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Reviews (2)

Can capitalism be fixed?
This book has pierced the hubris of laizze-faire thought so common amongst the current economic pundits. It is a clear evaluation of the limits of capitalism and its failure in light of the human notion of an expanding economy. It should be read with an analytical attitude and should not be prejudged solely because of the title. It elucidates "the trouble with Capitalism" and why it will continue to spawn the normal up and down cycles. It presents clear examples of how political expediency, practiced by most OECD governments in their quest to appear as defenders of the public good, continues to play into the hands of private investment seeking contined increases in returns at the expense of real value. If you have ever wondered why taxes continue to rise, this book will explain how the public purse has become the corporate trough for ever increasing returns. He gives some interesting solutions of how the future could unfold if society can refocus its prioities and look to the "real" public good. A good read for any student of economic thought. The quote attributed to Marx that "the trouble with capitalism is that it eats its young" may come to mind after reading this book.

A challenge to contemporary laissez faire economists
Harry Shutt makes a strong case that private for-profit capitalism is nearing the end of its useful lifespan. He argues that capitalism's crisis is marked by an oversupply of capital desperately seeking investment opportunities in a world possessing a limited supply of secure, profit-producing activities.

The author has written an unique and insightful economic history of the post-WW II world, tracing many contemporary problems back to their root causes and exposing official explanations as propaganda. For example, the privatization of state assets has been aggressively promoted principally because they provide new homes for investment dollars -- not necessarilly because the private sector can more efficiently run these enterprises (which in fact they often can not).

Shutt suggests that the industrial economies have created an untenable situation for themselves. Public debt has been increased in order to prop up asset values (witness the Savings and Loan bank bail-out in the U.S. and other corporate welfare policies), making it difficult for governments to invest in either their own infrastructures or third world governments. This means that the world economy can not grow at a fast enough pace to satisfy the needs of private capital. Eventually, the oversupply of capital will lead to a crash in asset values.

Events that have occurred after the book's publication suggest that the author was on the mark. The Internet stock investment mania and its subsequent collapse illustrates how desperately capital latches onto any opportunity that might promise above-average profits, however risky it may actually be.

Shutt finishes the book with an outline of what the world might look like following a crash of the present system. The author suggests that an institution such as the European Union (or more precisely, an expanded and modified version of the E.U.) could be used to manage a more just and equitable system: namely one that balances the needs of labor, environment and capital, with primacy given to local, sustainable business enterprises that are fully accountable to the public.

This is a highly readable and stimulating book. Anyone with an interest in contemporary political economy should enjoy it. ... Read more

Book Description

Market Driven Politics is an empirical examination of the extent to which politics and policy are conditioned, or even determined, by global economic forces.

With the globalization of the capitalist economy the economic role of national governments is now largely confined to controlling inflation and facilitating home-grown market performance. This represents a fundamental shift in the relationship between politics and economics; it has been particularly marked in Britain, but is relevant to many other contexts. Market-Driven Politics is a multi-level study, moving between an analysis of global economic forces through national politics to the changes occurring week by week in two fields of public life that are both fundamentally important and familiar to everyone—television broadcasting and health care. Public services like these play an important role, because they both affect the legitimacy of the government and are targets for global capital. This book provides an original analysis of the key processes of commodification of public services, the conversion of public-service workforces into employees motivated to generate profit, and the role of the state in absorbing risk. Understanding the dynamics of each of these trends becomes critical not just for the analysis of market-driven politics but also for the longer-term defense of democracy and the collective values on which it depends. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

