Customer Reviews:
Is it economics and morals? (Pat Padley's review).......2004-05-02
Even though I have had to read this book for an Economic class, I actually got something out of it. From what I understand this has become an aditional way of learning about supply side economics, which is still very confusing. I have also read many of the other reviews and I agree that this could very well become a bible for Reaganomics. I guess the one question I would ask is if George Gilder also took an Adam Smith view to some things. It seemed like he kept focusing on the individual view point of things. The way he proposed ideas is that it sounded like he wanted us to look over not just the mathematics, but the whole human spectrum. This includes faith, history, technology, etc.
This book actually suprised me. I really didn't think I would enjoy it at all. Even though I was forced to read it for Econ, I'm glad I got to read this book. Gilder's as if moral views kept me interested.
To one-sided ...........2004-03-25
whose review is below. I cant believe that this reviewer believes that corporate "welfare" disproves the thesis of this book. How moronic can one be? The difference dear child is that corporations still are in business and trying to produce a profit. An individual on welfare does nothing to earn an income, or very little at most. Thus the incintive not to work. Corporate welfare is just as incidious in my book, but at least the corporation is trying to profit from as many revenue centers as it can.
I was so much older then I'm younger than that now.......2001-08-10
This book which most of us, who read books like this, read 20 years ago should be reread again today. The prescience and accuracy of its viewpoints are worth prolonged cogitation for members on either side of the aisle. Perhaps it could be recommended reading along with the cliff notes of Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations"? Okay, at least for Graduate students in the social sciences?
Gilder points out that we have been misled by popular economics as it relates to how we increase wealth and curtail poverty. He then introduces the concept of Supply-Side Economics to the general reader. He fulminates about how misguided policy has undermined the true source of wealth that is to be found in such nonmaterial forces as creativity, technological adventure, and the motivation to strike out for new territory in economic enterprise. He talks about how the blunting of incentives and the efforts to redistribute the wealth, in a just fashion, only serve to keep the poor in poverty. He contrasts this with his description of the true capitalist as one who invests energy and money today for a return he may or may not receive in the future. Is this not the model for describing the difference between children and adults? Is it not a model for delayed gratification one which most of the world eschews? They instead opt for a metaphorical traffic jam at the waterhole of natural resources with the alpha chimp and his cohorts ripping off the biggest piece.
When Gilder talks about the LEFT getting it exactly backwards it reminds me of what Balint Vazsonyi writes about in his book "America's 30 Years War: Who's winning?" He says, "contrary to the prevailing (classic Marxist-Leninist) thinking that economic conditions provide the foundations and everything else is "superstructure", the truth is the other way around. Our spectacular economic success is the result of a unique legal-moral foundation upon which a successful political system has been built".
To show how deep the roots of misguided economic thinking go consider that even Christianity is built on a communistic notion of sharing, and an abhorrence for profit that is seemingly earned on the backs of the laborers. This results in men of the cloth, all to often economically illiterate ones, preaching the wrong formulae to the poor. Basically, "you're poor because they're rich". This Liberation theology is echoed in Marx's backward reading of human nature and the economic consequences of risk and reward. Gilder sets us straight.
Amazing isn't it? We still have academics teaching this LEFT-wing nonsense in respected universities across America while their acolytes storm the barriers in Seattle, Washington, Genoa, etc; all in an attempt to wipe out a system that has brought greater wealth to more people than any other in human history, something even Marx himself acknowledged.
Too me, it's about a pursuit of power and money at the top that is coupled with a reliance that those further down the pyramid of man will continue to engage in blocking and denial. Thus the proles can act as enablers of the "Priests" of the LEFT, those who commit the worst sorts of human crimes (see "the Black Book of Communism"), their zeal inversely proportionate to the laws of unintended consequence which they continue to violate with reckless abandon.
Perhaps a futuristic pill will be uncovered that will allay the LEFT's fevered assessment of mankind's ills and grant them the ability to reason while providing them with much needed relief from their pervasive envy. Read this book along with Myron Magnet's "the Dream and the Nightmare" to get a feel for the intellectual firmament of the Bush II administration, and pray for another cable network.
Excellent in all ways but ..........2001-02-11
When I was a young woman, just starting out, I read this book. I learned much about the nature of wealth and the role that government policy has in creating and diminishing wealth for all ("Tax something, you get less of it, subsidize something, you get more of it"). Time and opportunity costs are also considered in this first-rate, eminently readable primer on macroeconomics. Finally, his message to minorities who have been injured by past discrimination -- which is basically, "Get over it!" -- is probably the most useful, however unsympathetic (who needs sympathy -- we want wealth, right?) However, I was and am disappointed in Gilder's treatment of women. He should read Ayn Rand. As a woman and a technician, I don't see possessing the same no-excuses, ability-driven love of achievement as unfeminine. Nor is my schoolteacher-husband's gentleness and quiet intuition unmasculine. We are FREE to do and be what we want! What I see in Gilder is a whining demand that women stop putting so much competitive pressure on men so that they can feed their egos at our expense. What would he say to a (male) CEO who demanded his corporate competition give him a "break?" Doesn't he get the basic fact that a free market must be free for all, or it is not really free? Stick to free-market economics, George!
