Argues that the rise and rise of consumer capitalism has been responsible for global military conflict, the boom and bust economic cycle, and the ongoing environmental crisis. Combines heterodox economic theory (particularly Keynes, Veblen and Minsky) with global case studies to present a complete analysis of the history of consumer capitalism.

Henry Heller's short account of the history of capitalism combines Marx's economic and political thought with contemporary scholarship to shed light on the current capitalist crisis. It argues that capitalism is an evolving mode of production that has now outgrown its institutional and political limits. The book provides an overview of the different historical stages of capitalism, underpinned by accessible discussions of its theoretical foundations. Heller shows that capitalism has always been a double-edged sword, on one hand advancing humanity, and on the other harming traditional societies and our natural environment. He makes the case that capitalism has now become self-destructive, and that our current era of neoliberalism may trigger a transition to a democratic and ecologically aware form of socialism.

The Politics of British Feminism traces the history of the womens movement from the achievement of suffrage in 1918 to the revival of feminism in the late 1960s. Offering new insights into a neglected period of womens history, Olive Banks seeks to place the womens movement in its wider context while exploring the nature of anti-feminism, as well as feminism, over half a century of turbulent history. Centring on the campaigns fought by different sections of the women's movement between 1918 and 1970, the book examines in turn autonomous feminist groups, women in the labour movement, and female MPs. The co-operation and conflict between these three groups is explored in detail. The second part examines the campaigns these groups fought, including attempts to secure equal pay, and analyses the reasons for their successes and failures. The unwillingness of the main political parties to sympathize with the goals of the women's movement is carefully assessed. Providing an authoritative overview of a previously neglected period, The Politics of British Feminism, 1918-1970 will be welcomed by students and teachers of women's history, as well as interested historians, sociologists and political scientists.

'Magisterial ... Immensely readable' Douglas Alexander, Financial Times 'Insightful, productively provocative and downright brilliant' New York Times A compelling history of catastrophes and their consequences, from 'the most brilliant British historian of his generation' (The Times) Disasters are inherently hard to predict. But when catastrophe strikes, we ought to be better prepared than the Romans were when Vesuvius erupted or medieval Italians when the Black Death struck. We have science on our side, after all. Yet the responses of many developed countries to a new pathogen from China were badly bungled. Why? While populist rulers certainly performed poorly in the face of the pandemic, Niall Ferguson argues that more profound pathologies were at work - pathologies already visible in our responses to earlier disasters. Drawing from multiple disciplines, including economics and network science, Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe offers not just a history but a general theory of disaster. As Ferguson shows, governments must learn to become less bureaucratic if we are to avoid the impending doom of irreversible decline. 'Stimulating, thought-provoking ... Readers will find much to relish' Martin Bentham, Evening Standard

Volume VII illustrates the administrative aspects that are an on-going component of most economic theory. It demonstrates that before the birth of political economy as a formal discipline, public and private administrators were formulating theories about economic processes as guidelines for administrative decisions. The main theme of this volume revolves around the influence of administrative considerations on the development of economic theory.

The theory of monopoly capital is central to any satisfactory analysis of accumulation and stagnation in advanced capitalist economies. This major new book presents in one volume recent discussions of monopoly capitalism to emphasize the centrality and vitality of this tradition in modern political economy.Following the work of Kalecki, Steindl and Baran and Sweezy, a number of leading economists address key issues such as the calculation of the economic surplus, the division of income between labour and capital, oligopoly collusion over output and pricing, the growth of unproductive activity, the degree of monopoly, surplus absorption and stagnation and the history of the present crisis.

