The Affluent Society

John Kenneth Galbraith
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Oct 15, 1998 - Business & Economics - 288 pages
Galbraith's classic on the "economics of abundance" is, in the words of the New York Times, "a compelling challenge to conventional thought." With customary clarity, eloquence, and humor, Galbraith cuts to the heart of what economic security means (and doesn't mean) in today's world and lays bare the hazards of individual and societal complacence about economic inequity. While "affluent society" and "conventional wisdom" (first used in this book) have entered the vernacular, the message of the book has not been so widely embraced--reason enough to rediscover The Affluent Society [View More]

The Great Crash 1929

John Kenneth Galbraith
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Sep 10, 2009 - Business & Economics - 224 pages
Galbraith's classic examination of the 1929 financial collapse, the Atlantic Monthly said:"Economic writings are seldom notable for their entertainment value, but this book is. Galbraith's prose has grace and wit, and he distills a good deal of sardonic fun from the whopping errors of the nation's oracles and the wondrous antics of the financial community." Now, with the stock market riding historic highs, the celebrated economist returns with new insights on the legacy of our past and the consequences of blind optimism and power plays within the financial community. [View More]

The New Industrial State

John Kenneth Galbraith
Princeton University Press, 2007 - Business & Economics - 518 pages
With searing wit and incisive commentary, John Kenneth Galbraith redefined America's perception of itself in The New Industrial State, one of his landmark works. The United States is no longer a free-enterprise society, Galbraith argues, but a structured state controlled by the largest companies. Advertising is the means by which these companies manage demand and create consumer "need" where none previously existed. Multinational corporations are the continuation of this power system on an international level. The goal of these companies is not the betterment of society, but immortality through an uninterrupted stream of earnings [View More]

American Capitalism The Concepts of Countervailing Power

John Kenneth Galbraith
Literary Licensing, LLC, 2013- Business & Economics - 232 pages
In his new introduction to this classic text on political economy, Galbraith reasserts the validity of the core thesis of American Capitalism: The best and established answer to economic power is the building of countervailing power. The trade union remains an equalizing force in the labor markets, and the chain store is the best answer to the market power of big food companies. This work remains an essential guidepost of American mores as well as that as of the American economy. [View More]

A Short History of Financial Euphoria

John Kenneth Galbraith
Penguin, Jun 1, 1993 - Business & Economics - 128 pages
The world-renowned economist offers a dourly irreverent analyses of financial debacle from the tulip craze of the seventeenth century to the recent plague of junk bonds.Galbraith traces speculative bubbles through several centuries, and argues that they are inherent in the free market system because of "mass psychology" and the "vested interest in error that accompanies speculative euphoria." Also, financial memory is "notoriously short": what currently seems to be a "new financial instrument" is inevitably nothing of the sort. He cautions: "The world of finance hails the invention of the wheel over and over again, often in a slightly more unstable version." Crucial to his analysis is the assertion that the common factor in boom-and-bust is the creation of debt to finance speculation, which "becomes dangerously out of scale in relation to the underlying means of payment." The financial crisis of 2008, which took many economists by surprise, seemed to confirm many of Galbraith's theses [View More]

The Economics of Innocent Fraud Truth for Our Time

John Kenneth Galbraith
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, April 26, 2004 - Business & Economics - 62 pages
The purpose of this extended essay is to illuminate examples of "innocent fraud" or the gulf between perception and reality in the modern American economic system--a system Galbraith had a hand in creating during his tenure in FDR's administration. Though tackling serious subjects, the book sparkles with wit and sly understatement. "A marked enjoyment can be found in identifying self-serving belief and contrived nonsense," he writes, clearly enjoying himself. The dominant role of the corporation in modern society is one such form of innocent fraud, and he explains how managers hold the real power in our system, not consumers or shareholders as the image would suggest. Despite the "appearance of relevance for owners," capitalism has given way to corporate bureaucracy--"a bureaucracy in control of its task and its compensation. Rewards that verge on larceny." He also explains how the public realm is effectively controlled by the private sector. The arms industry is but one example of this: "While the Pentagon is still billed as being of the public sector, few doubt the influence of corporate power in its decisions." He also looks at the financial world which "sustains a large, active, well-rewarded community based on compelled but seemingly sophisticated ignorance," and in particular the Federal Reserve System, "our most prestigious form of fraud, our most elegant escape from reality." In essence, Galbraith says that the Fed, for all of its power and prestige, effectively does nothing. And he has little problem with this: "Let their ineffective role be accepted and forgiven." Both a guide to the present and an aid to shaping the future, this slim, satisfying book is a font of wisdom, conventional and otherwise, from a respected elder statesman. This is Professor Galbraith's last book [View More]

Economics & the Public Purpose

John Kenneth Galbraith
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, September 28th 1973- Business & Economics - 381 pages
In Economics and the Public Purpose Galbraith advocates a "new socialism" as the solution, nationalizing military production & public services such as health care. He also advocates introducing disciplined wage, salary, profit & price controls on the economy to reduce inequality & restrain the power of giant corporations. Socialization of the "unduly weak industries & unduly strong ones" together with planning for the remainder would allow the public interest to be accorded its rightful preference over private interests. He adds that this can only be achieved when there is a new belief system that rejects the orthodoxy of economics in the past. The new socialism needs to be achieved thru gradual democratic political change. [View More]