One of the most influencial books of the Reagan era........2000-11-12
At some point in the last 15 years, the meaning of three key terms changed: "need" now means wanting someone else's money; "greed" means wanting to keep your own; and "compassion" is when a politician wants to arrange the transfer. You're actually accused of "lacking compassion" if you object to this kind of redistribution. According to George Gilder's marvelous "Wealth and Poverty," this so-called "compassion" is nothing but a very misleading, pious moral high ground.
One of the chief critiques of capitalism over the years by socialists, liberals, clergymen, and--most notably--the poor has not been of its practical achievements, but rather the perception of its moral character. Most of them have got the idea that the source of wealth comes from sinful, anti-Judeo-Christian avarice. Wealth, they often assert, comes from "taking," and therefore the way to combat poverty is to "take" it back and redistribute it. But as Gilder explains, the essence of capitalism is "giving."
Capitalists "give" of themselves without a predetermined return. That is to say, they make investments without a predetermined return; and a gift is not something given necessarily without any return. It's perfectly consistent with the Bible, in which you often gave alms in the hope of some form of return; perhaps a blessing. It's risking your life to create comething without any assurance of return. (Liberals confuse this with gambling, which is a zero-sum game. That's why it's not "risking." Capitalists are giving of "themselves" without a predetermined return. Not just putting down some money and making no effort and having no moral engagement in the activities they're pursuing. That's the difference between gambling and capitalism.)
Also, the mechanism of the market neutralizes greed because selfish individuals are forced to find ways of servicing the needs of those with whom they wish to exchange. It's true that various people often approach economic exchanges with motives that fall short of the Biblical ideal Gilder discusses here. But no matter how selfish a person's motives may be, as long as the rights of the other parties are protected, the greed of the first individual cannot harm them. As long as greedy individuals are prohibited from introducing force, fraud, and theft into the exchange process, their greed must be channeled into the discovery of products or services for which people are willing to exchange their holdings. Every person in a market economy has to be other-directed.
Unlike socialism, capitalism recognizes several necessary conditions for the kinds of voluntary relationships it recommends. One of these conditions is the existence of inherent human rights, such as the right to make decisions, the right to be free, the right to hold property, and the right to exchange what one owns for something else. And, believe it or not, capitalism also presupposes a system of morality. Capitalism should be thought of as a system of voluntary relationships within a framework of laws which protect people's rights against force, fraud, theft, and violations of contracts. "Thou shalt not steal" and "Thou shalt not lie" are part of the underlying moral constraints of the system. Economic exchanges can hardly be voluntary if one participant is coerced, deceived, defrauded, or robbed. This should be obvious to most people living in America today.
Gilder also explains how capitalism is consistent with the Biblical view of human nature in another way: it recognizes the weaknesses of human nature and the limitations of human knowledge. No one can possibly know enough to manage a complex economy. No one should ever be trusted with this power. However, in order for socialism to work, socialism requires a class of omniscient planners to forecast the future, to set prices and control production. This is what stagnates enterprise in socialist economies. And it's also a good way for an individual to lose their political freedom as well. For what is to be produced does not depend on the demands of consumers, but on the independent decisions of government planners; production, therefore, is more likely to serve the purposes of planners, of the state, than those of a consumer. That's a freedom you sacrifice under socialism. And as the sole producer and employer, the socialist state finds it easy to restrict political freedom that could be used to replace centralized powers. Eventually, you have Noam Chomsky popping up on the Killing Fields trying to tell you that "it's not that bad."
Gilder's frank assessment of how the welfare state has driven husbands from the home--especially black homes--by aiding single mothers is disturbing. The average total relief package for a single mother with three children is more than $19,000 a year--tax free. By comparison, a traditional two-parent family of four with a higher income of say, $22,500, has only about $18,000 left after taxes. Poor women might be poor, but they're not stupid. Niether are poor young men, many of whom quickly realize that by their own efforts and means they are unable to provide as well for their families as Uncle Sam. Too many mothers decide not to marry the fathers of their children; they marry welfare instead. As we enter the 21st century, 70% of black children are born into fatherless homes.
So, in effect, the modern state continually releases us from our duties to our next of kin--our familial duties--at the same time it increases our duties to total strangers, whose lives we wreck when we provide for them (with a little coercion from Uncle Sam, of course) government assistance. Even now as we approach the year 2001, we keep hearing collectivists saying "we have more to do" and "there remains much to be done." It's kind of analogous to Mao's Long March--a Long March to the moon without a bridge, and we just keep walking in circles and we're told both that we're making progress and that we're not making enough progress. This is certified insanity, yet most people fail to see it.
