A Little History of Economics

A Little History of Economics PDF Author: Niall Kishtainy
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300226314
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
A lively, inviting account of the history of economics, told through events from ancient to modern times and the ideas of great thinkers in the field What causes poverty? Are economic crises inevitable under capitalism? Is government intervention in an economy a helpful approach or a disastrous idea? The answers to such basic economic questions matter to everyone, yet the unfamiliar jargon and math of economics can seem daunting. This clear, accessible, and even humorous book is ideal for young readers new to economics and for all readers who seek a better understanding of the full sweep of economic history and ideas. Economic historian Niall Kishtainy organizes short, chronological chapters that center on big ideas and events. He recounts the contributions of key thinkers including Adam Smith, David Ricardo, Karl Marx, John Maynard Keynes, and others, while examining topics ranging from the invention of money and the rise of agrarianism to the Great Depression, entrepreneurship, environmental destruction, inequality, and behavioral economics. The result is a uniquely enjoyable volume that succeeds in illuminating the economic ideas and forces that shape our world.

Karl Polanyi

Karl Polanyi PDF Author: Gareth Dale
Publisher: Polity
ISBN: 0745640710
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
Karl Polanyi’s The Great Transformation is generally acclaimed as being among the most influential works of economic history in the twentieth century, and remains as vital in the current historical conjuncture as it was in his own. In its critique of nineteenth-century ‘market fundamentalism’ it reads as a warning to our own neoliberal age, and is widely touted as a prophetic guidebook for those who aspire to understand the causes and dynamics of global economic turbulence at the end of the 2000s. Karl Polanyi: The Limits of the Market is the first comprehensive introduction to Polanyi’s ideas and legacy. It assesses not only the texts for which he is famous – prepared during his spells in American academia – but also his journalistic articles written in his first exile in Vienna, and lectures and pamphlets from his second exile, in Britain. It provides a detailed critical analysis of The Great Transformation, but also surveys Polanyi’s seminal writings in economic anthropology, the economic history of ancient and archaic societies, and political and economic theory. Its primary source base includes interviews with Polanyi’s daughter, Kari Polanyi-Levitt, as well as the entire compass of his own published and unpublished writings in English and German. This engaging and accessible introduction to Polanyi’s thinking will appeal to students and scholars across the social sciences, providing a refreshing perspective on the roots of our current economic crisis.

Economic Anthropology

Economic Anthropology PDF Author: Chris Hann
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0745699391
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 161

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Book Description
This book is a new introduction to the history and practice of economic anthropology by two leading authors in the field. They show that anthropologists have contributed to understanding the three great questions of modern economic history: development, socialism and one-world capitalism. In doing so, they connect economic anthropology to its roots in Western philosophy, social theory and world history. Up to the Second World War anthropologists tried and failed to interest economists in their exotic findings. They then launched a vigorous debate over whether an approach taken from economics was appropriate to the study of non-industrial economies. Since the 1970s, they have developed a critique of capitalism based on studying it at home as well as abroad. The authors aim to rejuvenate economic anthropology as a humanistic project at a time when the global financial crisis has undermined confidence in free market economics. They argue for the continued relevance of predecessors such as Marcel Mauss and Karl Polanyi, while offering an incisive review of recent work in this field. Economic Anthropology is an excellent introduction for social science students at all levels, and it presents general readers with a challenging perspective on the world economy today. Selected by Choice as a 2013 Outstanding Academic Title

Normative Economics in the History of Economic Thought

Normative Economics in the History of Economic Thought PDF Author: Sina Badiei
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1040048056
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 330

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Book Description
This book examines the role of normative economics in the writings of Karl Marx, Ludwig von Mises, Milton Friedman and Karl Popper. The book shows that while distinguishing positive from normative economics can be helpful, this distinction should not minimize the importance of normative economics or reject the possibility of offering objective evaluations of social phenomena and policies in normative economics. The book offers a critical assessment of the attempts by Marx, Mises and Friedman to reduce scientific economics to the positive analysis of social phenomena alone. Through a meticulous analysis of their work, the book shows that their positive theories fail to justify their evaluations of economic phenomena and policies. The book then draws on the writings of Popper to maintain that we should place normative economics at the center of economics. The book argues that normative economics can choose the norms underlying its evaluations of social situations and policies objectively and relies on some of Popper’s ideas to offer some criteria that can facilitate the selection of these norms. The book will be of interest to economists, historians of economic thought, philosophers of economics and political theorists and philosophers.

A Brief History of Economic Thought

A Brief History of Economic Thought PDF Author: Alessandro Roncaglia
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 110717533X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 321

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Book Description
A clear and concise history of economic thought, developed from the author's award-winning book, The Wealth of Ideas.

