Bertrand de Jouvenel (1903-1987) was known in the United States
primarily as a political scientist. His best-known works--"On
Power, Sovereignty, and The Pure Theory of Politics"--all made
distinctive contributions to our understanding of the modern state,
and to the creation of a political science capable of civilizing
that state. His work in the field of economics is relatively
unknown in the United States, but like many writers in the
contemporary field of political economy, de Jouvenel is not
interested in expanding the claims of economy at the expense of
polity. On the contrary, his thinking is governed by the oldest and
most fundamental of political concerns, the definition of the good
life. The good life is not a product of the marketplace, but of
deliberate and collective decision--that is, a task for thoughtful
citizens and statesmen, and not simply the sum of millions of
separate and amoral "consumer preferences." De Jouvenel is well
known for his opposition to the distended state, but he was no
anarchist. His eloquent warnings to keep the state in its proper
sphere were accompanied by a richly sophisticated discussion of
what the proper sphere is--an aspect of his work that comes through
very clearly in this volume. Written between 1952 and 1980, the
essays range from a discussion of technology to reflections on such
fundamental economic concepts as "amenity" and "welfare." They
include the deeply theoretical as well as the practical and the
concrete. All are informed by de Jouvenel's insistence that a
science which seeks to understand the production and distribution
of "goods" must be concerned in the first place with the good
itself. "Economics and the Good Life" is a companion volume to "The
Nature of Politics: Selected Essays of Bertrand de Jouvenel." Like
the earlier volume, this collection is accompanied by an editor's
introduction that places the essays in the wider context of de
Jouvenel's work. This work is essential to the libraries of
economists, political theorists, historians, and sociologists.
General
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