market-driven politics - part two of review
Market-driven politics - part two of review
There is a great wood and trees problem in understanding the politics of this process. Unlike the textbook models of markets, every single real market has its own unique features. Individual cases then enable us to see some of the common features of this process. Leys does not make the case that each of the four conditions have a distinctive politics. Instead he shows the roles of lobbies, of personal networks of influence, of political funding, of the infiltration of political parties, the state and institutions of global regulation, of the resourcing of partisan research and think tanks, of the interested peopling of advisory councils and public boards. Their purposes, in a spectacular denial of conflicts of interest, are to weaken public regulation in relentless cycles of pressures for incremental change, to weaken enforcement and/or quality standards (but to apply them selectively to disadvantage public services), to weaken sources of resistance and stoke support, to restrict public capital and current expenditure, to re-structure the sources of public revenue, to claim risk-minimising contracts with residual state providers, to present the transformations of service into commodities, supply and demand as a 'technology' transfer and abolish the concepts of public service. In both broadcasting and health conglomerates diversified, concentrated and differentiated; pay became spectacularly more unequal, product quality was shaped by commercial interests and residual services deteriorated and were rationed. New labour politicians, whose party is increasingly funded by corporate interests, operate in centralised and 'depoliticised' ways which take them away from the electorate, unions and activists and enable them to naturalise markets and audit and to de-democratise the state..

At a time when Tony Blair has called public service unions 'wreckers', Colin Leys shows just who the real wreckers are. He argues that public services are a key aspect of a democratic society; they express such a society's collective interests and they help shape it at the same time. There is never no alternative. Public services can be provided in many ways, from voluntary work, through non-profit trusts to state provision. These can be more efficient - not simply in costs but also in the quality of outcomes - than are firms dominated by short-term shareholder interests. Leys indicates what is to be done: public services need a clear philosophy that is publicised, celebrated and funded through taxation. They need practical policy, encouraging innovation and dynamism where it can be justified on public service grounds. They need active political protection and defence from the constant attempts to invade which 'markets', aka capital, are bound to make.

This is a richly researched, well structured, beautifully written and compellingly argued book, and one which offers an original analysis of the hegemonic politics of markets. It could not be more relevant to our times. Buy this book, but do not add it to the gently groaning shelf. Keep it much closer to hand; read, reflect and act on it.

market-driven politics-part one of review
Market-driven politics

Followers of the debates on globalisation will be well aware of a surge of recent books associated with the anti-globalisation movement which explore corporate brands have reshaped consumption and culture (Naomi Klein's No Logo) have infiltrated the state (Noreena Hertz Silent Takeover: Global Capitalism and the Death of Democracy)and have also consumed political parties and refashioned them in their own image (George Monbiot's Captive State).

Colin Leys, the reputed scholar of third world development and of British politics, has entered the fray on behalf of a socialist alternative with an investigation of the response of national politics to global economic forces. He uses the experience of Britain for this project, but his story spans the world and is of world-wide relevance. The book moves its lens systematically from the global system towards the detail of rapidly proliferating real markets. Leys peers through two key holes to see the politics involved in the penetration by markets of areas of society formerly ring-fenced for non-market forms of provision and values. The two cases are public service broadcasting and health care; both regulated in distinctively British ways but now being privatised and commercialised in ways only too familiar worldwide.

Leys starts where most critics of globalisation leave off. The economy is replacing society as the subject of politics. In low intensity democracies (the phrase is Samir Amin's) ruling parties find it increasingly difficult to direct the terms on which governments regulate the economy, though there are conditions under which some do it better than others. Their politics is driven by corporates which operate not nationally but globally. Leys has a wealth of evidence with which he fleshes out this profoundly political process (globally in chapter 2 and in Britain in chapter 3).He asks: how do states get voters to endorse policies which meet the demands of capital? How do states pull off the theft of sovereignty from their citizens? How are markets to be naturalised and democratic politics to be insulated from demos? This book answers such questions.

There is a general logic to the process: capital must expand. 'Accumulate, accumulate, accumulate! That is Moses and the prophets'! proclaimed Karl Marx. Capital expands in many ways, some primitive (resources are seized by force, peasants shoved off the land) others are sophisticated and carefully planned (the seething life cycles of products and their substitutes). Markets appear to slither into households (domestic service) and out again ('DIY', but read the book, for DIY is not what it seems..). Markets proliferate (markets for derivatives, markets for advertising, for management consultancy, legal advice, repairs..).