Philosophy of Economics

Philosophy of Economics PDF Author: Julian Reiss
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136763325
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 351

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Book Description
Philosophy of Economics: A Contemporary Introduction is the first systematic textbook in the philosophy of economics. It introduces the epistemological, metaphysical and ethical problems that arise in economics, and presents detailed discussions of the solutions that have been offered. Throughout, philosophical issues are illustrated by and analysed in the context of concrete cases drawn from contemporary economics, the history of economic ideas, and actual economic events. This demonstrates the relevance of philosophy of economics both for the science of economics and for the economy. This text will provide an excellent introduction to the philosophy of economics for students and interested general readers alike.

The Community of Advantage

The Community of Advantage PDF Author: Robert Sugden
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019255879X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 468

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Book Description
The Community of Advantage asks how economists should do normative analysis. Normative analysis in economics has usually aimed at satisfying individuals' preferences. Its conclusions have supported a long- standing liberal tradition of economics that values economic freedom and views markets favourably. However, behavioural research shows that individuals' preferences, as revealed in choices, are often unstable, and vary according to contextual factors that seem irrelevant for welfare. Robert Sugden proposes a reformulation of normative economics that is compatible with what is now known about the psychology of choice. The growing consensus in favour of paternalism and 'nudging' is based on a very different way of reconciling normative economics with behavioural findings. This is to assume that people have well-defined 'latent' preferences which, because of psychologically-induced errors, are not always revealed in actual choices. The economist's job is then to reconstruct latent preferences and to design policies to satisfy them. Challenging this consensus, The Community of Advantage argues that latent preference and error are psychologically ungrounded concepts, and that economics needs to be more radical in giving up rationality assumptions. Sugden advocates a kind of normative economics that does not use the concept of preference. Its recommendations are addressed, not to an imagined 'social planner', but to citizens, viewed as potential parties to mutually beneficial agreements. Its normative criterion is the provision of opportunities for individuals to participate in voluntary transactions. Using this approach, Sugden reconstructs many of the normative conclusions of the liberal tradition. He argues that a well-functioning market economy is an institution that individuals have reason to value, whether or not their preferences satisfy conventional axioms of rationality, and that individuals' motivations in such an economy can be cooperative rather than self-interested.

Law and Evil

Law and Evil PDF Author: Wojciech Załuski
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
ISBN: 1786436507
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 219

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Book Description
Law and Evilpresents an alternative evolutionary picture of man, focusing on the origins and nature of human evil, and demonstrating its useful application in legal-philosophical analyses. Using this representation of human nature, Wojciech Zaluski analyses the development of law, which he interprets as moving from evolutionary ethics to genuine ethics, as well as arguing in favour of metaethical realism and ius naturale. Zaluski argues that human nature is undoubtedly ambivalent: human beings have been endowed by natural selection with moral, immoral, and neutral tendencies (the first ambivalence), and the moral tendencies themselves are ambivalent (the second ambivalence), giving rise to an inferior form of ethics called 'evolutionary ethics' Introducing a novel distinction between two types of evil, primary and secondary, this book explores the differences between evolutionary ethics and genuine ethics in order to analyse the history of legal systems and the controversy between natural law and legal positivism. Engaging and thought-provoking, this insightful book will be vital reading for both legal scholars and philosophers, especially those of law and moral philosophy. Evolutionary biologists with an interest in a philosophical interpretation of the results of evolutionary biology will also find this book an important read.

Macrojustice

Macrojustice PDF Author: Serge-Christophe Kolm
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9781139442503
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 556

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Book Description
The main features of the just society, as they would be chosen by the unanimous, impartial, and fully informed judgment of its members, present a remarkable and simple meaningful structure. In this society, individuals' freedom is fully respected, and overall redistribution amounts to an equal sharing of individuals' different earnings obtained by the same limited 'equalization labour'. The concept of equalization labour is a measure of the degree of community, solidarity, reciprocity, redistribution, and equalization of the society under consideration. It is determined by a number of methods presented in this study, which also emphasizes the rationality, meanings, properties, and ways of practical implementation of this optimum distribution. This result is compared with the various distributive principles found in practice and in political, philosophical, and economic thinking, with the conclusion that most have their proper specific scope of application. The analytical presentation of the social ethics of economics is particularly enlightening.

Structure and Change in Economic History

Structure and Change in Economic History PDF Author: Douglass Cecil North
Publisher: W. W. Norton
ISBN: 9780393952414
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 228

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Book Description
In this bold, sweeping study of the development of Western economies, Douglass C. North sets forth a new view of societal change.

The Philosophy of Economics

The Philosophy of Economics PDF Author: Daniel M. Hausman
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521883504
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 11

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Book Description
This volume, explores the nature of economics as a science, including classic texts and newer essays.