The Failure of the "New Economics": An Analysis of the Keynesian Fallacies

The Failure of the

Author: Henry Hazlitt

Publisher: Pickle Partners Publishing

Published: 2016-03-28

Total Pages: 663

ISBN-13: 1786258633

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First published in 1959, this is a line-by-line commentary and refutation of one of the most destructive, fallacious, and convoluted books of the century: John Maynard Keynes’s General Theory, published in 1936. In economic science, Keynes changed everything. He supposedly demonstrated that prices don’t work, that private investment is unstable, that sound money is intolerable, and that government was needed to shore up the system and save it. It was simply astonishing how economists the world over put up with this, but it happened. He converted a whole generation in the late period of the Great Depression. By the 1950s, almost everyone was Keynesian. However, Hazlitt, the nation’s economics teacher, would have none of it. And he did the hard work of actually going through the book to evaluate its logic according to Austrian-style logical reasoning. “Hazlitt’s fine critique of Keynes is a worthy complement to Mises’ Human Action. Henry Hazlitt, a renowned economic journalist, is a better economist than a whole host of sterile academicians, and, in contrast to many of them, he is distinguished by courage: the courage to remain an “Austrian” in the teeth of the Keynesian holocaust, alongside Mises and F. A. Hayek. On its merits, this book should conquer the economics profession as rapidly as did Keynes. But whether the currently fashionable economists read and digest The Failure of the “New Economics” or not is, in the long run, immaterial: it will be read and it will destroy the Keynesian System.”—Murray Rothbard


The Failure of the New Economics

The Failure of the New Economics

Author: Henry Hazlitt

Publisher:

Published: 2016-11-11

Total Pages: 472

ISBN-13: 9781684220465

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2016 Reprint of 1959 Edition. Full facsimile of the original edition, not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. Henry Hazlitt did the seemingly impossible, something that was and is a magnificent service to all people everywhere. He wrote a line-by-line commentary and refutation of what he considered to be one of the most destructive, fallacious, and convoluted books of the century. The target here is John Maynard Keynes's "General Theory," the book that appeared in 1936 and swept all before it. In economic science, Keynes changed everything. He supposedly demonstrated that prices don't work, that private investment is unstable, that sound money is intolerable, and that government was needed to shore up the system and save it. It was simply astonishing how economists the world over put up with this, but it happened. He converted a whole generation in the late period of the Great Depression. By the 1950s, almost everyone was Keynesian. But Hazlitt, the nation's economics teacher, would have none of it. And he did the hard work of actually going through the book to evaluate its logic according to Austrian-style logical reasoning. The result: a nearly 500-page masterpiece of exposition.


Failure to Adjust

Failure to Adjust

Author: Edward Alden

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2017-09-15

Total Pages: 269

ISBN-13: 1538109093

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*Updated edition with a new foreword on the Trump administration's trade policy* The vast benefits promised by the supporters of globalization, and by their own government, have never materialized for many Americans. In Failure to Adjust Edward Alden provides a compelling history of the last four decades of US economic and trade policies that have left too many Americans unable to adapt to or compete in the current global marketplace. He tells the story of what went wrong and how to correct the course. Originally published on the eve of the 2016 presidential election, Alden’s book captured the zeitgeist that would propel Donald J. Trump to the presidency. In a new introduction to the paperback edition, Alden addresses the economic challenges now facing the Trump administration, and warns that economic disruption will continue to be among the most pressing issues facing the United States. If the failure to adjust continues, Alden predicts, the political disruptions of the future will be larger still.