Leys follows markets expanding into the non-market public sphere. This is the arena for public goods, for national culture and for democratic expressions of citizenship. The novel insight powering Leys' analysis of market-driven politics is as follows. For markets to take over, four political conditions have to be achieved. First, public services have to be broken down into sets of private commodities (hip replacements, laundering, current affairs programmes popular with advertisers....) each of which can be supplied at (more or less) known prices. Second, needs and delights have to be reworked into effective demand expressed through purchasing power alone. Third, workers with collective values and a public service vocation have to be transformed into profit-makers and on less secure terms. Lastly, business requires and usually gets the risks of this transformation to be underwritten by the state. Those remnants of public services that cannot be completely abolished will be left as services of the last resort.

After this first phase looks like being successful, the general dynamic starts to grind; the costs of labour can be reduced; less specialised labour may be shed, components may be subcontracted to cheap sites. Products will be standardised for scale economies and a mass market. 'Flexible production' usually masks a standardised technological core. All other labour, all other costs, will be transferred to consumers. (And the buck stops with women.)

Private contractors do not have to be efficient to notch up rates of profit attractive to shareholders. Public resources will be transferred to retain poorly functioning private firms up to the point where the costs of maintaining an inefficient status quo exceed those of exposing deficiency or delinquence, together with the transactions costs of replacing the contract.
- to be continued - in part two of review ... Read more

Book Description

In the 1980s and 1990s, nations throughout Latin America experienced the dual transformations of market liberalizing reforms and democratization. Since then, perhaps no issue has been more controversial among those who study the region than the exact nature of the relationship between these two processes. Bringing a much-needed comparative perspective to the discussion, Judith Teichman examines the politics of market reform in Chile, Argentina, and Mexico, analyzing its implications for democratic practices in each case.

Teichman considers both internal and external influences on the process of Latin American market reform, anchoring her investigation in the historical, political, and cultural contexts unique to each country, while also highlighting the important role played by such international actors as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Informed by interviews with more than one hundred senior officials involved in the reform process, her analysis reveals that while the initial stage of market reform is associated with authoritarian political practices, later phases witness a rise in the importance of electoral democracy. She concludes, however, that the legacy of authoritarian decision making represents a significant obstacle to substantive democratization. ... Read more

Book Description

Peter Sedgwick explores the relation of a theology of justice to that of human identity in the context of the market economy, and engages with critics of capitalism and the market. He examines three aspects of the market economy: firstly, how does it shape personal identity, through consumption and the experience of paid employment in relation to the work ethic? Secondly, what impact does the global economy have on local cultures? Finally, as manufacturing changes out of all recognition through the impact of technology and global competition, what is the effect in terms of poverty? Drawing on the response of the Catholic Church, both in the United States and in Papal encyclicals, to the market economy from 1985-1991, Sedgwick argues that its involvement deserves to be better known. Moreover, he recommends that the churches remain part of the debate in reforming and humanising the market economy. ... Read more

Book Description

The late twentieth century has witnessed the establishment of new forms of capitalism in East Asia as well as new market economies in Eastern Europe. Despite the rhetoric of globalization, they are continuing to diverge because of significant differences in dominant institutions. This book presents the comparative business systems framework for describing and explaining the major differences in economic organization between market economies. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

A Landmark study of different forms of a capitalism.
One of the leading experts in the field, Professor Richard Whitley of the University of Manchester discusses six types of business systems or capitalism extant in the world today. He suggests that the forms will continue to outlast the current idea that all nations should adopt the Anglo-American model of capitalism. A thought provoking book! ... Read more

Book Description

The Essence of Capitalism is a timely account of globalization, the consumer culture, and the historical roots of our contemporary dilemmas. By tracking the 130-year history of Coca-Cola (and a number of other large American or transnational corporations), this book details all that is best, worst and most powerful about global capitalism.