The Culture of Contentment

John Kenneth Galbraith
Houghton Mifflin Company, 1993 - Social Science - 195 pages
The Culture of Contentment is a keen and striking appraisal of America's current, far from happy state of affairs, written by possibly our wisest and certainly our most lucid and irreverent economist, John Kenneth Galbraith. This major new work goes far beyond Ronald Reagan and George Bush to ultimate and controlling causes--to the rise of a greatly self-satisfied elite that is now dominant in the electoral process. The result: today, a once strong and aspiring nation has lapsed into a self-serving economic and social stasis. Surveying this development with a detached and penetrating eye, Galbraith lives up to his reputation as "the voice and conscience of the economic profession." Galbraith here scrutinizes the perilous by-products of complacency: a commitment to short-term action and inaction, restricted investment as a basic policy, government seen only as a burden, corporate sclerosis, and the dark side of financial speculation. He also considers the fate of the "functional underclass, " people who are stalled in poverty and denied the crucial support needed to change their situation. The larcenous savings-and-loan and junk-bond scandals are examined as major examples of the controlling principles of contentment. And from the clear-eyed global perspective for which he is celebrated, Galbraith regards key issues on the world scene: the emergence of the powerful new economies of Japan and Germany, the larger, often recreational nature of foreign policy, and self-controlling, self-enhancing military power. Making no concession to false optimism, Galbraith leaves no one in doubt as to what could be done, little as we may be disposed to do it. Here, in short, is an acute and powerfulassessment of where we are heading and not heading and what the consequences will be, from one of the sharpest and most original minds of our time. [View More]

A History of Economics The Past as the Present

John Kenneth Galbraith
Penguin Books, 1991 - Economics - 324 pages
Galbraith manages to make economics interesting, entertaining, at times even exciting, as well as adding in a healthy dose of common sense often missing. He is clearly setting himself up against the 'aggressively dull' that make up much of the writing and theorising on economics. Whilst he does not cover every element in economics, or at times even every important aspect of economics, he manages to cover economics from Aristotle to the twentieth century in 300 pages, and to provide a mix of detail and overview that is informative and provocative. [View More]

The Road to Serfdom

Friedrich Hayek
Routledge, Aug 13, 2014 - Business & Economics - 295 pages
A classic work in political philosophy, intellectual history and economics, The Road to Serfdom has inspired and infuriated politicians and scholars for half a century. Originally published in 1944, it was seen as heretical for its passionate warning against the dangers of state control over the means of production. For Hayek, the collectivist idea of empowering government with increasing economic control would lead not to a utopia but to the horrors of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. This new edition includes a foreword by series editor and leading Hayek scholar Bruce Caldwell explaining the book's origins and publishing history and assessing common misinterpretations of Hayek's thought. Caldwell has also standardized and corrected Hayek's references and added helpful new explanatory notes. Supplemented with an appendix of related materials and forewords to earlier editions by the likes of Milton Friedman, and Hayek himself, this new edition of The Road to Serfdom will be the definitive version of Friedrich Hayek's enduring masterwork. [View More]

The Constitution of Liberty

Friedrich Hayek
Routledge, Aug 13, 2014 - Business & Economics - 512 pages
Working after the war, Hayek's writing was very much against the tide of mainstream Keynesian economic thought. But in the 1970s and 1980s - the eras of Thatcherism and Reaganomics - he was championed as a prophet of neo-liberalism by those who were seeking to revolutionize the post-war social consensus. The Constitution of Liberty is crucial reading for all those seeking to understand ideas that have become the orthodoxy in the age of the globalized economy. [View More]

The Fatal Conceit The Errors of Socialism

Friedrich Hayek
University of Chicago Press, Jul 15, 2011 - Political Science - 194 pages
Hayek gives the main arguments for the free-market case and presents his manifesto on the "errors of socialism." Hayek argues that socialism has, from its origins, been mistaken on factual, and even on logical, grounds and that its repeated failures in the many different practical applications of socialist ideas that this century has witnessed were the direct outcome of these errors. He labels as the "fatal conceit" the idea that "man is able to shape the world around him according to his wishes." [View More]

Individualism and Economic Order

Friedrich Hayek
University of Chicago Press, Jun 1, 1996 - Business & Economics - 280 pages
In this collection of writings, Nobel laureate Friedrich A. Hayek discusses topics from moral philosophy and the methods of the social sciences to economic theory as different aspects of the same central issue: free markets versus socialist planned economies. First published in the 1930s and 40s, these essays continue to illuminate the problems faced by developing and formerly socialist countries. [View More]

Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy

Joseph A. Schumpeter
Routledge, 13-May-2013 - Business & Economics - 464 pages
Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy remains one of the greatest works of social theory written this century. Schumpeter's contention that the seeds of capitalism's decline were internal, and his equal and opposite hostility to centralist socialism have perplexed, engaged and infuriated readers since the book's publication. By refusing to become an advocate for either position Schumpeter was able both to make his own great and original contribution and to clear the way for a more balanced consideration of the most important social movements of his and our time. [View More]

