Economics for the Rest of Us: Debunking the Science that Makes Life Dismal

Adler, Moshe

ISBN 10: 1595581014 / ISBN 13: 9781595581013

Editore: The New Press, 2009

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Dati bibliografici

• Titolo: Economics for the Rest of Us: Debunking the Science that Makes Life Dismal
• Editore: The New Press
• Data di pubblicazione: 2009
• Lingua: Inglese
• ISBN 10: 1595581014
• ISBN 13: 9781595581013
• Rilegatura: hardcover
• Condizione: New
• Peso: 12 once

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Riassunto

Why do contemporary economists consider food subsidies in starving countries, rent control in rich cities, and health insurance everywhere "inefficient"? Why do they feel that corporate executives deserve no less than their multimillion-dollar "compensation" packages and workers no more than their meager wages? Here is a lively and accessible debunking of the two elements that make economics the science” of the rich: the definition of what is efficient and the theory of how wages are determined. The first is used to justify the cruelest policies, the second grand larceny.

Filled with lively examplesfrom food riots in Indonesia to eminent domain in Connecticut and everyone from Adam Smith to Jeremy Bentham to Larry SummersEconomics for the Rest of Us shows how today’s dominant economic theories evolved, how they explicitly favor the rich over the poor, and why they’re not the only or best options. Written for anyone with an interest in understanding contemporary economic thinkingand why it is dead wrongEconomics for the Rest of Us offers a foundation for a fundamentally more just economic system.

Recensione

In this brilliant eye opener, Moshe Adler shows how more than a century ago the man-made concepts of economics were transformed from egalitarian concern with the welfare of everyone into analytical tools biased in favor of the rich. With clarity, and in language any educated person can grasp, Adler shows how economics largely abandoned concern with how economic efficiency is affected by distribution of resources and equality in favor of precepts that favor concentration of wealth and income.
David Cay Johnston, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Free Lunch and Perfectly Legal

Masterful. This delightful and entertaining book is for anyone who has ever puzzled over how economics as a discipline could have become so divorced from any real understanding of the economy. Economics for the Rest of Us should be required reading for unionists and for every student of economics.
Elaine Bernard, Executive Director, Labor & Worklife Program at Harvard Law School

You already know, deep in your bones, that today’s wealthy have far more wealth than anyone could possibly ever need. But does our economy "need" the wealthy? Not sure? Then you need Moshe Adler's eminently readable and consistently insightful Economics for the Rest of Us. Staggeringly unequal societies like ours never work well. Moshe Adler helps us see why.
—Sam Pizzigati, editor, Too Much, the online weekly on excess and inequality, and an Institute for Policy Studies associate fellow in Washington, D.C.

Moshe Adler is as keen an observer of the economy in our day as John Kenneth Galbraith was in his. Adler possesses the gift of a sharp sense of social vision, and he shows us the complex social costs we suffer for basing our policy prescriptions on economic theories rooted in 19th century physics and totally disconnected from 21st century social reality.
—Elliott Sclar, Director, Center for Sustainable Urban Development, Earth Institute - Columbia University

Moshe Adler cogently debunks the idea, popular among the powerful, that what’s good for the wealthy is always good for growth and health. Through clearly explained history and economic theory, Economics for the Rest of Us reveals the economic assumptions that play out every day in Congress and the public square.
—Chuck Collins, senior scholar, Institute for Policy Studies, and author of The Moral Measure of the Economy