Why Nations Fail

Why Nations Fail

Author: Daron Acemoglu

Publisher: Currency

Published: 2013-09-17

Total Pages: 546

ISBN-13: 0307719227

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Brilliant and engagingly written, Why Nations Fail answers the question that has stumped the experts for centuries: Why are some nations rich and others poor, divided by wealth and poverty, health and sickness, food and famine? Is it culture, the weather, geography? Perhaps ignorance of what the right policies are? Simply, no. None of these factors is either definitive or destiny. Otherwise, how to explain why Botswana has become one of the fastest growing countries in the world, while other African nations, such as Zimbabwe, the Congo, and Sierra Leone, are mired in poverty and violence? Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson conclusively show that it is man-made political and economic institutions that underlie economic success (or lack of it). Korea, to take just one of their fascinating examples, is a remarkably homogeneous nation, yet the people of North Korea are among the poorest on earth while their brothers and sisters in South Korea are among the richest. The south forged a society that created incentives, rewarded innovation, and allowed everyone to participate in economic opportunities. The economic success thus spurred was sustained because the government became accountable and responsive to citizens and the great mass of people. Sadly, the people of the north have endured decades of famine, political repression, and very different economic institutions—with no end in sight. The differences between the Koreas is due to the politics that created these completely different institutional trajectories. Based on fifteen years of original research Acemoglu and Robinson marshall extraordinary historical evidence from the Roman Empire, the Mayan city-states, medieval Venice, the Soviet Union, Latin America, England, Europe, the United States, and Africa to build a new theory of political economy with great relevance for the big questions of today, including: - China has built an authoritarian growth machine. Will it continue to grow at such high speed and overwhelm the West? - Are America’s best days behind it? Are we moving from a virtuous circle in which efforts by elites to aggrandize power are resisted to a vicious one that enriches and empowers a small minority? - What is the most effective way to help move billions of people from the rut of poverty to prosperity? More philanthropy from the wealthy nations of the West? Or learning the hard-won lessons of Acemoglu and Robinson’s breakthrough ideas on the interplay between inclusive political and economic institutions? Why Nations Fail will change the way you look at—and understand—the world.


Taking Economics Seriously

Taking Economics Seriously

Author: Dean Baker

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2010-04-02

Total Pages: 48

ISBN-13: 0262291533

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A leading economist's exploration of what our economic arrangements might look like if we applied basic principles without ideological blinders. There is nothing wrong with economics, Dean Baker contends, but economists routinely ignore their own principles when it comes to economic policy. What would policy look like if we took basic principles of mainstream economics seriously and applied them consistently? In the debate over regulation, for example, Baker—one of the few economists who predicted the meltdown of fall 2008—points out that ideological blinders have obscured the fact there is no “free market” to protect. Modern markets are highly regulated, although intrusive regulations such as copyright and patents are rarely viewed as regulatory devices. If we admit the extent to which the economy is and will be regulated, we have many more options in designing policy and deciding who benefits from it. On health care reform, Baker complains that economists ignore another basic idea: marginal cost pricing. Unlike all other industries, medical services are priced extraordinarily high, far above the cost of production, yet that discrepancy is rarely addressed in the debate about health care reform. What if we applied marginal cost pricing—making doctors' wages competitive and charging less for prescription drugs and tests such as MRIs? Taking Economics Seriously offers an alternative Econ 101. It introduces economic principles and thinks through what we might gain if we free ourselves from ideological blinders and get back to basics in the most troubled parts of our economy.


Rethinking Capitalism

Rethinking Capitalism

Author: Michael Jacobs

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2016-07-21

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13: 1119311632

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"Thought provoking and fresh - this book challenges how we think about economics.” Gillian Tett, Financial Times For further information about recent publicity events and media coverage for Rethinking Capitalism please visit http://marianamazzucato.com/rethinking-capitalism/ Western capitalism is in crisis. For decades investment has been falling, living standards have stagnated or declined, and inequality has risen dramatically. Economic policy has neither reformed the financial system nor restored stable growth. Climate change meanwhile poses increasing risks to future prosperity. In this book some of the world’s leading economists propose new ways of thinking about capitalism. In clear and compelling prose, each chapter shows how today’s deep economic problems reflect the inadequacies of orthodox economic theory and the failure of policies informed by it. The chapters examine a range of contemporary economic issues, including fiscal and monetary policy, financial markets and business behaviour, inequality and privatisation, and innovation and environmental change. The authors set out alternative economic approaches which better explain how capitalism works, why it often doesn’t, and how it can be made more innovative, inclusive and sustainable. Outlining a series of far-reaching policy reforms, Rethinking Capitalism offers a powerful challenge to mainstream economic debate, and new ideas to transform it.