The Theory of Economic Development

An Inquiry into Profits, Capital, Credit, Interest, and the Business Cycle
Joseph A. Schumpeter
Transaction Publishers, 31-Dec-2011 - Business & Economics - 244 pages
Schumpeter proclaims in this classical analysis of capitalist society first published in 1911 that economics is a natural self-regulating mechanism when undisturbed by "social and other meddlers." In his preface he argues that despite weaknesses, theories are based on logic and provide structure for understanding fact. Of those who argue against him, Schumpeter asks a fundamental question: "Is it really artificial to keep separate the phenomena incidental to running a firm and the phenomena incidental to creating a new one?" In his answers, Schumpeter offers guidance to Third World politicians no less than First World businesspeople. In his substantial new introduction, John E. Elliott discusses the salient ideas of The Theory of Economic Development against the historical background of three great periods of economic thought in the last two decades. [View More]

History of Economic Analysis

Joseph A. Schumpeter
Oxford University Press, 1994 - Business & Economics - 1260 pages
At the time of his death in 1950, Joseph Schumpeter--one of the great economists of the first half of the 20th century--was working on his monumental History of Economic Analysis. A complete history of efforts to understand the subject of economics from ancient Greece to the present, this book is an important contribution to the history of ideas as well as to economics. Although never fully completed, it has gained recognition as a modern classic due to its broad scope and original examination of significant historical events. Complete with a new introduction by Mark Perlman, who outlines the structure of the book and puts Schumpeter's work into current perspective, History of Economic Analysis remains a reflection of Schumpeter's diverse interests in history, philosophy, sociology, and psychology. Major topics include the techniques of economic analysis, contemporaneous developments in other sciences, and the sociology of economics; economic writings from Plato and Aristotle up through the time of Adam Smith, including the medieval scholastics and natural-law philosophers; the work of Malthus, Mill, Ricardo, Marx, and the important European economists; the history, sociology, psychology, and economics of the period 1879-1914; and modern economic developments. Schumpeter perceived economics as a human science, and this lucid and insightful volume reflects that perception, creating a work that is of major importance to the history of economics. [View More]

Ten Great Economists

From Marx to Keynes
Joseph A. Schumpeter
Routledge, 20-May-2003 - Business & Economics - 360 pages
Originally published in 1952, this seminal work with a new introduction by Professor Mark Perlman, a well-known Schumpeterian scholar. The essays, written between 1910-50 were primarily commemorative pieces marking the achievement of a celebrated economist. Those covered include: Marx, Walras, Menger, Marshall, Pareto, Bohm-Bawerk, Taussig, Fisher, Mitchell, Keynes. The appendix includes articles on lesser-known economists Knapp, Von Wieser; Von Bortkiewicz. With the exception of Marx, Schumpeter himself selected the ten main essays for inclusion in this volume and was personally acquainted with all but two of his subjects. Initially considering them unworthy for publication he relented in the face of public demand since the journals in which they originally appeared were difficult to obtain. The new introduction places this work in its contemporary context and highlights its importance for students unfamiliar with the original. [View More]

Can Capitalism Survive?

Creative Destruction and the Future of the Global Economy
Joseph A. Schumpeter
HarperCollins, 01-Sep-2009 - Business & Economics - 208 pages
Considered by many economists to be the finest analysis of capitalism ever written, Can Capitalism Survive? introduces Joseph A. Schumpeter's theory of "creative destruction," stating that in capitalist economies new innovations erode the position of established firms while also providing new and previously unforeseen avenues of economic growth. Today the effects of such advancements as Mp3s—replacing CDs, which in turn had replaced cassettes and vinyl records—have proven his ideas correct. Prophetically arguing that capitalist societies are also subject to "perennial gales" of destruction that wipe away fortunes, this great economist revealed the vast, often chaotic economic landscape of world capitalism. First published in Schumpeter's classic Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, here is an invaluable guide the global economy. [View More]

Essays: On Entrepreneurs, Innovations, Business Cycles, and the Evolution of Capitalism

Joseph A. Schumpeter
Transaction Publishers, 1951 - Business & Economics - 341 pages
Ordinarily, the word essays is invoked at great risk by authors and publishers alike. But in the case of this special collection by Joseph A. Schumpeter, the great Austrian economist who finally settled at Harvard, the scholarly world knows this particular volume as his Essays. For a less pious younger generation, a subtitle has been added describing what these essays are about. In addition to the major themes of Schumpeter's life: the place of the entrepreneur in economic development, the risks and rewards of innovation, business cycles and why they occur, and the evolution of capitalism in Europe and America, the Essays contain statements on how Schumpeter viewed his own development; they discuss how he looked at Marxism, and how he feared that economics was in danger of becoming too ideological. Several of the Essays are classics. This is the case for "The Creative Response in Economic History" in which Schumpeter makes a plea for the close cooperation between economic theory and economic history. Another is "Science and Ideology," which constitutes Schumpeter's presidential address before the American Economic Association. Finally, there is the intriguing preface to the Japanese translation of Theory of Economic Development, in which Schumpeter names Walras and Marx as his two great predecessors. Even those who treasure the original publication were irritated by the remarkably poor quality of much of the book, which reproduced everything from typewriter script to nearly unreadable, reduced double columns. These lapses have been corrected in this new edition. Here Schumpeter's Essays can finally be read with the enjoyment, no less than enlightenment, they deserve. The volume is alive to the basic issues of our time. The reader can look forward to intellectual insight and stimuli of the highest order. [View More]

