Essential to Mises's concept of a classical liberal economy is the absence of interference by the state. In World War I, Germany and its allies were overpowered by the Allied Powers in population, economic production, and military might, and its defeat was inevitable. Mises believed that Germany should not seek revenge for the peace of Versailles; rather it should adopt liberal ideas and a free-market economy by expanding the international division of labor, which would help all parties. "For us and for humanity," Mises wrote, "there is only one salvation: return to rationalistic liberalism." Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973) was the leading spokesman of the Austrian School of economics throughout most of the twentieth century. Bettina Bien Greaves is a former resident scholar and trustee of the Foundation for Economic Education and was a senior staff member at FEE from 1951 to 1999. Please note: This title is available as an ebook for purchase on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and iTunes.
Originally published in 2003, this book addresses the rarely explored subject of the reciprocal relationships between nationalism, nation and state-building, and economic change. Analysis of the economic element in the building of nations and states cannot be confined to Europe, and therefore these diverse yet interlinked case-studies cover all continents. Authors come to contrasting conclusions, some regarding the economic factor as central, while others show that nation-states came into being before the constitution of a national market. The essays leave no doubt that the nation-state is an historical phenonemon and as such is liable to 'expiry' both through the process of globalisation and through the development of a 'cyber-society' which evades state control. By contrast, developments in southeastern Europe, the former USSR, and parts of Africa and the Far East show that building the nation-state has not run its course.
What makes a country attractive to foreign investors? To what extent do conditions of governance and politics matter? This book provides the most systematic exploration to date of these crucial questions at the nexus of politics and economics. Using quantitative data and interviews with investment promotion agencies, investment location consultants, political risk insurers, and decision makers at multinational corporations, Nathan Jensen arrives at a surprising conclusion: Countries may be competing for international capital, but government fiscal policy--both taxation and spending--has little impact on multinationals' investment decisions. Although government policy has a limited ability to determine patterns of foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows, political institutions are central to explaining why some countries are more successful in attracting international capital. First, democratic institutions lower political risks for multinational corporations. Indeed, they lead to massive amounts of foreign direct investment. Second, politically federal institutions, in contrast to fiscally federal institutions, lower political risks for multinationals and allow host countries to attract higher levels of FDI inflows. Third, the International Monetary Fund, often cited as a catalyst for promoting foreign investment, actually deters multinationals from investment in countries under IMF programs. Even after controlling for the factors that lead countries to seek IMF support, IMF agreements are associated with much lower levels of FDI inflows.
We live in a rapidly changing world in which politics is becoming both more and less predictable at the same time: this makes political geography a particularly exciting topic to study. To make sense of the continuities and disruptions within this political world requires a strongly focused yet flexible text. This new (sixth) edition of Peter Taylor’s Political Geography proves itself fit for the task of coping with a frequently and rapidly changing geo-political landscape. Co-authored again with Colin Flint, it retains the intellectual clarity, rigour and vision of previous editions, based upon its world-systems approach. Reflecting the backdrop of the current global climate, this is the Empire, globalization and climate change edition in which global political change is being driven by three related processes: the role of cities in economic and political networks; the problems facing territorially based notions of democratic politics and citizenship, and the ongoing spectre of war. This sixth edition remains a core text for students of political geography, geopolitics, international relations and political science, as well as more broadly across human geography and the social sciences.
"The author focuses on Adam Smith and his contemporaries, who pondered these issues, particularly the nature and development of commercial society. They attempted to come to terms with the claim that, on the one hand, the market was a decisive element in economic progress, and, on the other, that its workings depended upon the release of the immoral desires of fallen men and that its consequences were socially and politically destabilizing. Hont reconstructs the salient features of this controversy between the proponents of market sociability and its most trenchant critics. In doing so, he has helped to locate historically the most important arguments at the heart of the emergence of modernity."--Jacket.
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.
This book puts the industrial revolution in a political and institutional context of state-making and the creation of modern national states, demonstrating that industrial transformation was connected to state and military interests.