Foundations of Real-World Economics

Foundations of Real-World Economics

Author: John Komlos

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2019-01-11

Total Pages: 292

ISBN-13: 1351584715

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The 2008 financial crisis, the rise of Trumpism and the other populist movements which have followed in their wake have grown out of the frustrations of those hurt by the economic policies advocated by conventional economists for generations. Despite this, textbooks continue to praise conventional policies such as deregulation and hyperglobalization. This textbook demonstrates how misleading it can be to apply oversimplified models of perfect competition to the real world. The math works well on college blackboards but not so well on the Main Streets of America. This volume explores the realities of oligopolies, the real impact of the minimum wage, the double-edged sword of free trade, and other ways in which powerful institutions cause distortions in the mainstream models. Bringing together the work of key scholars, such as Kahneman, Minsky, and Schumpeter, this book demonstrates how we should take into account the inefficiencies that arise due to asymmetric information, mental biases, unequal distribution of wealth and power, and the manipulation of demand. This textbook offers students a valuable introductory text with insights into the workings of real markets not just imaginary ones formulated by blackboard economists. A must-have for students studying the principles of economics as well as micro- and macroeconomics, this textbook redresses the existing imbalance in economic teaching. Instead of clinging to an ideology that only enriched the 1%, Komlos sketches the outline of a capitalism with a human face, an economy in which people live contented lives with dignity instead of focusing on GNP.


The End of Theory

The End of Theory

Author: Richard Bookstaber

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2019-04-02

Total Pages: 236

ISBN-13: 0691191859

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An in-depth look at how to account for the human complexities at the heart of today’s financial system Our economy may have recovered from the Great Recession—but not our economics. The End of Theory discusses why the human condition and the radical uncertainty of our world renders the standard economic model—and the theory behind it—useless for dealing with financial crises. What model should replace it? None. At least not any version we’ve been using for the past two hundred years. Richard Bookstaber argues for a new approach called agent-based economics, one that takes as a starting point the fact that we are humans, not the optimizing automatons that standard economics assumes we are. Sweeping aside the historic failure of twentieth-century economics, The End of Theory offers a novel perspective and more realistic framework to help prevent today's financial system from blowing up again.


The End of Progress

The End of Progress

Author: Graeme Maxton

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2011-09-07

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13: 0470830018

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A cold, hard look at how modern economics has failed us and why we need a new measure of progress Modern economics has fallen short. It has widened the gap between rich and poor. It has not allocated the world's resources fairly. It has brought the West to the brink of financial ruin. It has placed short-term gain before long-term progress. And it has made us focus on the individual, not the society. The end result is a worldwide financial crisis of epic proportions and a planet being scraped clean of the resources needed by future generations, and things are only getting worse. In The End of Progress: How Modern Economics Has Failed Us popular economist Graeme Maxton looks at what went wrong, and what we can do to get ourselves back on track. During the Age of Enlightenment society flourished, propelled by the wonder of new discoveries, radical ideas for economic and social development, and a sense that we all had a responsibility to improve our world. It's time to get back to those ideals, step back and examine our values, and work out what humankind really needs. Presents a chilling look at our current financial system along with a compelling argument for what we need to change Argues for new measures of progress that emphasize what really matters, not personal greed Offers a timely look at our broken society and where we're headed next A thought-provoking, informative book, The End of Progress looks at what got us into our present mess, and shines light onto the road ahead.