The Economics and Sociology of Capitalism

Joseph A. Schumpeter
Princeton University Press, 01-Jan-1991 - Business & Economics - 492 pages
The renowned economist Joseph A. Schumpeter (1883-1950) made seminal contributions not only to economic theory but also to sociology and economic history. His work is now attracting wide attention among sociologists, as well as experiencing a remarkable revival among economists. This anthology, which serves as an excellent introduction to Schumpeter, emphasizes his broad socio-economic vision and his attempt to analyze economic reality from several different perspectives. An ambitious introductory essay by Richard Swedberg uses many new sources to enhance our understanding of Schumpeter's life and work and to help analyze his fascinating character. This essay stresses Schumpeter's ability to draw on several social sciences in his study of capitalism.

Some of the articles in the anthology are published for the first time. The most important of these are Schumpeter's Lowell Lectures from 1941, "An Economic Interpretation of Our Time." Also included is the transcript of his lecture "Can Capitalism Survive?" (1936) and the high-spirited debate that followed. The anthology contains many of Schumpeter's classical sociological articles, such as his essays on the tax state, imperialism, and social classes. And, finally, there are lesser known articles on the future of private enterprise, on the concept of rationality in the social sciences, and on the work of Max Weber, with whom Schumpeter collaborated on several occasions. [View More]

The Nature and Essence of Economic Theory

Joseph A. Schumpeter
Transaction Publishers - Business & Economics - 464 pages
The long paper which gives the title to this collection was initially an attempt to promote international academic understanding. The Economics Department at the London School of Economics had arranged a colloquy between two groups of Russian and British economists; and where the author asked to contribute a general survey of the present state of economic theory as taught in Western centers. For reasons, which are explained in the opening section, the author decided to adopt an historical approach; and the notes on which the present paper is based were the result. In addition to the major themes of his life---the place of the entrepreneur in economic development, the risks and rewards of innovation, business cycles and why they occur, and the evolution of capitalism in Europe and America---the essays contain statements on how Schumpeter viewed his own development. They discuss how he looked at Marxism, and how he feared that economics was in danger of becoming too ideological. Several of the essays are classics. In this new edition, Schumpeter's Essays can finally be read with the enjoyment and enlightenment they deserve. The volume is alive to the basic issues of our time. In this classical analysis of capitalist society, Schumpeter argues that economics is a natural self-regulating mechanism when undisturbed by "social and other meddlers." His preface shows that despite weaknesses, theories are based on logic and provide structure for understanding fact. In his substantial new introduction, John E. Elliott discusses the salient ideas of the Theory of Economic Development against the historical background of three great periods of economic thought of the twentieth century. In a tribute to Joseph A. Schumpeter, a great figure in the history and development of economics, this work brings together for publication his brilliantly crafted lectures delivered more than a century ago. In The Nature and Essence of Economic Theory, now available for the first time in the English language, the reader will find absolute dedication to the search for an economic science, apart from and in rejection of moral or political dogma. The Nature and Essence of Economic Theory works out what people should think of pure economics, what its nature is, what its methods and findings are, and where thought takes off from there. The book shows the limitations and weaknesses of nineteenth-century economics and how the field could be and was improved. To convey his arguments, Schumpeter uses certain axioms that form a consistent, self-contained system and show its value, and also how far a sound economics is based on facts and events rather than presuppositions or definitions. Schumpeter, along with others, introduced a fundamental differentiation between "statics" and "dynamics" in the economy. Schumpeter's larger aim, beyond a pedagogic tool, was to deduce changes of the events in the market, trade, and exchange of goods and services. He called his equilibrium model "explanation" in a world without undue surprises. He defined the task of economy as the description of the system and its change tendencies. If that can be achieved unequivocally, without resorting to doctrine or dogma, then the field can be considered self-contained. [View More]

 

The Visible Hand

The Managerial Revolution in American business
Alfred D. Chandler, Jr.
Belknap Press, 2002 - Business & Economics - 608 pages
The role of large-scale business enterprise--big business and its managers--during the formative years of modern capitalism (from the 1850s until the 1920s) is delineated in this pathmarking book. Alfred Chandler, Jr., the distinguished business historian, sets forth the reasons for the dominance of big business in American transportation, communications, and the central sectors of production and distribution. The managerial revolution, presented here with force and conviction, is the story of how the visible hand of management replaced what Adam Smith called the invisible hand of market forces. Chandler shows that the fundamental shift toward managers running large enterprises exerted a far greater influence in determining size and concentration in American industry than other factors so often cited as critical: the quality of entrepreneurship, the availability of capital, or public policy. [View More]

