb diagram, circular flow, production possibility frontier, Stolper-Samuelson box, IS/LM, the Phillips curve and many more. Each is portrayed, its importance explained, its origin revealed, and the reader often encounters Stigler's Law of Eponymy (No scientific discovery is named after its original discoverer).' - Kenneth G. Elzinga, University of Virginia `Both students and professors will welcome this original and unique collection. Analytically tighter and more complete expositions than much existing literature should be very welcome in graduate theory courses. Authors of history of economic thought texts will have to clarify and correct the historical record regarding who said what and when, and both reconfigure the assignment of credit and question use of the term "precursor": early users did more than hint at the full development; often creating tools.' - Warren Samuels, Michigan State University This is a unique account of the role played by 58 figures and diagrams commonly used in economic theory. These cover a large part of mainstream economic analysis, both microeconomics and macroeconomics and also general equilibrium theory. The authoritative contributors have produced a well-considered and definitive selection including some from empirical research such as the Phillips curve, the Kuznets curve and the Lorenz curve. Almost all of them are still found in contemporary textbooks and research. Each entry presents an accurate and concise record of the history of the figure or diagram, including later developments and any controversy that arose in its development. As a whole, the book highlights how the use of geometric methods has played a central part in the development of economic theory and analysis; as a method of discovery, more commonly as a method of exposition and occasionally as a method of proof of propositions in economic theory and analysis. This highly anticipated book will appeal to theorists in microeconomics or macroeconomics, scholars of economic theory and analysis, as well as students in microeconomics, general equilibrium theory or macroeconomics at the advanced undergraduate or graduate level who want a definitive account of some figure or diagram. Historians of economic thought and methodologists will also find this book an invaluable resource. Contributors: S. Ashok, R.E. Backhouse, W.J. Baumol, M. Blaug, R. Boyer, L. Cameron, J.S. Chipman, A.J. Cohen, J.S. Cramer, J. Creedy, A.V. Deardorff, R.W. Dimand, A. Dixit, R. Dixon, B.C. Eaton, J. Eichberger, N. Erkal, R. Fare, L. Gangadharan, N. Giocoli, Y. Giraud, S. Grosskopf, H. Haller, D.W. Hands, G.C. Harcourt, T.M. Humphrey, R.W. Jones, N. Kakwani, M. Kemp, J.E. King, A.O. Krueger, D. Laidler, C. Lee, R.G. Lipsey, P. Lloyd, F. Maclachlan, R. Middleton, M. Nerlove, Y.-K. Ng, A. Panagariya, P. Rodenburg, R. Rothschild, M. Schneider, H.-l. Shi, A. Skinner, B.J. Spencer, H. Thompson, J. Whalley, R. Williams, W.C. Woo, A.D. Woodland, W. Young

This volume traces the history of organized labor in the Peru and Ecuador from its first appearance in the late nineteenth century until the end of the twentieth century. It discusses the relations of trade unionism with economic development and politics, particularly the political tendencies within organized labor. It also discusses the negative impact on the trade union movement of the "free-enterprise-free trade" policies of the last decades of the twentieth century.

This book examines the pattern of growth of the Spanish economy in the last few decades, and studies the causes of its labor productivity, and the special features characterizing business cycles in Spain.

Focusing on England, this study reconstructs the centuries-long process of commercialization that gave birth to the modern market society. It shows how certain types of markets (e.g. those for real estate, labor, capital, and culture) came into being, and how the social relations mediated by markets were formed. The book deals with the creation of institutions like the Bank of England, the Stock Exchange, and Lloyd's of London, as well as the way the English dealt with the uncertainty and the risks involved in market transactions. Christiane Eisenberg shows that the creation of a market society and modern capitalism in England occurred under circumstances that were utterly different from those on the European continent. In addition, she demonstrates that as a process, the commercialization of business, society, and culture in England did not lead directly to an industrial society, as has previously been suggested, but rather to a service economy.

Monetary Policy and the Onset of the Great Depression challenges Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz's now-consensus view that the high tide of the Federal Reserve System in the 1920s was due to the leadership skills of Benjamin Strong, head of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. In this new work, Toma develops a self-regulated model of the Federal Reserve, which stands in contrast to a conventional discretionary model. Given the easy redemption of dollars for gold and the competition among Reserve banks, the self-regulated model implies that the early Fed could control neither the money supply nor the price level. Exploiting an untapped data set, later chapters test the thesis of self-regulation by focusing on the monetary decisions of individual Reserve banks.
The micro-based evidence indicates that "Reserve banks really did compete" - and that Benjamin Strong as decisive leader during the 1920s is a myth. This finding, with its emphasis on monetary policy in the years leading up to the Great Depression, will be of interest to scholars, students, and sophisticated lay readers with an interest in macroeconomic and monetary economic policy issues, specifically to those with an interest in economic history.

A seeming constant in the history of capitalism, greed has nonetheless undergone considerable transformations over the last five hundred years. This multilayered account offers a fresh take on an old topic, arguing that greed was experienced as a moral phenomenon and deployed to make sense of an unjust world. Focusing specifically on the interrelated themes of religion, economics, and health-each of which sought to study and channel the power of financial desire-Jared Poley shows how evolving ideas about greed became formative elements of the modern experience.

