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In The Economic Illusion Robert Kuttner sets out to refute the conventional view that a more egalitarian distribution of income and services is only achievable at the expense of a prosperous and growing capitalism. By carefully examining issues where economic growth and social justice appear to be in conflict—issues such as social security, protectionism, income taxation, and welfare—he convincingly argues that equality and economic prosperity are not mutually exclusive pursuits. As a means to reconcile equality with efficiency—i.e., prosperity—Kuttner argues for economic polices that would deemphasize private markets, for an increase in trade protection, and for an adapted version of the technical approaches of such countries as Sweden, Germany, Austria, and Japan. Kuttner concludes his arguments with the suggestion that injustice is not necessarily an economic issue and that practical social alternatives are possible.
The first book-length work on market monetarism, written by its leading scholar. Is it possible that the consensus around what caused the 2008 Great Recession is almost entirely wrong? It’s happened before. Just as Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz led the economics community in the 1960s to reevaluate its view of what caused the Great Depression, the same may be happening now to our understanding of the first economic crisis of the 21st century. Foregoing the usual relitigating of problems such as housing markets and banking crises, renowned monetary economist Scott Sumner argues that the Great Recession came down to one thing: nominal GDP, the sum of all nominal spending in the economy, which the Federal Reserve erred in allowing to plummet. The Money Illusion is an end-to-end case for this school of thought, known as market monetarism, written by its leading voice in economics. Based almost entirely on standard macroeconomic concepts, this highly accessible text lays the groundwork for a simple yet fundamentally radical understanding of how monetary policy can work best: providing a stable environment for a market economy to flourish.
In economics, money illusion refers to the tendency of people to think of currency in nominal, rather than real, terms. In other words, the numerical/face value (nominal value) of money is mistaken for its purchasing power (real value). This is false, as modern fiat currencies have no inherent value and their real value is derived from their ability to be exchanged for goods and used for payment of taxes. The term was coined by John Maynard Keynes in the early twentieth century. Almost every one is subject to the "Money Illusion" in respect to his own country's currency. This seems to him to be stationary while the money of other countries seems to change. It may seem strange but it is true that we see the rise or fall of foreign money better than we see that of our own.-IRVING FISHER
In recent years, unchecked growth has brought us to the brink of economic and environmental collapse. Life, Money & Illusion was inspired by the dilemma of having an economic structure that has to grow to remain healthy, while facing the finite limits of our planet. This revised and updated edition launches a review of economic expansion. It examines how growth came to be a goal and how that goal, though once beneficial, is now the propellant for catastrophe. Then, by showing how the economy can be restructured to remain within planetary limits, it points the way to a sustainable future. Life, Money & Illusion advocates change by shifting the dominant economic paradigm from growth to sustainability. Techniques include: Measuring progress with social and environmental indicators, along with economic ones Encouraging investment in community Practical changes, such as full cost accounting, tax shifting, and monetary reform Honoring the Golden Rule instead of the Rule of Gold Focusing more on living than on stuff An engaging and empowering vision of a future that celebrates humanity's extraordinary ability to adapt and evolve, Life, Money & Illusion will appeal to social activists, business people, students, environmentalists, financial planners, economists, parents, grandparents, and anyone else with a stake in the future. Mike Nickerson is an educator and the author of three books on sustainability. He helped draft the Canada Well-Being Measurement Act and lives in Ontario, Canada.
Virtually everyone—left, right, and center—believes that capitalist economies are autonomous, coherent, and regulated by their own internal laws. This view is an illusion. The reality is that economies organized around the pursuit of private profit are contradictory, incoherent, and heavily shaped by politics and governmental action. But the illusion remains hugely consequential because it has been embraced by political and economic elites who are convinced that they are powerless to change this system. The result is cycles of raised hopes followed by disappointment as elected officials discover they have no legitimate policy tools that can deliver what the public wants. In Capitalism, leading economic sociologist Fred L. Block argues that restoring the vitality of the United States and the world economy can be accomplished only with major reforms on the scale of the New Deal and the post–World War II building of new global institutions.
The concept of money illusion, a recently resurrected phenomenon of behavioral economics, is a real fact of economic life, the potential role of which should no longer be dismissed. Despite money illusion being utterly suppressed by mainstream economists, small deviations from rationality, together with trends in behavioral economics, alleviate the denial of money illusion induced by the rational expectations revolution. This book argues that money illusion seems to be a ubiquitous phenomenon, affecting various areas such as financial markets, housing markets, labor markets, consumption-saving decisions, and even development at the aggregate level induced by coordination issues. Furthermore, in light of the educational efforts of central banks and other institutions, it is worth considering whether solid economic training would provide guidance for the public regarding their decision-making and thereby alleviate the effects of money illusion. The emerging field of experimental economics provides a unique opportunity for us to verify the presence of money illusion. Specifically, attention is devoted to the experimental investigation of reduction in the direct and indirect effects of money illusion with respect to the level of economic literacy acquired through economic education. Economic Literacy and Money Illusion will be of interest to the general audience and to those who are interested in behavioral economics, economics education, and experimental economics, as well as to policy makers and institutions. Last but not least, it will help develop students’ interest in alternative economic theories. NB. The research and writing of this book was made possible with the support of the University of Economics, Prague, Faculty of Economics, Department of Economics.