Scale and Scope

The Dynamics of Industrial Capitalism
Alfred D. Chandler, Jr.
Belknap Press, Jan 1, 1990 - Big business - 860 pages
"Scale and Scope" is Alfred Chandler's first major work since his Pulitzer prize-winning "The Visible Hand." Representing ten years of research into the history of the managerial business system, this book concentrates on patterns of growth and competitiveness in the U.S., Germany, and Great Britain, tracing the evolution of large firms into multinational giants and orienting the late twentieth century's most important developments. This edition includes the entire hardcover edition with the exception of the Appendix Tables. [View More]

Strategy and Structure

Chapters in the History of the Industrial Enterprise
Alfred D. Chandler, Jr.
Martino Publishing, 2013 - Business & Economics - 480 pages
This classic text, chosen for the 1964 Thomas Newcomen Award in Business History by the editors of "Business History Review," is based on intensive studies of General Motors, Dupont, Standard Oil of New Jersey and Sears, Roebuck. Chandler shows how the seventy largest corporations in America have dealt with a single economic problem: the effective administration of an expanding business. The author summarizes the history of the expansion of the nation's largest industries during the previous hundred years and then examines in depth the modern decentralized corporate structure as it was developed independently by four companies--General Motors, Dupont, Standard Oil of New Jersey and Sears, Roebuck. [View More]

The Wealth of Nations

Adam Smith
Cosimo, Inc., Mar 1, 2011 - Business & Economics - 1040 pages
Adam Smith revolutionized economic theory with his 1776 work An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. He proposed rules governing labor, supply, and demand; and describes division of labor, stockpiling of wealth, lending, and interest. Smith also discusses how economies lead to opulence. Wealth of Nations also offers a defense for free-market capitalism. Any student of economics should be familiar with the concepts and laws that Smith developed, as much of economic theory is still based upon his work. The 4th edition was published in London in 1786, and contains both Volume I and Volume II together in the same edition. Scottish economist and philosopher Adam Smith (1723-1790) helped set standards in the fields of political economics and moral philosophy, playing a key role in the early development of the scholarship of economics. His other writings include Essays on Philosophical Subjects. [View More]

The Theory of Moral Sentiments

Adam Smith
Digireads.com, Jan 1, 2010 - Philosophy - 238 pages
Written in 1759 by Scottish philosopher and political economist Adam Smith, "The Theory of Moral Sentiments" provides much of the foundation for the ideas in his later works, most notably in "The Wealth of Nations." Through this initial text, Smith expresses his general system of morals, exploring the propriety of action, reward and punishment, sense of duty, and the effect of numerous factors on moral sentiment. In so doing, Smith devised innovative theories on virtues, conscience, and moral judgment that are still relevant and accessible today. Though somewhat surprising to find a philosopher of Smith's abilities discussing aspects such as luck and sympathy and how they affect self-image or relationships, "The Theory of Moral Sentiments" never loses its critical excellence in its good-natured understanding of the human exploration for the meaning of being good. [View More]

Das Kapital

A Critique of Political Economy
Karl Marx
Regnery Publishing, Mar 27, 2012 - Political Science - 356 pages
Das Kapital, Karl Marx's seminal work, is the book that above all others formed the twentieth century. From Kapital sprung the economic and political systems that at one time dominated half the earth and for nearly a century kept the world on the brink of war. Yet this important tome has been passed over by many readers frustrated by Marx's difficult style and his preoccupation with nineteenth-century events of little relevance to today's reader. Here Serge Levitsky presents a revised version of Kapital, abridged to emphasize the political and philosophical core of Marx's work while trimming away much that is now unimportant. Pointing out Marx's many erroneous predictions about the development of capitalism, Levitsky's introduction nevertheless argues for Kapital's relevance as a prime example of a philosophy of economic determinism that "subordinates the problems of human freedom and human dignity to the issues of who should own the means of production and how wealth should be distributed." Here then is a fresh and highly readable version of a work whose ideas provided inspiration for communist regimes' ideological war against capitalism, a struggle that helped to shape the world today. [View More]

The Communist Manifesto

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
Simon and Schuster, Jan 22, 2013 - Philosophy - 160 pages
The Communist Manifesto originally titled Manifesto of the Communist Party is a short 1848 publication, which has since been recognized as one of the world's most influential political manuscripts. Commissioned by the Communist League, it laid out the League's purposes and program. It presents an analytical approach to the class struggle (historical and present) and the problems of capitalism, rather than a prediction of communism's potential future forms. The book contains Marx and Engels' theories about the nature of society and politics, that in their own words, "The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles". It also briefly features their ideas for how the capitalist society of the time would eventually be replaced by socialism, and then eventually communism. [View More]