Despite the global financial crisis in 2007-2008, neoliberalism has remained dominant and even informs the responses to the crisis. In his masterful analysis, Damien Cahill demonstrates that this resilience is due to neoliberalism being firmly embedded within wider class relations, institutions and ideological norms. And yet, as Cahill also argues, progressive change is possible provided it is based on large-scale political mobilisation. I most strongly recommend this book for reading.' - Andreas Bieler, Nottingham University, UK'Damien Cahill has emerged as one of the most penetrating social scientists on the politics of neoliberalism in the advanced capitalist societies. In his new book, he brings his many years of pouring over policy documents to examine neoliberalism in the new 'age of austerity'. The result is an impressive survey of the history and debates about neoliberal policies. But more powerful is Cahill's hard-headed analysis of why neoliberalism may not simply be in decline, despite the great social disasters it has produced: the 'Great Recession' of 2008 only being the most spectacular. Cahill insists on what many are only beginning to realize: that a new progressive political economy will not emerge as a result of the 'failure of neoliberal ideas', but only when an alternative vision of society fuses with new organized forms of social resistance.' - Greg Albo, York University, Toronto, Canada When the global financial crisis hit in 2007, many commentators thought it heralded the end of neoliberalism. Several years later, neoliberalism continues to dominate policy making. This book sets out why such commentators got it so wrong, and why neoliberalism remains so durable in the face of crisis. This book is the first comprehensive critique of the dominant 'ideas-centered' approach to understanding neoliberalism. It offers an alternative view of neoliberalism as a policy regime that is embedded in institutions, class relations and ideological norms. Damien Cahill argues that the socially embedded nature of neoliberalism explains why policy makers continue to use neoliberal policies as forms of crisis response, even though the crisis itself resulted from several decades of neoliberal restructuring. It takes aim at dominant interpretations of neoliberalism, arguing that it is wrongly viewed as reflecting neoliberal free market ideals, or as resulting from the influence of fundamentalist neoliberal intellectuals. The book concludes with a prognosis of the future prospects for neoliberalism. The End of Laissez-Faire? is a compelling and insightful analysis of neoliberalism, which will appeal to scholars and students of public policy, political science, sociology, political economy, anthropology, human geography, industrial relations and economics-related studies. Contents: Introduction 1. The Idealist View of Neoliberalism 2. Actually Existing Neoliberalism 3. Did Neoliberal Ideas Create the Neoliberal State and Economy? 4. Always Embedded Neoliberalism 5. The Class Embedded Nature of Neoliberalism 6. Institutionally Embedded Neoliberalism 7. Ideologically Embedded Neoliberalism 8. The Global Financial Crisis and the Future of Embedded Neoliberalism Bibliography Index

The evolving field of the economics of terrorism has been and continues to be the subject of much research. Professor Enders, in this authoritative research review, charts the development of this topic over the past century. The areas discussed include incentive regulation, competition in generation, market power, transmission and system operation as well as retail competition and future developments.

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 book provides a new methodological approach to money and macroeconomics. Realizing that the abstract equilibrium models lacked descriptions of fundamental issues of a modern monetary economy, the focus of this book lies on the (stylized) balance sheets of the main actors. Money, after all, is born on the balance sheets of the central bank or commercial bank. While households and firms hold accounts at banks with deposits, banks hold an account at the central bank where deposits are called reserves. The book aims to explain how the two monetary circuits - central bank deposits and bank deposits - are intertwined. It is also shown how government spending injects money into the economy. Modern Monetary Theory and European Macroeconomics covers both the general case and then the Eurozone specifically. A very simple macroeconomic model follows which explains the major accounting identities of macroeconomics. Using this new methodology, the Eurozone crisis is examined from a fresh perspective. It turns out that not government debt but the stagnation of private sector debt was the major economic problem and that cuts in government spending worsened the economic situation. The concluding chapters discuss what a solution to the current problems of the Eurozone must look like, with scenarios that examine a future with and without a euro. This book provides a detailed balance sheet view of monetary and fiscal operations, with a focus on the Eurozone economy. Students, policy-makers and financial market actors will learn to assess the institutional processes that underpin a modern monetary economy, in times of boom and in times of bust.

Recently, the issue of inequality has regained attention in the economic and political debate. This is due to both an increase in income inequality, in particular among rich countries, and an increasing interest in this issue by researchers and politicians. In the last three decades, income inequality among rich countries increased. This period also witnessed the growth of "financial capitalism", characterised by the strong dependency of economies on the financial sector, by the globalisation and intensification of international trade and capital mobility, and by the "flexibilisation" of labour markets and the reduction of wage shares. From the 1980s to the present day, this book considers the theoretical aspects of inequality (its foundations, definitions, approaches and origins) and examines empirical evidence of income inequality in a wide range of advanced economies. The key arguments in this volume are that income inequality increased during this period because labour and welfare became seen as costs to be compressed in "financial capitalism" rather than as a fundamental part of aggregate demand to be expanded. However, the welfare state is not a drain on economic performance and competitiveness, nor is it a barrier to economic efficiency. Instead, it is demonstrated that in countries that adopt "welfare capitalism", welfare state expenditure not only contributes to a reduction in inequality but also fosters economic growth. Inequality in Financial Capitalism is of great importance to those who study economics, political economy, labour economics and globalisation.