Using Coca-Cola's rise as a case study, here is the tale of how Coca-Cola employed marketing and business practices that enabled it to expand beyond its original market (that which a horse-drawn cart could cover in a day) to -today's massive corporate status. Through the use of the franchise, extreme quality control and powerful marketing, it shows how Coca-Cola -- a company with virtually one product that nobody actually needs and that is, in its original sugar-laden form, plainly very bad for people -- went from being a feel-good tonic in competition with more than a thousand other similar drinks to being the major market force for soft drinks.

The book covers topics such as the creation of the idea of a corporation having the status of a person, how the money market works in the flow of capital, the effect of marketing and advertising on consumer tastes and how free trade really becomes oligopoly. By presenting a frightening set of examples, McQueen even joins the debate over what constitutes human nature when he demonstrates how corporations are creating a second nature by altering our needs, whether through the saturation of food with sweeteners or through genetic manipulation.

Humphrey McQueen, an original and provocative thinker, features regularly as a commentator on Australian radio, and as a contributor to various newspapers and magazines. He is the author of more than a dozen books on subjects ranging through history, politics and the visual arts.

Reviews (1)

Excellent overview of the state of the world
Any book that tries to cover everything about the history of Capitalism is doomed to fail because of the extent of its history. This book however avoids that by containing itself to using Coca-Cola as its base to start from. This is not a book about the benefits and wonders of Capitalism. It is a bare bones, warts and all tale of how Coke was lucky in its marketing and business practices to enable The Company to expand beyond its original market (that which a horse drawn cart could cover in a day) to today's massive corporate juggernaut. Through the use of the franchise, extreme quality control and powerful marketing it show how the company went from being a feel good tonic in competition with over a thousand other similar drinks to being the major market force for soda pop. The book covers topics such as the creation of the idea of a corporation to having the status of person, how the money market works in the flow of capital, the effect of marketing and advertising on consumer tastes and how free trade really becomes oligopoly. A frightening set of examples are presented, enough to make the strongest advocate of free market forces to rethink their position. An excellent book which goes hand in hand with Naomi Klein's No Logo and Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation. ... Read more

Book Description

In the seven years since the publication of the first edition of Wall Street, America's financial industry has undergone a series of wrenching events that have dramatically changed the nation's economic landscape. The bull market of the 1990's came to a close, ushering in the end of the dot com boom, a record number of mergers occurred, and accounting scandals in companies like Enron and WorldCom shook the financial industry to its core. In this wide-ranging volume, financial historian Charles Geisst provides the first history of Wall Street, explaining how a small, concentrated pocket of lower Manhattan came to have such enormous influence in national and world affairs. In this updated edition, Geisst sums up the recent turbulence that has threatened America's financial industry. He shows how in 1997 thirty NASDAQ market makers paid a record $1.3 billion fine for price irregularities in stocks. He makes sense of the closing of the bull market, and explains a major change in the accounting rules for mergers that caused monumental losses for companies like AOL Time Warner. And he recounts how in the aftermath of the speculative fever that swept Wall Street in the 1990's, the scandals at Enron, Tyco, Worldcom, and Conseco represent a last gasp of mergermania and a fallout from a bubble-like market. Wall Street is at once the story of the street itself, from the days when the wall was merely a defensive barricade built by Peter Stuyvesant, to the modern billion-dollar computer-driven colossus of today. In a broader sense it is an engaging economic history of the United States, the role Wall Street played in making America the most powerful economy in the world, and the many challenges to that role it has faced in recent years. ... Read more

Book Description

István Meszáros's bold new study analyzes the historical choices facing us at the outset of the new millennium. Drawing on the theoretical arguments of his monumental and widely-acclaimed work, Beyond Capital, Mészáros shows that the economic boom of the 1990s was built not only on the foundation of new, digital technologies but also on a new social and ethical basis. In the global quest for profit, capitalism has abandoned its claims to serve a larger historical cause. Even in the wealthiest capitalist economies, unemployment has become structural and conditions of life have become more onerous for most of the population.