George Gilder's "Wealth and Poverty" is one of the most important books on capitalism and the effects of welfare on its recipients you'll ever buy.
Book Description
Norton Garfinkle paints a disquieting picture of America today: a nation increasingly divided between economic winners and losers, a nation in which the middle-class American Dream seems more and more elusive. Recent government policies reflect a commitment to a new supply-side winner-take-all Gospel of Wealth. Garfinkle warns that this supply-side economic vision favors the privileged few over the majority of American citizens striving to better their economic condition.
Garfinkle employs historical insight and data-based economic analysis to demonstrate compellingly the sharp departure of the supply-side Gospel of Wealth from an American ideal that dates back to Abraham Lincoln—the vision of America as a society in which ordinary, hard-working individuals can get ahead and attain a middle-class living, and in which government plays an active role in expanding opportunities and ensuring against economic exploitation. Supply-side economic policies increase economic disparities and, Garfinkle insists, they fail on technical, factual, moral, and political grounds. He outlines a fresh economic vision, consonant with the great American tradition of ensuring strong economic growth, while preserving the middle-class American Dream.
Customer Reviews:
Very good, important book.......2007-03-03
I heard about this book from Bill Moyers, he mentioned it several times while speaking at the National Conference for Media Reform in Memphis. When I got back, I went to every single book store in Oklahoma City and none carried it, so I knew this must be a good, intellectual book. After finishing it, I must say indeed it is just that, full of good arguments and history and basically saying "..ok, you have to do this or theres going to be problems". It is very readable and I highly recommend Garfinkel's fine work.
Myth-Buster.......2007-02-23
I agree that this book was insightful and easy to read. More importantly, the information is thorough and paints an extremely cohesive picture of why current tax policy is wrong-headed. It is now almost a principle of faith that lower taxes on the highest earners bring increased investment and thus faster economic growth. There have been no definitive studies done that support this myth. This book debunks the "Gospel of Wealth" contention with real economic numbers and historical survey. Trickle-down theory has been exposed to the light of factual analysis as a benefit to the super-rich.
Bill Moyers, Senator Hillary Clinton and Alan Blinder loved this book too........2006-10-06
Bill Moyers said:
"The American Dream vs. The Gospel of Wealth: The Fight for a Productive Middle-Class Economy is the most important book I've read in years.
It is the clearest, most readable, most insightful, and most powerful account of how the Declaration of Independence and Lincoln's vision of government "of, by, and for the people" are being turned upside down. Garfinkle has sounded the one trumpet that just might wake us up -- if there is still time."
Senator Hillary Clinton said:
"We can choose to chart a wiser economic path by starting with the principles that have inspired Americans from the beginning: Sticking with fiscal discipline, rewarding hard work, investing in our people, and growing a strong middle class.
In The American Dream vs. The Gospel of Wealth, Norton Garfinkle addresses these important economic issues, issues that should be addressed at all levels of government and our society if we expect to maintain the American Dream for future generations."
Alan Blinder, the former Vice Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System said:
"This fascinating guided tour of America's past reminds us of the moral dimension of economic policy - which used to loom large, but which lately has been submerged. Garfinkle's book may help bring it back."
I think every other reader will agree with Bill Moyers, Senator Hillary Clinton and Alan Blinder and will enjoy this book as much as I did.
Average customer rating:
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Debt and Crisis in Latin America: The Supply Side of the Story
Robert Devlin
Manufacturer: Princeton Univ Pr
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 0691000794 |
Book Description
Examining the causes of the acute Latin American debt crisis that began in mid-1982, North American analysts have typically focused on deficiencies in the debtor countries' economic policies and on shocks from the world economy. Much less emphasis has been placed on the role of the region's principal creditors--private banks--in the development of the crisis. Robert Devlin rounds out the story of Latin America's debt problem by demonstrating that the banks were an endogenous source of instability in the region's debt cycle, as they overexpanded on the upside and overcontracted on the downside. Examining the causes of the acute Latin American debt crisis that began in mid-1982, North American analysts have typically focused on deficiencies in the debtor countries' economic policies and on shocks from the world economy. Much less emphasis has been placed on the role of the region's principal creditors--private banks--in the development of the crisis. Robert Devlin rounds out the story of Latin America's debt problem by demonstrating that the banks were an endogenous source of instability in the region's debt cycle, as they overexpanded on the upside and overcontracted on the downside.
Book Description
Supply-Side Follies methodically debunks the common assumptions of conservative economics and demonstrates why it is a flawed doctrine that is setting up the U.S. for a major economic downturn in the near future.
