The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West

Author: Paul Craig Roberts
Publisher: Atwell Publishing
ISBN: 0988406519
Category : Capitalism
Languages : en
Pages : 134

Book Description
This very readable book by a distinguished economist, Wall Street Journal editor, and Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury is a major challenge both to economic theory and to media explanations of the ongoing 21st century economic crisis. The one percent have pulled off an economic and political revolution. By offshoring manufacturing and professional service jobs, US corporations destroyed the growth of consumer income, the basis of the US economy, leaving the bulk of the population mired in debt. Deregulation was used to concentrate income and wealth in fewer hands and financial firms in corporations “too big to fail,” removing financial corporations from market discipline and forcing taxpayers in the US and Europe to cover bankster losses. Environmental destruction has accelerated as economists refuse to count the exhaustion of nature’s resources as a cost and as corporations impose the cost of their activities on the environment and on third parties who do not share in the profits. This is the book to read for those who want to understand the mistakes that are bringing the West to its knees.

Wealth, Power, and the Crisis of Laissez Faire Capitalism

Author: D. Gibson
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
ISBN: 9781349296149
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
This forcefully argued book offers a provocative picture of the political, intellectual, and economic forces that have shaped the history of the United States, offering an extensive and in-depth critique of laissez-faire doctrine and a novel reformulation of the work of American System writers, Gibson traces America's rise to global supremacy.

How Markets Fail

Author: Cassidy John
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0141939427
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 485

Book Description
How did we get to where we are? John Cassidy shows that the roots of our most recent financial failure lie not with individuals, but with an idea - the idea that markets are inherently rational. He gives us the big picture behind the financial headlines, tracing the rise and fall of free market ideology from Adam Smith to Milton Friedman and Alan Greenspan. Full of wit, sense and, above all, a deeper understanding, How Markets Fail argues for the end of 'utopian' economics, and the beginning of a pragmatic, reality-based way of thinking. A very good history of economic thought Economist How Markets Fail offers a brilliant intellectual framework . . . fine work New York Times An essential, grittily intellectual, yet compelling guide to the financial debacle of 2009 Geordie Greig, Evening Standard A powerful argument . . . Cassidy makes a compelling case that a return to hands-off economics would be a disaster BusinessWeek This book is a well constructed, thoughtful and cogent account of how capitalism evolved to its current form Telegraph Books of the Year recommendation John Cassidy ... describe[s] that mix of insight and madness that brought the world's system to its knees FT, Book of the Year recommendation Anyone who enjoys a good read can safely embark on this tour with Cassidy as their guide . . . Like his colleague Malcolm Gladwell [at the New Yorker], Cassidy is able to lead us with beguiling lucidity through unfamiliar territory New Statesman John Cassidy has covered economics and finance at The New Yorker magazine since 1995, writing on topics ranging from Alan Greenspan to the Iraqi oil industry and English journalism. He is also now a Contributing Editor at Portfolio where he writes the monthly Economics column. Two of his articles have been nominated for National Magazine Awards: an essay on Karl Marx, which appeared in October, 1997, and an account of the death of the British weapons scientist David Kelly, which was published in December, 2003. He has previously written for Sunday Times in as well as the New York Post, where he edited the Business section and then served as the deputy editor. In 2002, Cassidy published his first book, Dot.Con. He lives in New York.

The Trouble with Capitalism

Author: Harry Shutt
Publisher: Zed Books Ltd.
ISBN: 184813794X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 301

Book Description
The recent collapse of the banking system and instability in the financial markets has dramatically shaken confidence in the global economic order. Is the current variant of 'free market' capitalism really sustainable? The Trouble With Capitalism - originally written, with remarkable prescience, in 1998 - anticipates such a development and explains the underlying economic fragility it has revealed. Rather than being merely a temporary blip in the march of capitalism, Shutt argues forcefully that the on-going crisis has arisen as a result of fundamental economic problems, stemming from the growing redundancy of both labour and capital since the 1970s. In doing so, he exposes the sham of the laissez faire prospectus, showing that state power and capital are increasingly being used to prop up capital while pretending that the aim is to roll back the frontiers of the state. The implications of the author's startling conclusion (re-examined in a new foreword) - that the maximisation of profit must cease to be the main basis for allocating resources - are profound.

