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Book Details
Abstract
Analysing the relationship between economic thought and capitalism from 1750 to the present, Douglas Dowd examines the dynamic interaction of two processes: the historical realities of capitalism and the evolution of economic theory. He demonstrates that the study of economics celebrates capitalism in ways that make it necessary to classify economic science as pure ideology. A thoroughly modern history, this book shows how economics has become ideology. A radical critic of capitalism, Dowd surveys its detrimental impact across the globe and throughout history.
The book includes biographical sketches and brief analyses of the major proponents and critics of capitalism throughout history, including Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus, Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill, Karl Marx, Thorstein Veblen, Rosa Luxemburg, John Maynard Keynes, Paul Samuelson, Milton Friedman, and Eric Hobsbawm. This new edition includes a new preface and an additional chapter by the author.
Table of Contents
| Section Title | Page | Action | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Contents | 4 | ||
| Prologue What Has Capitalism Done For Us? To Us? | 14 | ||
| The Dynamics of Capitalist Development | 16 | ||
| Capitalism's nature and nurture | 17 | ||
| The heart of the matter: expansion and exploitation | 18 | ||
| Oligarchic rule? | 19 | ||
| What exploitation? | 21 | ||
| Trade and the flag: Which follows which? | 22 | ||
| In sum | 24 | ||
| The Sociology of Economic Theory | 25 | ||
| The economy | 26 | ||
| Objectivity and neutrality | 26 | ||
| What should economists be expected to do? | 28 | ||
| 1 Birth: The Industrial Revolution and Classical Political Economy, 1750-1850 | 32 | ||
| The Start of Something Big | 32 | ||
| Why Britain took the lead | 32 | ||
| Commodification as revolution | 33 | ||
| The State: Now You See It, Now You Don't | 34 | ||
| Emperor Cotton | 36 | ||
| Hell on earth | 37 | ||
| Industrialism in the Saddle | 38 | ||
| The Brains Trust | 41 | ||
| Adam Smith | 41 | ||
| Invisible hand or invisible fist? | 43 | ||
| David Ricardo | 44 | ||
| The gospel of free trade | 45 | ||
| Abstract theory versus earthy realities | 46 | ||
| Jean- Baptiste Say | 47 | ||
| Depression is impossible | 47 | ||
| Thomas Robert Malthus | 48 | ||
| Jeremy Bentham | 51 | ||
| John Stuart Mill | 53 | ||
| And Karl Marx | 55 | ||
| 2 Maturation: Global Capitalism and Neoclassical Economics: 1850-1914 | 58 | ||
| And British Industry Shall Rule the World: For a While | 58 | ||
| Politics, the accumulation of capital, and the industrial revolution | 59 | ||
| The Second Industrial Revolution | 61 | ||
| Industrialization at the gallop | 62 | ||
| The Pandoras box of imperialism | 62 | ||
| The United States | 64 | ||
| The importance of being lucky | 66 | ||
| Big, bigger, biggest | 67 | ||
| Germany | 70 | ||
| Prussian political economy | 71 | ||
| German science and technology | 72 | ||
| The nation with two faces | 73 | ||
| A Digression on the Casting of Stones | 75 | ||
| Japan | 77 | ||
| Arise, Ye Prisoners of Starvation! | 82 | ||
| Don't waste any time in mourning. Organize | 83 | ||
| Socialist movements in Europe | 85 | ||
| And the United States? | 85 | ||
| Japan and Germany ( again) | 87 | ||
| A Place in the Sun | 89 | ||
| The rat race begins | 90 | ||
| – And speeds up | 91 | ||
| – Then explodes | 92 | ||
| Economists in Wonderland | 94 | ||
| Let us now assume | 94 | ||
| Recipes for absurdities | 96 | ||
| Counter- attack: Karl Marx | 99 | ||
| The social process | 99 | ||
| The dynamics of nineteenth- century capitalist development | 100 | ||
| And Thorstein Veblen | 103 | ||
| Human beings versus the system | 104 | ||
| The War to End All Wars But That Didn't | 107 | ||
| 3 Death Throes: Chaos, War, Depression, War Again;Economics in Disarray, 1914-45 | 107 | ||
| Messy world, neat economics | 108 | ||
| As You Sow, So Shall You Reap | 109 | ||