Book Description
The latest in a series exploring twenty-first-century governance, this new volume examines the use of market means to pursue public goals. "Market-based governance" includes both the delegation of traditionally governmental functions to private players, and the importation into government of market-style management approaches and mechanisms of accountability. The contributors (all from Harvard University) assess market-based governance from four perspectives:
The "demand side" deals with new, revised, or newly important forms of interaction between government and the market where the public sector is the "customer." Contributors include Steve Kelman, Karen Eggleston, Richard Zeckhauser, and Peter Frumkin.
The "supply side" section deals with unsettled questions about government's role as a provider (rather than a purchaser) within the market system. Contributors include Georges de Menil, Frederick Schauer, and Virginia Wise.
A third section explores experiments with market-based arrangements for orchestrating accountability outside government by altering the incentives that operate inside market institutions. Contributors include Robert Stavins, Archon Fung, Cary Coglianese, and David Lazer.
The final section examines both the upside and the downside of the market-based approach to improving governance. Contributors include Elaine Kamarck, John D. Donahue, Mark Moore, and Robert Behn.
An introduction by John D. Donahue frames market-based governance as an effort to engineer into public work some of the "intensive" accountability that characterizes markets without surrendering the "extensive" accountability of conventional government. A preface by Joseph S. Nye Jr. sets the book in the context of a larger inquiry into the future of governance.
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Economic Report of the President/People
Center for Popular Economics
Manufacturer: South End Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
Economic Conditions
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General
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ASIN: 0896083152 |
Customer Reviews:
Absolutely the best summary on IMF/WB Policies.......2003-10-05
This short but powerful book provides the best and most concise review of the disastrous policies that have been developed by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. Bello traces the origins of structural adjustment programs and then follows their effects into countries around the world.
Although originally published in 1994, the material is more relavent than ever. A MUST READ.
Best short work on the role of the IMF in global misery.......2000-05-22
Bello provides a clear, concise and well evidenced argument that the structural adjustment programs of the IMF and World bank have sunk the countries of the global south into deeper and deeper debt and impovereshment. Bello sets this argument in the historical frame of the northern backlash against the rising economic power of the south. He also links the economic philosophy behind adjustment to the widening prosperity gap and falling real wages in the north.
A must read for all those curios about the World Bank and IMF and why people are against them.
Product Description
Monetarism emerged in the 1960s under the leadership of Milton Friedman, who received the Nobel Prize in 1976. Friedman taught at the University of Chicago during this period, developing monetarism as a branch of Frank Knights famous Chicago School of economics. Monetarists emphasize the role of money and the governments monetary policy in economic affairs; they vigorously defend the free market in their work.
Supply side economics, another modern branch of free market economics, emphasizes the harmful role of impediments to production (such as taxes). Robert A. Mundell is often considered the father of this modern school of economic thought. Supply side economics advocates government policies that would stimulate increased overall economic production, rather than to redistribute existing production.
Customer Reviews:
A great course in the economic policy-making from a DC insider.......2006-04-23
Don't buy this book if you just want to know the history of supply-side economics -- it is so much more than that. If you want to know how economic policy making REALLY happens inside the beltway (including even the most boring parts, the ugliest warts, and more!), this book gives it to you straight.
What will you learn from this book? How both good and bad economic policies are distorted by the media and propagandized by politicians. The bottom line -- why DC politicians continue to produce economic failure after failure.
Excellent account of early years of Supply-Side Revolution.......2000-12-04
I read this book because I was studying the economic changes brought about by the Reagan victory in 1980. I've seen many favorable and unfavorable mentions of the "supply-side" theory, so I was looking for an account from a true supply-sider. This book fits that need. It desribes the immediate intellectual origins of the policy (but not the fundamental long-term origins). It then describes the political battles that went on in the legislative and executive branches from 1978 to about the end of 1981. I enjoyed reading how the free-market Republicans, Keynesian Republicans and liberals fought it out behind the scenes. These battles shaped the relatively vague "supply-side" theory into a specific government policy. This book is a good view into those years and provides perspective to the more recent government tax and spending issues.
Books:
- When Genius Failed: The Rise and Fall of Long-Term Capital Management
- Workforce Crisis: How to Beat the Coming Shortage of Skills And Talent
- A Game as Old as Empire: The Secret World of Economic Hit Men and the Web of Global Corruption (BK Currents)
- Abundance: A Novel of Marie Antoinette
- Adopting After Infertility
- Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, 1400-1800 (Studies in Comparative World History)
- Another Bullshit Night in Suck City: A Memoir
- Bitter is the New Black : Confessions of a Condescending, Egomaniacal, Self-Centered Smartass,Or, Why You Should Never Carry A Prada Bag to the Unemployment Office
- Biz-War and the Out-of-Power Elite: The Progressive-Left Attack on the Corporation
- Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make Competition Irrelevant
Books Index
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