We live in a time of great uncertainty about the future. Those heady days of the late twentieth century, when the end of the Cold War seemed to be ushering in a new and more optimistic age, now seem like a distant memory. During the last couple of decades, we’ve been battered by one crisis after another and the idea that humanity is on a progressive path to a better future seems like an illusion. It is only now that we can see clearly the real scope and structure of the profound shifts that Western societies have undergone over the last 30 years. Classical industrial society has been transformed into a late-modern society that is molded by polarization and paradoxes. The pervasive singularization of the social, the orientation toward the unique and exceptional, generates systematic asymmetries and disparities, and hence progress and unease go hand in hand. Reckwitz examines this dual structure of singularization and polarization as it plays itself out in the different sectors of our societies and, in so doing, he outlines the central structural features of the present: the new class society, the characteristics of a postindustrial economy, the conflict about culture and identity, the exhaustion of the self resulting from the imperative to seek authentic fulfillment, and the political crisis of liberalism. Building on his path-breaking work The Society of Singularities, this new book will be of great interest to students and scholars in sociology, politics, and the social sciences generally, and to anyone concerned with the great social and political issues of our time.
Pulitzer prize–winner Chris Hedges charts the dramatic and disturbing rise of a post-literate society that craves fantasy, ecstasy and illusion. Chris Hedges argues that we now live in two societies: One, the minority, functions in a print-based, literate world, that can cope with complexity and can separate illusion from truth. The other, a growing majority, is retreating from a reality-based world into one of false certainty and magic. In this “other society,” serious film and theatre, as well as newspapers and books, are being pushed to the margins. In the tradition of Christopher Lasch’s The Culture of Narcissism and Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death, Hedges navigates this culture — attending WWF contests as well as Ivy League graduation ceremonies — exposing an age of terrifying decline and heightened self-delusion.
In one of the foremost critiques of the widespread view that in market-based economics the fluctuations of the marketplace are essentially self-regulating, Eli Ginzberg argues the reverse. He asserts that government regulation or intervention to provide stability in the capitalist marketplace is a necessity. In this classic statement of macroeconomic theory, Ginzberg argues that self-directed stable economies, devoid of an appreciation of social and psychological factors, are essentially illusory. The ability of strong blocs--corporate, labor, and agricultural--to control the market in the hope of bettering their economic position places great difficulties in the path of securing a stable economy. For Ginzberg, economic fluctuations in the decade preceding the Great Depression can largely be explained by the interaction of technological, psychological, and monetary factors. Without these factors being subjected to some sort of control, economic stability must remain an illusion. The current period of a significant fall-off in earnings, profits, and full employment also followed a decade of unparalleled monetary growth. The concerns Ginzberg raised are relevant once again. It may turn out that the "neoliberalism" of the present has something to say in response to the free market/free society premises currently in vogue. In a brilliant introductory essay, Nobel Laureate Robert M. Solow offers an impressive report card on The Illusion of Economic Stability: "The prose is tighter and more aphoristic than late Ginzberg, and the tone is more detached, even sardonic." He concludes by admitting that a volatile stock market is one more reason why automatic economic stability seems as illusory today as it did when the book first appeared. Eli Ginzberg (1911-2002) was the acknowledged doyen of the Columbia University Department of Economics. He was the author of no fewer than 140 books, and countless articles. Among the most relevant to his work on economics are New Deal Days: 1933-1934, Adam Smith and the Founding of Market Economics, and A World Without Work. Robert M. Solow is Institute Professor Emeritus and Professor of Economics Emeritus at MIT and is one of the major figures of neo-Keynesian synthesis macroeconomics. In 1987 he was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics.
Over the past decades, economists have witnessed with growing uneasiness their failure to explain the ballooning of public debt in most countries. This book provides an alternative orientation that explains why concepts of public debt that are relevant for authoritarian regimes are not relevant for democratic regimes. Using methodological individualism and micro-economics, this book overcomes flaws inherent in the standard macro approach, according to which governments manipulate public debt to promote systemic stability. This unique analysis is grounded in the writings of Antonio de Viti de Marco, injecting current analytical contributions and formulations into the framework to offer a forthright insight into public debt and political economy.