| War's unwholesome economic fruits | 110 | ||
| The United States | 110 | ||
| Germany | 111 | ||
| Japan | 111 | ||
| The Soviet Union | 112 | ||
| The premature revolution | 113 | ||
| Forced industrialization | 114 | ||
| Fascist Italy | 116 | ||
| The first working class? | 116 | ||
| Antonio Gramsci | 118 | ||
| The future casts its shadow | 119 | ||
| The Big One | 121 | ||
| The bitter with the better | 122 | ||
| The bumpy road down | 123 | ||
| Global contagion | 125 | ||
| A tragedy of errors | 126 | ||
| New brooms don't always sweep clean | 127 | ||
| New Deal | 128 | ||
| Better late than never | 129 | ||
| Unions | 130 | ||
| Housing | 130 | ||
| Social security | 130 | ||
| Nazi Germany | 131 | ||
| Through a glass darkly | 132 | ||
| Waste Land | 135 | ||
| Apocalypse now | 135 | ||
| Economics: Almost Out With the Old, Almost In With the New | 137 | ||
| The old stamping grounds | 137 | ||
| John Bates Clark | 139 | ||
| Irving Fisher | 139 | ||
| Joan Robinson I | 139 | ||
| Turning the earth | 140 | ||
| John Maynard Keynes | 140 | ||
| Alvin Hansen | 145 | ||
| Joan Robinson II | 146 | ||
| Joseph A. Schumpeter | 148 | ||
| 4 Resurrection: Global Economy II and its Crisis; Hopeful Stirrings in Economics: 1945-75 | 154 | ||
| The Best of Times For Some, For a While | 154 | ||
| The Big Six | 155 | ||
| Behemoth Capitalism Unbound | 156 | ||
| From the Ashes Arising | 157 | ||
| Rescue | 159 | ||
| Rebuilding | 159 | ||
| Modernization | 160 | ||
| Cry Havoc! And let slip the dogs of war | 162 | ||
| Excessive vigilance in the defense of freedom is no crime | 163 | ||
| BIG Business | 164 | ||
| The giants feed | 165 | ||
| As a matter of fact | 165 | ||
| Superstates | 167 | ||
| All Together Now: Shop! And Borrow! | 169 | ||
| The consciousness industry | 169 | ||
| Consumerism as a social disease | 171 | ||
| The family and politics | 171 | ||
| Stagflation: The Monster with Two Heads | 172 | ||
| Toward the new world order | 174 | ||
| Economics on a Seesaw | 175 | ||
| Post- Keynesian economics | 175 | ||
| Radical political economy | 177 | ||
| Up with the old | 178 | ||
| 5 New World Order: Globalization and Financialization; and Decadent Economics, 1975-2000 | 180 | ||
| Introduction and Retrospect | 180 | ||
| Monopoly Capitalism II | 181 | ||
| Giants Roaming the Earth | 183 | ||
| The waltz of the toreadors | 185 | ||
| TNCs of the world, unite! | 185 | ||
| Media/ telecommunications | 187 | ||
| Petroleum | 187 | ||
| The new economy - Who benefits, and who pays? | 187 | ||
| Wall Street | 188 | ||
| Wages and hours | 188 | ||
| Lean and mean | 189 | ||
| Fat and mean | 191 | ||
| The Superstate's New Masters | 193 | ||
| The World as Capital's Oyster | 195 | ||
| The Triumph of Spectronic Finance | 196 | ||
| The little old lady of Threadneedle Street and her offspring | 199 | ||
| Is the United States Building a Debt Bomb? | 201 | ||
| The addicted consumer | 203 | ||
| And so? | 204 | ||
| The Media: Amusing Ourselves to Death | 205 | ||
| For Shame! | 208 | ||
| 6 The Unfolding Crisis of the Twenty- first Century Introduction | 213 | ||
| Global Economies: Easy Come, Easy Go | 214 | ||
| There Is No Failure Like Success | 217 | ||
| Altogether Now: Quarrel! | 223 | ||
| Epilogue Introduction: Economic Growth as Icon | 226 | ||
| The Case for Growth | 227 | ||
| The Tossicodipendente Global Economy | 228 | ||
| The theater of the absurd and the obscene | 229 | ||
| Honk, if you need a gas mask | 230 | ||
| Global Economy III: Today, the World | 231 | ||
| Democracy: the challenge met | 231 | ||
| Orwell revisited | 233 | ||
| The political economy of corruption | 234 | ||
| From Bad to Worse | 235 | ||
| Hong Kong | 235 | ||
| Singapore | 235 | ||
| South Korea | 236 | ||
| Taiwan | 236 | ||
| The eleventh commandment: export! | 237 | ||
| Needs and Possibilities and New Directions | 238 | ||
| Politics and understanding | 239 | ||
| Structural changes | 240 | ||
| Notes | 242 | ||
| Bibliography | 314 | ||
| Index | 330 | ||
| Untitled | 58 |