Markets Don't Fail!

Author: Brian P. Simpson
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 9780739113646
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 240

Book Description
In all of the contemporary economics textbooks that have been written there is typically at least one chapter that addresses 'market failure.' Markets Don't Fail! is a response to what author Brian Simpson sees as a fundamental error in the thinking of some economists. The chapter titles of this book are crafted against the premises of 'market failure' arguments, and a significant portion of this book focuses on exposing the invalid premises upon which the claims of market failure are based and providing a proper basis upon which to judge the free market. The material in this book provides a strong antidote to the arguments typically presented in contemporary economics textbooks. Through example and argument, Brian Simpson shows that the claims against the free market are not true. In fact, he demonstrates how free markets succeed, how they raise the standard of living of all individuals who live within them, and how free markets allow human life to flourish. However, the book goes much deeper than economics by providing a moral and epistemological defense of the free market. Markets Don't Fail! gets to the fundamental, philosophical reasons why the claims of market failure are false and why markets actually succeed. Through an integration of economics and philosophy Simpson is able to provide a comprehensive, rigorous, and logically consistent defense of the free market. The specific topics covered in the book include monopoly, antitrust laws and predatory pricing, 'externalities,' the regulation of safety and quality, environmentalism, economic inequality, 'public goods,' and asymmetric information. This book is an invaluable tool for anyone who wants to gain a sound understanding of the free market.

Capitalism on Edge

Author: Albena Azmanova
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231530609
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 130

Book Description
The wake of the financial crisis has inspired hopes for dramatic change and stirred visions of capitalism’s terminal collapse. Yet capitalism is not on its deathbed, utopia is not in our future, and revolution is not in the cards. In Capitalism on Edge, Albena Azmanova demonstrates that radical progressive change is still attainable, but it must come from an unexpected direction. Azmanova’s new critique of capitalism focuses on the competitive pursuit of profit rather than on forms of ownership and patterns of wealth distribution. She contends that neoliberal capitalism has mutated into a new form—precarity capitalism—marked by the emergence of a precarious multitude. Widespread economic insecurity ails the 99 percent across differences in income, education, and professional occupation; it is the underlying cause of such diverse hardships as work-related stress and chronic unemployment. In response, Azmanova calls for forging a broad alliance of strange bedfellows whose discontent would challenge not only capitalism’s unfair outcomes but also the drive for profit at its core. To achieve this synthesis, progressive forces need to go beyond the old ideological certitudes of, on the left, fighting inequality and, on the right, increasing competition. Azmanova details reforms that would enable a dramatic transformation of the current system without a revolutionary break. An iconoclastic critique of left orthodoxy, Capitalism on Edge confronts the intellectual and political impasses of our time to discern a new path of emancipation.

A Failure of Capitalism

Author: Richard A. Posner
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674051294
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 372

Book Description
The financial and economic crisis that began in 2008 is the most alarming of our lifetime because of the warp-speed at which it is occurring. How could it have happened, especially after all that we've learned from the Great Depression? Why wasn't it anticipated so that remedial steps could be taken to avoid or mitigate it? What can be done to reverse a slide into a full-blown depression? Why have the responses to date of the government and the economics profession been so lackluster? Richard Posner presents a concise and non-technical examination of this mother of all financial disasters and of the, as yet, stumbling efforts to cope with it. No previous acquaintance on the part of the reader with macroeconomics or the theory of finance is presupposed. This is a book for intelligent generalists that will interest specialists as well. Among the facts and causes Posner identifies are: excess savings flowing in from Asia and the reckless lowering of interest rates by the Federal Reserve Board; the relation between executive compensation, short-term profit goals, and risky lending; the housing bubble fuelled by low interest rates, aggressive mortgage marketing, and loose regulations; the low savings rate of American people; and the highly leveraged balance sheets of large financial institutions. Posner analyzes the two basic remedial approaches to the crisis, which correspond to the two theories of the cause of the Great Depression: the monetarist--that the Federal Reserve Board allowed the money supply to shrink, thus failing to prevent a disastrous deflation--and the Keynesian--that the depression was the product of a credit binge in the 1920's, a stock-market crash, and the ensuing downward spiral in economic activity. Posner concludes that the pendulum swung too far and that our financial markets need to be more heavily regulated. Read Richard Posner's blog, and his latest article in The Atlantic.