This book analyzes the Philippine economy from the 1960s to the 1980s. During this period, the benefits of economic growth conspicuously failed to "trickle down". Despite rising per capita income, broad sectors of the Filipino population experienced deepening poverty.;Professor Boyce traces this outcome to the country's economic and political structure and focuses on three elements of the government's development strategy: the "green revolution" in rice agriculture, the primacy accorded to export agriculture and forestry, and massive external borrowing.;James Boyce is the author of "Agrarian Impasse in Bengal" and co-author of "A Quiet Violence: View from a Bangladesh Village".

Part of a five-volume series on the history of Anglo-Japanese relations, this volume is concerned with the development of business and economic relations between Britain and Japan from the early 17th century up to the year 2000. These essays give particular attention to commodity trade, capital flows, the transfer of knowledge and the overall balance of economic power between the two nations.

The Company-State rethinks the nature of the early English East India Company as a form of polity and corporate sovereign well before its supposed transformation into a state and empire in the mid-eighteenth century. Taking seriously the politics and political thought of the early Company on their own terms, it explores the Company's political and legal constitution as an overseas corporation and the political institutions and behaviors that followed from it, from tax collection and public health to warmaking and colonial plantation. Tracing the ideological foundations of those institutions and behaviors, this book reveals how Company leadership wrestled not simply with the bottom line but with typically early modern problems of governance, such as: the mutual obligations of subjects and rulers; the relationship between law, economy, and sound civil and colonial society; and the nature of jurisdiction and sovereignty over people, commerce, religion, territory, and the sea. The Company-State thus reframes some of the most fundamental narratives in the history of the British Empire, questioning traditional distinctions between public and private bodies, "commercial" and "imperial" eras in British India, a colonial Atlantic and a "trading world" of Asia, European and Asian political cultures, and the English and their European rivals in the East Indies. At its core, The Company-State offers a view of early modern Europe and Asia, and especially the colonial world that connected them, as resting in composite, diffuse, hybrid, and overlapping notions of sovereignty that only later gave way to more modern singular, centralized, and territorially- and nationally-bounded definitions of political community. Given growing questions about the fate of the nation-state and of national borders in an age of "globalization," this study offers a perspective on the vitality of non-state and corporate political power perhaps as relevant today as it was in the seventeenth century.

Discusses the process of the economic annihilation of the Jews in Hungary, who -- from the economic point of view -- were more influential than any other Jewish community in Europe. Following the German occupation in March 1944 the collaborating Hungarian government attempted to assert its claim concerning the complete confiscation of Jewish assets at all stages of the road leading to the extermination camps. The cooperation with the Germans proved to be the most problematic in this area.

The story of the Jewish Gold Train is a relatively small but all the more emblematic chapter of the economic annihilation. The circumstances of the freight's assembling, the German-Hungarian conflicts concerning the train, the looting attempts, the fate of the assets seized by the Allies (double victimization of the survivors) provide the reader with an insight into the history of the repeated looting of the Hungarian Jewry

The book analyzes the role played by SS-Obersturmbannfuhrer Kurt Becher, one of the most controversial and mysterious figures in the Hungarian and universal history of the Holocaust. Becher, delegated to Hungary by Himmler, administered and benefited from the confiscation of an enormous amount of Jewish assets.

Throughout time, from ancient Rome to modern Britain, the great empires built and maintained their domination through force of arms and political power. But not the United States. America has dominated the world in a new, peaceful, and pervasive way -- through the continued creation of staggering wealth. In this authoritative, engrossing history, John Steele Gordon captures as never before the true source of our nation's global influence: wealth and the capacity to create more of it.This P.S. edition features an extra 16 pages of insights into the book, including author interviews, recommended reading, and more.

This volume of essays contains 16 papers the author has written over the last 40 years on various aspects of the life and work of John Maynard Keynes and Nicholas Kaldor. It covers both theoretical and applied topics and highlight the continued relevance of Keynesian and Kaldorian ideas for understanding the functioning of capitalist economies.

John Kenneth Galbraith was an eminent economist and proponent of change. The contributors to the book further his analysis on the evolution of capitalism; taking into account changes to the general economic climate since the publication of J.K. Galbraith's main thesis, they outline new ideas which form fertile ground for new research.The book begins with a penetrating analysis of the main features of today's capitalism and in particular the conflict between shareholders and managers. It moves on to focus on the consequences of globalization in the decision-making processes of large corporations and represents an important step in the development of a theory of fraud and corruption within corporations. In the final part, the authors address and explore the consequences of the domination of influential groups over major social and political decisions, on the blurred boundaries between the public and the private sectors and its consequences in the fields of technological regulation and the evolution of public services. In so doing, the authors question the meaning and power of democracy in today's society. Innovation, Evolution and Economic Change will appeal to a wide readership and audience of economists, policy makers and political organization.

This thoroughly revised and updated edition of Needler's well-known text brings his comprehensive examination and analysis of Mexican politics up through the 1994 Mexican elections. Providing historical and geographical background, the work examines economics and politics in the light of the structural changes attending the adoption of the neo-liberal economic model. Also addressed are the implications of NAFTA, the Zapatista rebellion, and the assassination of Luis Donaldo Colosio, among other current political issues. An ideal text for students of comparative politics, Latin American studies, and recent Latin American history.

This volume presents a study of the Second World War as a period of crisis which brought about significant changes in the relationship between business and the state. The requirements of the war economy increased the power of the state but also showed the limits of such power. The comparative approach of this volume permits the exploration of such questions as the extent to which corporatist forms of cooperation between business and the state were created in wartime conditions; the effectiveness of the control exerted by such institutions; how far conditions of crisis affected the forms of economic organisation that emerged; and the long-term consequences of the emergence of new forms of economic organisation.