Business Cycles in Economic Thought underlines how, over the time span of two centuries, economic thought interacted with cycles in a continuous renewal of theories and rethinking of policies, whilst economic actions embedded themselves into past economic thought. This book argues that studying crises and periods of growth in different European countries will help to understand how different national, political and cultural traditions influenced the complex interaction of economic cycles and economic theorizing. The editors of this great volume bring together expert contributors consisting of economists, historians of economic thought and historians of economics, to analyse crises and theories of the nineteenth and the twentieth century. This is alongside a comprehensive outlook on the most relevant advances of economic theory in France, Germany and Italy, as well as coverage of non-European countries, such as the United States. Several of the highly prestigious Villa Vigoni Trilateral Conferences formed the background for the discussions in this book. This volume is of great interest to students and academics who study history of economic thought, political economy and macroeconomics.

The expert authors in this timely volume offer diverse perspectives on how corruption distorts state and market relations, while drawing from insights in political science, economics, and law. This book represents a new wave of research in political economy, relying on methodological rigor to address topics ranging from corruption in taxation and trade to crony capitalism and false anti-corruption reforms. Key chapters provide a thorough review of the literature on links between political connections and democratic institutions. Special attention is paid to the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention, the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, China's anti-corruption drive, and language used to discuss tax evasion. Case studies from various regions-such as China, Paraguay, South Africa, and New York City-anchor the analysis with real-world situations. Greed, Corruption, and the Modern State is a critical resource for students, researchers, and practitioners interested in development, economics, governance, and corruption. Contributors: P. Alldridge, D. Batzilis, J. Bussell, K.E. Davis, A. Diaz-Cayeros, R. Fisman, N. Hite-Rubin, F. Hualing, R. Huang, P. Lagunes, B. Magaloni, K. Moene, V. Romero, S. Rose-Ackerman, S. Sequeira, T. Soreide, M.C. Stephenson, S. Straub, F. Varese

This book offers an important chronological perspective on the evolution of multilateralism within Europe and beyond. It provides a critical reconstruction of the history of the idea and praxis of peaceful global governance, comparative analysis of regional multilateral organizations and a discussion about concrete trends and perspectives of a new multilateralism against the challenging context of the current multipolar power politics. Focusing on the changing European interplay with multilateralism - from Eurocentric cradle of civilian cooperation among sovereign imperial states, to political dwarf after the two WW and decolonization, and to potential co-leader of a multi-layered and multi-actor cooperation within the current multipolar order, it addresses a theoretical ‘gap’ by fuelling the long-recognised idealism v. realism debate over international cooperation and institutionalisation with both historical and new empirical insights. This book will be of key interest to scholars and students of European studies, global governance, multilateralism, international organisations and more broadly to international relations.

This book examines the three historical master tales and questions their validity and relevance in today's moment of global disorientation and lack of convincing and dominant economic narrative. Investigating the ideological dimension and exploring the continued impact of Marx, Keynes and Hayek, the authors demonstrate how these three economic narratives became entangled over time and under increasing complexity, overlapping and competing with each other. The book reflects on the meaning of the historical legacy of the three narratives and investigates their significance today. All three outlined the prospects of a better and more economically efficient world with increased social justice, Magnusson and Strath argue that they constitute a legacy on which a new economic tale must be based, a legacy to draw on or confront. A concise and engaging work, this is an ideal resource for students and academics interested in economics, political science, history and global studies. A Brief History of Political Economy presents a powerful economic history of the last 170 years as a basis for economic reconsideration.

What is one of the best ways to successfully predict the future? Winston Churchill believed that the further back you look, the further forward you are likely to be able to see. This intriguing book is testimony to this idea. It looks back two thousand years to the Roman Empire to help us to see into our own future. We imagine the Roman Empire as being a world very distant from ours, so distant that we may think we have nothing to learn from them. That however would be a mistake. The causes of the triumphs and disasters of our times are much the same as those of the Roman Empire. The Romans were people like us and the wisest of their great men and women were as wise as the best of ours. Unfortunately, the most foolish of theirs were just as the foolish as the worst of ours. Pugnare is the first historical account of the Roman Empire written from a practical business perspective. It is also about people, because business is about people. We can learn a lot from their behaviour, from their successes and failures.

'While market activity and political activity are often analyzed independently of each other, Wagner demonstrates their interdependence. His novel analysis shows that politics has a level of complexity well beyond the way it is typically depicted in the social sciences, and shows that political activity has more in common with market activity than is commonly recognized. The book offers a wide range of insights and pushes readers to take a more nuanced view of politics.' - Randall G. Holcombe, Florida State University, US Economists typically treat government as something outside the business realm, a sort of 'Lord of the Manor'. Richard Wagner argues that this is the wrong approach and can ultimately be destructive to capitalism and to society. Modern governments are a peculiar form of business enterprise. They face the same problems as regular businesses, such as ascertaining demand and organizing production, and act within the system in a way that can lead to a parasitical relationship with the market. Largely rooted in political economy, this book develops new theoretical ideas and formulations to explain why democracy is a difficult form of government to maintain. The author explores how and why limited governments can morph into a system of destructive politics, and looks at ways to escape this process. This dynamic book will be useful for public choice scholars, economists, political scientists, and lawyers who are interested in political economy in its various guises.