The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money

John Maynard Keynes
On Demand Publishing, LLC-Create Space, 2013 - Economics - 188 pages
The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money was written by the English economist John Maynard Keynes. The book, generally considered to be his magnum opus, is largely credited with creating the terminology and shape of modern macroeconomics. It sought to bring about a revolution, commonly referred to as the "Keynesian Revolution," in the way economists thought - especially in relation to the proposition that a market economy tends naturally to restore itself to full employment after temporary shocks. Regarded widely as the cornerstone of Keynesian thought, the book challenged the established classical economics and introduced important concepts such as the consumption function, the multiplier, the marginal efficiency of capital, the principle of effective demand and liquidity preference. [View More]

A Treatise on Money

John Maynard Keynes
A Treatise on Money is a work on economics by English economist John Maynard Keynes. In the Treatise Keynes drew a distinction between savings and investment, arguing that where saving exceeded investment, recession would occur. Thus, Keynes reasoned that during a depression the best course of action would be to promote spending and to discourage saving.

Note: The Treatise on Money was the first economics publication to use the term "liquidity." The term has not been found to be used in anyone's earlier works. [View More]

A Treatise on Probability

John Maynard Keynes
Rough Draft Printing, 2008 - Mathematics - 466 pages
An Unabridged, Digitally Enlarged Printing: The Meaning Of Probability - Probability In Relation To The Theory Of Knowledge - The Measurement Of Probabilities - The Principle Of Indifference - Other Methods Of Determining Probabilities - The Weight Of Arguments - Historical Retrospect - The Frequency Theory Of Probability - The Theory Of Groups, With Special Reference To Logical Consistence, Inference, And Logical Priority - The Definitions And Axioms Of Inference And Probability - The Fundamental Theorems Of Necessary Inference - The Fundamental Theorems Of Probable Inference - Numerical Measurement And Approximation Of Probabilities - Some Problems In Inverse Probability, Including Averages - The Nature Of Argument By Analogy - The Value Of Multiplication Of Instances, Or Pure Induction - Some Historical Notes On Induction - The Meanings Of Objective Chance, And Of Randomness - Some Problems Arising Out Of The Discussion Of Chance - The Application Of Probability To Conduct - The Nature Of Statistical Inference - The Law Of Great Numbers - The Theorems Of Bernoulli, Poisson, And Tchebycheff, etc., etc. - Bibliography And Comprehensive Index [View More]

The Economic Consequences of the Peace

John Maynard Keynes
Digireads.com, Sep 1, 2011 - Business & Economics - 118 pages
John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946) was a British economist whose theories had a profound impact on twentieth century history and economic practice. Born and raised in Cambridge, England to highly successful, intelligent parents John and Florence Keynes, he attended Eton and King's College, Cambridge where he joined the intellectual group called "The Apostles" with the likes of Leonard and Virginia Woolf, E. M. Forster and Bertrand Russell. After attending the Paris Peace Conference as economic advisor to Prime Minister Lloyd George, Keynes resigned from a prominent position in the Treasury and published "The Economic Consequences of the Peace" (1919), a stinging indictment of the Versailles Treaty. Keynes expressed his opposition to the political practices that were taking place, and the work gained him instant notoriety. The impact of this, and other, works on economic method, theory and policy led to what is now termed the "Keynesian Revolution" of the twentieth century, and helped shape modern macroeconomics. [View More]

Indian Currency and Finance

John Maynard Keynes
Read Books, 2008 - Business & Economics - 276 pages
Published in 1913, this is the first book from the renowned economist, and demonstrates the beginnings of the philosophies of macroeconomics and government intervention into economic matters that would characterize his later work. Here, Keynes discusses how changing from a silver to a gold standard impacted the Indian economy, a brief history of the gold standard, some surprising differences between coins and paper currency, governmental policies regarding reserves and cash balances, the strengths and weaknesses of the Indian banking system, and more. British economist JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES (1883-1946) also wrote The Economic Consequences of the Peace (1919), The End of Laissez-Faire (1926), The Means to Prosperity (1933), and General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (1936). ALSO FROM COSIMO: Keynes's A Treatise on Probability and The Economic Consequences of Peace. [View More]

On the Principles of Political Economy, and Taxation

David Ricardo
Cambridge University Press, Jan 1, 2015 - Business & Economics - 616 pages
This work, originally published in 1817, is one of the founding texts of modern economics. Enormously successful as a stockbroker, David Ricardo (1772-1823) was able to lead the life of a wealthy country squire, while his intellectual interests caused him to move in the circles of Thomas Malthus and James Mill. It was at Mill's urging that Ricardo published this book, entered Parliament in 1819 (as an independent member for a rotten Irish borough) and worked for financial and parliamentary reform. Ricardo argues in this work that Adam Smith was mistaken in his understanding of the economic significance of rent, and also demonstrates the mutual benefit of free trade between countries, as against protectionism. The book's findings and conclusions have been controversial since its publication, but led John Stuart Mill to judge Ricardo 'the greatest political economist'.
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Second Treatise of Civil Government

John Locke
Wiley, Jan 15, 1982 - Political Science - 200 pages
This essential volume features John Locke's hand-corrected text with an outstanding introduction to Locke's life and role in intellectual history, his principal works, and their purpose. Written by the editor, Richard Cox, the introduction also outlines the course of both treatises of government and analyzes the problems of interpretation. Also included are a list of the principal dates in the life of John Locke as well as a selected bibliography.
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Capitalism and Freedom