The Failure of the "New Economics"

Author: Henry Hazlitt
Publisher: Ludwig von Mises Institute
ISBN: 1610164504
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 473

Book Description

Animal Spirits

Author: George A. Akerlof
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400834724
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 261

Book Description
From acclaimed economists George Akerlof and Robert Shiller, the case for why government is needed to restore confidence in the economy The global financial crisis has made it painfully clear that powerful psychological forces are imperiling the wealth of nations today. From blind faith in ever-rising housing prices to plummeting confidence in capital markets, "animal spirits" are driving financial events worldwide. In this book, acclaimed economists George Akerlof and Robert Shiller challenge the economic wisdom that got us into this mess, and put forward a bold new vision that will transform economics and restore prosperity. Akerlof and Shiller reassert the necessity of an active government role in economic policymaking by recovering the idea of animal spirits, a term John Maynard Keynes used to describe the gloom and despondence that led to the Great Depression and the changing psychology that accompanied recovery. Like Keynes, Akerlof and Shiller know that managing these animal spirits requires the steady hand of government—simply allowing markets to work won't do it. In rebuilding the case for a more robust, behaviorally informed Keynesianism, they detail the most pervasive effects of animal spirits in contemporary economic life—such as confidence, fear, bad faith, corruption, a concern for fairness, and the stories we tell ourselves about our economic fortunes—and show how Reaganomics, Thatcherism, and the rational expectations revolution failed to account for them. Animal Spirits offers a road map for reversing the financial misfortunes besetting us today. Read it and learn how leaders can channel animal spirits—the powerful forces of human psychology that are afoot in the world economy today. In a new preface, they describe why our economic troubles may linger for some time—unless we are prepared to take further, decisive action.

Stabilizing an Unstable Economy

Author: Hyman P. Minsky
Publisher: McGraw Hill Professional
ISBN: 0071593004
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 433

Book Description
“Mr. Minsky long argued markets were crisis prone. His 'moment' has arrived.” -The Wall Street Journal In his seminal work, Minsky presents his groundbreaking financial theory of investment, one that is startlingly relevant today. He explains why the American economy has experienced periods of debilitating inflation, rising unemployment, and marked slowdowns-and why the economy is now undergoing a credit crisis that he foresaw. Stabilizing an Unstable Economy covers: The natural inclination of complex, capitalist economies toward instability Booms and busts as unavoidable results of high-risk lending practices “Speculative finance” and its effect on investment and asset prices Government's role in bolstering consumption during times of high unemployment The need to increase Federal Reserve oversight of banks Henry Kaufman, president, Henry Kaufman & Company, Inc., places Minsky's prescient ideas in the context of today's financial markets and institutions in a fascinating new preface. Two of Minsky's colleagues, Dimitri B. Papadimitriou, Ph.D. and president, The Levy Economics Institute of Bard College, and L. Randall Wray, Ph.D. and a senior scholar at the Institute, also weigh in on Minsky's present relevance in today's economic scene in a new introduction. A surge of interest in and respect for Hyman Minsky's ideas pervades Wall Street, as top economic thinkers and financial writers have started using the phrase “Minsky moment” to describe America's turbulent economy. There has never been a more appropriate time to read this classic of economic theory.