The failure of capitalism's historical mission is most evident in the end of the project of "Third World modernization" so essential to the claims of U.S. global power to represent an advance on old-style imperialism. Mészaros develops an illuminating analysis of the roots and tensions of the politics of U.S. global power from the time of Roosevelt's "Open Door" policy to the present. Against this historical background, he examines the dilemmas which will be faced in the making of U.S. foreign policy towards China-the largest and most rapidly-expanding national market in the global economy and the newly-emerging rival to U.S. global dominance. Mészáros shows how this process is rooted in the historical logic of contemporary capitalism, and is neither accidental nor temporary. In the process, he gives new meaning and urgency to the alternatives posed by Rosa Luxemburg at the beginning of the 20th century: socialism or barbarism.

Mészáros also explores the conditions for the emergence of a radical alternative to capitalism, arguing that a critical re-examination of earlier movements and struggles is an essential task for the emergence of such an alternative. As a sequel to his essay, an extended interview deals with more reflectively with the main categories underlying his analysis and relates it to developments within the broader analysis of modern society. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

For students of philosophy and political science
Istvan Meszaros is one of the foremost Marxist intellectuals writing and working today. Professor emeritus at the University of Sussex (where he held the chair of Philosophy for fifteen years) his has created an impressive body of erudite scholarship ranging from Marx's Theory Of Alienation and The Work Of Sartre: Search For Freedom to The Power Of Ideology and Beyond Capital. In Socialism Or Barbarism Meszaros analyses the historical choices facing us at the outset of the new millennium. Drawing on the theoretical arguments of his early work, Beyond Capital, Meszaros gives new meaning and urgency to the alternatives posed by Rosa Luxemburg at the beginning of the century. Meszaros also provides a detailed analysis of the roots and development of American global power -- a supremacy that came at the cost of exhausting the universalizing pretensions of capitalism. Meszaros argues persuasively that Capitalism today is potentially more destructive of humankind and the environment than ever before. Socialism Or Barbarism is highly recommended reading for students of philosophy and political science. ... Read more

Book Description

Chin-tao Wu offers a provocative contribution to the debate on public culture in Britain and America as she details the various ways in which business values and the free-market ethos have come to permeate the sphere of the visual arts since the 1980s.

From Absolut Vodka's sponsorship of student art shows to BMW's logo on the banners advertising major art exhibitions, corporate sponsorship and business involvement in the visual arts have become increasingly common features of our cultural lives. Chin-tao Wu's book is the first concerted attempt to detail the various ways in which business values and the free-market ethos have come to permeate the sphere of the visual arts since the 1980s.It analyzes the role of government in injecting the principles of the free market into public arts agencies—in particular the Arts Council in Great Britain and the National Endowment for the Arts in the USA. It looks at the corporate take-over of art museums, highlighting the ways in which cultural capital can thereby be garnered by business elites; and it considers the ways in which corporations have succeeded in integrating themselves into the infrastructure of the art world itself by showcasing contemporary art in their own corporate premises.AUTHORBIO Chin-tao Wu specializes in contemporary art and culture, and has contributed to New Left Review and Kunst und Politik: Jahrbuch der Guernica-Gesellschaft. She is an Honorary Research Fellow at University College London and teaches at Nanhua University in Taiwan. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Interesting but flawed
This is an interesting study, as far as it goes. Certainly, there is a lot of good information about which corporations are funding art, where they fund it, and how. If you want to know which corporations fund art, how much they fund, where they do so, this is the book for you. The book contains lots of specifics, tables, statistics, examples of exhibits and color plates of many individual art works.