Milton Friedman
University of Chicago Press, Feb 15, 2009 - Business & Economics - 230 pages
Selected by the Times Literary Supplement as one of the "hundred most influential books since the war." How can we benefit from the promise of government while avoiding the threat it poses to individual freedom? In this classic book, Milton Friedman provides the definitive statement of his immensely influential economic philosophy—one in which competitive capitalism serves as both a device for achieving economic freedom and a necessary condition for political freedom. The result is an accessible text that has sold well over half a million copies in English, has been translated into eighteen languages, and shows every sign of becoming more and more influential as time goes on.
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Price Theory

Milton Friedman
Transaction Publishers, Jun 1, 2009 - Business & Economics - 357 pages
Economics is sometimes divided into two parts: positive economics and normative economics. The former deals with how the economic problem is solved, while the latter deals with how the economic problem should be solved. The effects of price or rent control on the distribution of income are problems of positive economics. The desirability of these effects on income distribution is a problem of normative economics. Within economics, the major division is between monetary theory and price theory. Monetary theory deals with the level of prices in general, with cyclical and other fluctuations in total output, total employment, and the like. Price theory deals with the allocation of resources among different uses, the price of one item relative to another. Prices do three kinds of things. They transmit information, they provide an incentive to users of resources to be guided by this information, and they provide an incentive to owners of resources to follow this information. Milton Friedman's classic book provides the theoretical underpinning for and understanding of prices. Economics is not concerned solely with economic problems. It is a social science, and is therefore concerned primarily with those economic problems whose solutions involve the cooperation and interaction of different individuals. It is concerned with problems involving a single individual only insofar as the individual's behavior has implications for or effects upon other individuals. "Price Theory" is concerned not with economic problems in the abstract, but with how a particular society solves its economic problems.
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A Monetary History of the United States, 1867-1960

Milton Friedman, Anna Jacobson Schwartz
Princeton University Press, Sep 2, 2008 - Business & Economics - 888 pages
Writing in the June 1965 issue of theEconomic Journal, Harry G. Johnson begins with a sentence seemingly calibrated to the scale of the book he set himself to review: "The long-awaited monetary history of the United States by Friedman and Schwartz is in every sense of the term a monumental scholarly achievement--monumental in its sheer bulk, monumental in the definitiveness of its treatment of innumerable issues, large and small . . . monumental, above all, in the theoretical and statistical effort and ingenuity that have been brought to bear on the solution of complex and subtle economic issues." Friedman and Schwartz marshaled massive historical data and sharp analytics to support the claim that monetary policy--steady control of the money supply--matters profoundly in the management of the nation's economy, especially in navigating serious economic fluctuations. In their influential chapter 7, The Great Contraction--which Princeton published in 1965 as a separate paperback--they address the central economic event of the century, the Depression. According to Hugh Rockoff, writing in January 1965: "If Great Depressions could be prevented through timely actions by the monetary authority (or by a monetary rule), as Friedman and Schwartz had contended, then the case for market economies was measurably stronger." Milton Friedman won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1976 for work related to A Monetary History as well as to his other Princeton University Press book, A Theory of the Consumption Function (1957).
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Essays in Positive Economics

Milton Friedman
University of Chicago Press, 1953 - Business & Economics - 328 pages
This book is a collection of earlier articles by the Friedman with as its lead an original essay "The Methodology of Positive Economics." The most basic counsel of this essay is to respect John Neville Keynes's distinction between positive and normative economics, what is vs. what ought to be in economic matters. The essay sets out an epistemological program for Friedman's own research.The essay argues that economics as science should be free of normative judgments for it to be respected as objective and to inform normative economics (for example whether to raise the minimum wage). Normative judgments frequently involve implicit predictions about the consequences of different policies. The essay suggests that such differences in principle could be narrowed by progress in positive economics. The essay argues that a useful economic theory should not be judged primarily by its tautological completeness, however important in providing a consistent system for classifying elements of the theory and validly deriving implications therefrom. Rather a theory (or hypothesis) must be judged by its; simplicity in being able to predict at least as much as an alternate theory, although requiring less information, and its fruitfulness in the precision and scope of its predictions and in its ability to generate additional research lines. In a famous and controversial passage, Friedman writes that:Truly important and significant hypotheses will be found to have "assumptions" that are wildly inaccurate descriptive representations of reality, and, in general, the more significant the theory, the more unrealistic the assumptions (in this sense). Why? Because such hypotheses and descriptions extract only those crucial elements sufficient to yield relatively precise, valid predictions, omitting a welter of predictively irrelevant details. Of course descriptive unrealism by itself does not ensure a "significant theory." From such Friedman rejects testing a theory by the realism of its assumptions. Rather simplicity and fruitfulness incline toward such assumptions and postulates as utility maximization, profit maximization, and ideal types—not merely to describe (which may be beside the point) but to predict economic behavior and to provide an engine of analysis. On profit maximization, for example, firms are posited to push each line of action to the point of equating the relevant marginal revenue and marginal cost. Yet, answers of businessmen to questions about the factors affecting their decisions may show no such calculation. Still, if firms act as if they are trying to maximize profits, that is the relevant test of the associated hypothesis.
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The Great Contraction, 1929-1933