Welfare is commonly conceptualized in socio-economic terms of equity, highlighting distributive issues within growing economies. While GDP, income growth and rising material standards of living are normally not questioned as priorities in welfare theories and policy making, there is growing evidence that Western welfare standards are not generalizable to the rest of the planet if environmental concerns, such as resource depletion or climate change, are considered. Sustainability and the Political Economy of Welfare raises the issue of what is required to make welfare societies ecologically sustainable. Consisting of three parts, this book regards the current financial, economic and political crisis in welfare state institutions and addresses methodological, theoretical and wider conceptual issues in integrating sustainability. Furthermore, this text is concerned with the main institutional obstacles to the achievement of sustainable welfare and wellbeing, and how these may feasibly be overcome. How can researchers assist policymakers in promoting synergy between economic, social and environmental policies conducive to globally sustainable welfare systems? Co-authored by a variety of cross-disciplinary contributors, a diversity of research perspectives and methods is reflected in a unique mixture of conceptual chapters, historical analysis of different societal sectors, and case studies of several EU countries, China and the US. This book is well suited for those who are interested in and study welfare, ecological economics and political economy.

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.

Deep reductions in energy use and carbon emissions will not be possible within political economies that are driven by the capitalist imperatives of growth, commodification and individualization. As such, it has now become necessary to understand the relationship between capitalism and the emergence of high energy habits. Using the examples of home energy, transport and food, The Political Economy of Low Carbon Transformation articulates the relationship between the politics of economic expansion and the formation of high-energy habits at the level of family and household. The book elaborates a theory of habit and how it can contribute to this relationship. It critiques mainstream green economy and green energy prescriptions for low carbon transformation that take economic growth for granted and ignore habits formed in a material world designed and built for high energy use. The book explores the growing number of communities around the world that are engaged in collaborative efforts to reform their community and household habits in ways that are less environmentally intrusive. It assesses their potential to make an impact on national and urban low carbon political agendas. The book is aimed at a large and growing interdisciplinary audience interested in the relationship between political economy, consumption and sustainability.

Despite insoluble contradictions, intense volatility and fierce resistance, the crisis-ridden capitalism of the 21st century lingers on. To understand capital's paradoxical expansion and entrenchment amidst crisis and unrest, Mute Compulsionoffers a novel theory of the historically unique forms of abstract and impersonal power set in motion by the subjection of social life to the profit imperative. Building on a critical reconstruction of Karl Marx's unfinished critique of political economy and a wide range of contemporary Marxist theory, philosopher Soren Mau sets out to explain how the logic of capital tightens its stranglehold on the life of society by constantly remoulding the material conditions of social reproduction. In the course of doing so, Mau intervenes in classical and contemporary debates about the value form, crisis theory, biopolitics, social reproduction, humanism, logistics, agriculture, metabolism, the body, competition, technology and relative surplus populations.

* Presents many of the microeconomic and macroeconomic theories and schools of thought not generally covered in mainstream principles of economics textbooks * Each chapter starts with a short "refresher" of standard neoclassical economic modelling before demonstrating how that model is distorted by people, problems and events in the real world to provide students with a more realistic picture of how the economy works * Updates throughout and new material on populism, racism, inequality, climate change and the covid-19 pandemic * Now has online supplements: quiz questions for students and PowerPoint slides for instructors

This study offers students of religion and philosophy introductory chapters concerning the concept of natural religion. It holds that we can't engage in useful discussion about the present concept of religion without a knowledge of the philosophical history that has shaped that concept. This is discussed with reference to the notion of natural religion to illustrate certain aspects of deism and its legacy. Originally published in 1989.

Austerity has dominated the policy agenda in the past decade. Although it appeared to end with the COVID-19 pandemic, a return to harsh cutbacks in the future cannot be ruled out. In this incisive analysis, Diane Perrons shows that while austerity policies have devastating effects on people's lives, their gendered dynamics are particularly conspicuous: budget cuts have been overwhelmingly aimed at services used by women. She shows how the gender aspects of this economic and social catastrophe intersected with a range of other factors, making the experience of austerity very different for different groups - and highly unjust. Not only that, it undermined responses to COVID-19. She finishes by critiquing the justifications for austerity policies and asks whether there are compelling alternatives that can re-invigorate economies and societies after the pandemic, and avoid a return to austerity. This compelling book will be essential reading for activists, policymakers and students of feminist political economy everywhere.