The problem is that the book assumes that corporate and other private funding of art is a new phenomenon, and assumes this is by definition a bad thing. But is it? Considered in the context of the history of Western art, and even, one might add, arts in Asia and in various empires of eras gone by, wealthy benefactors have been a mainstay of the literary and fine arts, to speak somewhat hyperbolically, almost from the moment arts were invented.

Shakespeare was privately funded. So was Rembrandt. So were the Dutch masters. So was Michelangelo. So were most other Renaissance artists, in fact. Remember the Medicis? To pretend, therefore, that "neo-conservatives" are a sudden, new and unwelcome scourge of the art market is ridiculous, and taken entirely out of the context of art history.

Naturally, there have also always been conflicts of interest. Someone who funds something will want to have some control, after all. That is human nature. But like the conflicts this book points out, the arts of bygone eras also reflect such conflicts, and we nevertheless think them masterful.

By their very nature, the royalty, peers, merchants--and all other wealthy benefactors of literary and fine arts through the ages--were conservatives, too. The arts, come what may, have always survived, as they will no doubt continue to do in the future. To do that, they need benefactors. And in all ages, the arts have turned to those with the most money, for support. Such are the facts of life.

--Alyssa A. Lappen ... Read more

Book Description

Myths of the Free Market is arguably the most significant book in economics and politics since John Maynard Keynes. It systematically presents a broad range of telling criticisms of free market economics, criticisms that have not been presented elsewhere. Despite our genuine faith in the free market, laissez faire has not maximized wealth. When we moved from the purer free market policies of the 1920s and early 1930s to the proto-socialism of Roosevelt, our economic growth increased. As we have moved back to a purer free market, growth has slowed. We have lagged our trading partners who have mixed economies. Nor is this new. In the late 1800s the mixed economies of Bismarck's Germany and Meiji Japan outperformed the relatively free market economies of Great Britain and France. It is worse. Even in principle, laissez faire cannot work - it is incompatible with institutions that increase wealth. Patent protection is one example, easily generalized. It is worse yet. Laissez faire promotes the excessive concentration of wealth and exposes us all to avoidable danger. Over the last millennium there has been a 200-300 year cycle of wealth dispersion. Each time wealth disparity grew beyond a critical point it presaged decline and disaster for all of society. We now have the greatest disparity of wealth in our history. Kenneth Friedman holds an MS in Physics and PhD in Philosophy of Science from MIT. He has been interviewed in Barron's and on CNBC and quoted in The Wall Street Journal. ... Read more

Book Description

Fiscal and political decentralization have transformed several Latin American countries over the past two decades, but the transformation has hardly been smooth. At times, unbridled expansion of unconditional transfers has led to macroeconomic instability and principal-agent problems have made public sector management cumbersome. Most worrisome, despite a consensus that decentralization can strengthen public sector performance, social development and democracy, its results have not matched expectations.

Fiscal Federalism in Latin America: From Entitlements to Markets examines decentralization policies that work as well as those that do not. The aim is to help Latin American policymakers meet the challenge of decentralization to improve public sector performance at all levels of government by appropriately assigning jurisdiction over public goods, services, tax authority and user charges.

The book offers "building blocks" towards decentralization, including new theoretical developments and accepted lessons on how government interventions can use market proxies to enhance effectiveness; the importance of market-based decentralization approaches; and recent contributions from new institutional economics, public choice theory and the "new theory of the firm," which holds that political jurisdictions can be thought of as pseudo-firms. The final building block is the findings of evaluations of decentralization in Brazil, Bolivia, Chile and Ecuador. The case studies ensure a balance between empirical research and theoretical context and have important implications for policymakers interested in making decentralization more effective. ... Read more

Book Description

Whose Millenium? is social criticism of rare scope and insight, written by one of the international left's great masters.