Milton Friedman, Anna Jacobson Schwartz
Princeton University Press, Dec 27, 2012 - Business & Economics - 320 pages
Friedman and Schwartz's A Monetary History of the United States, 1867-1960, published in 1963, stands as one of the most influential economics books of the twentieth century. A landmark achievement, the book marshaled massive historical data and sharp analytics to support the claim that monetary policy--steady control of the money supply--matters profoundly in the management of the nation's economy, especially in navigating serious economic fluctuations. The chapter entitled "The Great Contraction, 1929-33" addressed the central economic event of the century, the Great Depression. Published as a stand-alone paperback in 1965, The Great Contraction, 1929-1933 argued that the Federal Reserve could have stemmed the severity of the Depression, but failed to exercise its role of managing the monetary system and ameliorating banking panics. The book served as a clarion call to the monetarist school of thought by emphasizing the importance of the money supply in the functioning of the economy--a concept that has come to inform the actions of central banks worldwide. This edition of the original text includes a new preface by Anna Jacobson Schwartz, as well as a new introduction by the economist Peter Bernstein. It also reprints comments from the current Federal Reserve chairman, Ben Bernanke, originally made on the occasion of Milton Friedman's 90th birthday, on the enduring influence of Friedman and Schwartz's work and vision.
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Free to Choose

Milton Friedman, Rose Friedman
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Nov 26, 1990 - Business & Economics - 360 pages
Free to Choose (1980) is a book and a ten-part television series broadcast on public television by economists Milton and Rose D. Friedman that advocates free market principles. It was primarily a response to an earlier landmark book and television series: The Age of Uncertainty, by the noted economist John Kenneth Galbraith. Milton Friedman won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics in 1976.Free to Choose: A Personal Statement maintains that the free market works best for all members of a society, provides examples of how the free market engenders prosperity, and maintains that it can solve problems where other approaches have failed. Published in January 1980, the 297 page book contains 10 chapters. The book was on the United States best sellers list for 5 weeks. PBS telecast the series, beginning in January 1980. The general format was that of Dr. Friedman visiting and narrating a number of success and failure stories in history, which Dr. Friedman attributes to capitalism or the lack thereof (e.g. Hong Kong is commended for its free markets, while India is excoriated for relying on centralized planning especially for its protection of its traditional textile industry). Following the primary show, Dr. Friedman would engage in discussion with a number of selected debaters drawn from trade unions, academy and the business community, such as Donald Rumsfeld (then of G.D. Searle & Company) and Frances Fox Piven of City University of New York. The interlocutors would offer objections to or support for the proposals put forward by Friedman, who would in turn respond. After the final episode, Friedman sat down for an interview with Lawrence Spivak.The series was rebroadcast in 1990 with Linda Chavez moderating the episodes. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Ronald Reagan, Steve Allen and others give personal introductions for each episode in the series. This time, after the documentary part, Friedman sits down with a single opponent to debate the issues raised in the episode.
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Money Mischief

Milton Friedman
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Mar 31, 1994 - Business & Economics - 304 pages
Milton Friedman opens his book Money Mischief with the story about the island of Yap. In summary, this island of about five thousand people used a stone for their medium of exchange and called it fei, hence the title of the first chapter The Island of Stone Money. What was so intriguing is that these giant limestone rocks weren't passed around like today's dollars, but were exchanged on simple acknowledgment of ownership. The stones would literally remain in the backyard of a person, but would be owned and used for bartering by its new owner, who might have lived on the other side of the island.A lively, enlightening introduction to monetary history from the libertarian economist whose contributions to the quantity theory of money earned him a Nobel Prize in 1976. Starting from the premise that no society or individual is unaffected by monetary policy (which centers on control of a nation's money supply), Friedman (co-author, Tyranny of the Status Quo, 1984, etc.) offers a quick and simplified briefing on monetary theory that stresses, among other matters, one of his favorite themes--that ``inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon.'' His stage set, Friedman ranges widely over time and place in demonstrating that there invariably is more than meets the eye to monetary events. He recounts, for example, how an 1873 coinage law had unintended consequences for American politics and economics over the next couple of decades. The author moves on to link the 1887 invention in Scotland of a process to extract gold from low-grade South African ore to the frustration of William Jennings Bryan's presidential aspirations in 1896 and beyond, moving smoothly into an accessible discussion of bimetallism. Friedman also makes a plausible case for the proposition that FDR's silver-purchase program during the 1930's hastened the Communist takeover of mainland China after WW II. Covered as well (in a prescriptive anti-Keynesian context) are upward price spirals down through the ages, the collapse of the Bretton Woods accord, fiat money, specie, the European Monetary System, and efforts by Third World countries to peg their currencies to the US dollar. Informed and informative perspectives from monetarism's most articulate apostle.
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