Daniel Singer, European correspondent for The Nation magazine, probes the outcome of the Russian Revolution and Russia's post-1989 turmoil, the transformation of the Polish trade union movement Solidarity into a reactionary and clerical force, the failure of social democracy in Western Europe, geopolitical realities after the Cold War, and the massive French strikes of 1995, which Singer sees as the first revolt against the politics of market stringency.

Singer also devotes more than half of his book to an exploration of values -- including internationalism, democracy, and equality -- and an analysis of what it will take for the left to regain the initiative.As alternative, he calls for "realistic utopia," a politics engaged with present-day possibilities but daring to pursue a world beyond capitalism. ... Read more

Reviews (3)

Cant and rhetoric
This is a couple of articles padded out into a book. The potted histories of the USSR, Poland etc. are completely superfluous. The only original work is in the last 3 chapters. Even there, however, there are lots of problems, including more secondhand histories for no reason. Social Democracy is dismissed in a few pages as "in crisis." This allows him to make the case for revolution instead of reform. When we finally get to the argument, he makes no attempt to respond seriously to potential objections. In short, very heavy on rhetoric and cant, and very light on careful analysis.

Very best book on next steps for democratic socialism.
In an US idiom, Singer brilliantly analyzes the way capitalism has run amok. Globalization of attacks on human rights, dishonest pay for honest work, and privatization of unemployment insurance, social security, and other hard-won benefits for the average guy are all placed in their proper context. Singer is the son of a prisoner of Stalin's gulag. He proposes ultrademocracy in all major public sectors, starting with unions, not ignoring the central banks and their international arms. Singer is a clear, gracious, brainy advocate for human decency above the cruelties of the market, not excluding US executives and speculators getting 400 times the pay of the average wage earner.

A brilliant defense of democratic, revolutionary socialism
Daniel Singer's newest work is a brilliant analysis of contemporary capitalism and a direct and convincing challenge to the notion that "there is no alternative" to the current social system. Singer's defense of the classical Marxist view that capitalism is incapable of providing a meaningful and secure existence for the majority of the world's population is accompanied by an equally merciless critique of both the former bureaucratic regimes in the USSR and Eastern Europe and western social-democracy and liberalism. For Singer, the alternative to both the barbarism of modern capitalism and the failures of stalinism and reformism is a mass, democratic movement of working people. Only such a movement, beginning in the workplaces and extending its challenge to all aspects of social life under capitalism, could have the power to overthrow the existing system and create a humane and democratic socialist alternative. ... Read more

Book Description

Book Description

Modern capitalism, from neo-liberalism to deregulation, has come to dominate national and international political economy. This major book addresses this convergence and provides a comprehensive overview of the implications for future capitalist diversity. Leading international contributors consider important questions like: + Is the preference for free markets a well-founded response to intensified global competition? + Does this mean that all advanced societies must converge on an imitation of the United States? + What are the implications for the institutional diversity of the advanced economies? + How do we now evaluate the systems and institutions in East Asia? Political Economy and Modern Capitalism provides a practical and wide-ranging analysis of the public policy choices facing governments and business around the world. It will be invaluable reading for students and researchers of political economy, comparative politics, political science, political sociology, public policy, and administration. ... Read more

Book Description

"The Bigness Complex" confronts head-on the myth that organizational giantism leads to economic efficiency and well-being in the modern age. On the contrary, it demonstrates how bigness undermines our economic productivity and progress, endangers our democratic freedoms, and exacerbates our economic problems and challenges.

This new edition has a thoroughly updated variety of issues, examples, and new developments, including government bailouts of the airline industry; regulation of biotechnology; the fiasco of recent electricity deregulation; and mergers and consolidations in oil, radio, and grocery retailing. The analysis is framed in the timeless context of American distrust of concentrations of power. The authors show how both the left and the right fail to address the central problem of power in formulating their diagnoses and recommendations. The book concludes with an alternative public philosophy as a viable guidepost for public policy toward business in a free-enterprise democracy. ... Read more