Economic Theory

Hebert Spencer coined the famous expression “survival of the fittest”. Spencer’s theory inspired Andrew Carnegie and William Graham Sumner's visions of unbridled and unrepentant capitalism of the United States in late 19th century. Carnegie interpreted Spencer's social theory as justifying merciless economic competition. Spencer's reputation was not recovered for many years from the interpretative caricatures of many scholars, thus marginalizing him to the hinterlands of intellectual history. Fortunately, recent scholarship has begun restoring and repairing his legacy.

This book examines one of the most important economic outcomes in American history - the breakdown of the Keynesian Revolution. Drawing on economic literature, the memoirs of economists and politicians, and the popular press, Eric Crouse examines how economic decline in the 1970s precipitated a political revolution. Keynesian thought flourished through the presidencies of Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Gerald Ford, until stagflation devastated American workers and Jimmy Carter’s economic policies faltered, setting the stage for the 1980 presidential campaign.

Countless enterprises fall apart the moment they scale; their positive results fizzle, they lose valuable time and money and the great electric charge of potential that drove them early on disappears. In short, they suffer a voltage drop. Yet success and failure are not about luck - in fact, there is a rhyme and reason as to why some ideas fail and why some make it big. Certain ideas are predictably scalable, while others are predictably destined for disaster.

The political ideas that fully came together under the name “liberal” in the early 19th century—the ideas we often now refer to as “classical liberalism”—emerged out of major debates and developments from the late 1600s to the late 1700s. These were part of the broad European intellectual movement of that era that came to be known as “the Enlightenment".

The question of what constitutes a fair price has been at the center of market interactions since the time of Aristotle. Should a seller sell to the highest bidder, or is there some other standard, such as a morally defined price, to be applied? Charles R. Geisst traces the ways that philosophers, religious leaders, and economists have sought to answer that question, from antiquity through the modern era.

The Mind of the Market will change the way we think about the economics of everyday life. Drawing on research from neuroeconomics, Michael Shermer explores what brain scans reveal about bargaining, snap purchases, and how trust is established in business. Utilizing experiments in behavioral economics, Shermer shows why people hang on to losing stocks and failing companies, why business negotiations often disintegrate into emotional tit-for-tat disputes, and why money does not make us happy.

Who really creates wealth in our world? And how do we decide the value of what they do? At the heart of today's financial and economic crisis is a problem hiding in plain sight. In modern capitalism, value extraction is rewarded more highly than value creation: the productive process that drives a healthy economy and society. From companies driven solely to maximise shareholder value to astronomically high prices of medicines justified through big pharma's 'value pricing', we misidentify taking with making, and have lost sight of what value really means.

The central message of the Austrian school of economics, writes Mark Skousen in this wide-ranging audiobook, is that economics is about human beings. That outlook has direct implications for financial markets and personal investing. And this is why the Austrian school has had a huge impact Wall Street. A Viennese Waltz Down Wall Street, then, is a tutorial on both economics and investment that sheds new light on both fields. Consider the opening metaphor of the dance.

File your taxes on a postcard? Impossible! Guess again, says Steve Forbes, in his important new audiobook Flat Tax Revolution. In fact, countries around the world have freed their taxpayers to do just that - and we can, too, with a simple flat tax that will slash tax rates, spur economic growth, and put the IRS out of business

The Narendra Modi government's sudden demonetization of '500 and '1,000 notes in November 2016 failed to put a dent in the black economy but caused untold hardship to hundreds of millions of Indians. It has crippled the country's economy for a long time to come. In this book, Arun Kumar, the country's leading authority on the black economy, tells us why Modi's gambit failed.

In the new edition of this fascinating book, a book that has appeared on MSNBC, CNBC, Slashdot.org, Lifehacker.com and in the New York Times, best-selling author Scott Berkun pulls the best lessons from the history of innovation, including the recent software and web age, to reveal powerful and surprising truths about how ideas become successful innovations - truths people can easily apply to the challenges of today.

In order to illuminate the fallacies of economism, James Kwak first offers a primer on supply and demand, market equilibrium, and social welfare: the underpinnings of most popular economic arguments. Then he provides a historical account of how economism became a prevalent mode of thought in the United States - focusing on the people who packaged Econ 101 into sound bites that were then repeated until they took on the aura of truth.

Covering diversity and equality, globalization, human rights, modern urban living and the role of work and institutions, The Sociology Book looks at the big questions of how we cooperate: What is society? What makes it tick? Why do we interact in the way that we do with our friends, co-workers, and rivals?

It’s no secret that our country has a serious problem when it comes to wealth inequality–and systemic racism and patriarchy have only exacerbated the advantages of wealthy white men. Over the past three decades, America’s richest white men have only become richer, while those suffering in poverty have only gotten poorer. The divide may seem too great to bridge, but Rich White Men exposes the hidden and insidious ways that white male elites inherit, increase, and preserve their status—and, in this book, we get clear on how to uproot their monopoly on power.

This book is a demonstration both of the economic planning and order that prevail under capitalism and of the chaos and tyranny that prevail under socialism. Originally published in 1979, and later incorporated into the author’s magnum opus, Capitalism: A Treatise on Economics as Chapters 6-8, this is a powerful and convincing book which explains the essential principles of free-market price theory along with leading applications of those principles.

A great introduction or a friendly refresher for those interested in the contributions of Mises, Hayek, and Rothbard. The lessons inside are an essential resource for anyone fighting for liberty in the battle against leviathan states that grow from economic crisis to economic crisis. Politicians have long used business cycles to justify greater state intervention in the economy, growing the size of the state at the expense of civilization. One of the most potent weapons in debunking this narrative has been the unique understanding of Austrians that it is previous government intervention, ...

Conventional wisdom holds that Western economies are on the threshold of fast-and-furious technological development. Fredrik Erixon and Bjorn Weigel refute this idea, bringing together a vast array of data and case studies to tell a very different story. With expertise spanning academia and the business world, Erixon and Weigel illustrate how innovation is being hampered by existing government regulations and corporate practices.

In 2004, Argentina’s President, Nestor Kirchner, appointed Martín Redrado to lead their country’s Central Bank. It was the logical choice, considering that Harvard-educated and Wall Street-seasoned Redrado brought to the table an extensive knowledge of world economics. Redrado’s primary assignment as president was to provide monetary and financial stability to a country wrecked with cyclical breakups. In early 2010, Cristina Kirchner ordered the Central Bank to fund public spending and pay national debts. Martín Redrado refused.

El miedo paraliza, inhibe, afecta nuestra capacidad de actuar y es el principal obstáculo para generar riqueza. Un primer paso para vencer los temores y así realizar tus sueños de progresar humana y financieramente es enfrentar aquello que te produce miedo y encontrar un propósito de vida tan fuerte que nada ni nadie pueda frenar esa marcha hacia el éxito y la confianza en ti mismo. Juan Diego Gómez te guiará por reflexiones que te retarán a descubrir qué es aquello que en tu vida genera miedo, cómo exponerte a esos temores y transformarlos en el punto de partida para generar riquezas de todo tipo y vivir una vida mejor. Es posible que veas tus miedos como tus principales enemigos, pero luego de leer este libro serás capaz de hacerlos tus mejores aliados y motivadores.

Será más fácil concentrarte en el momento presente, obtener los resultados que te propones y fijar metas cada vez más desafiantes que harán de tu vida una experiencia significativa, extraordinaria y siempre en “modo hervir”.

Have economists neglected trust? The economy is fundamentally a network of relationships built on mutual expectations. More than that, trust is the glue that holds civilization together. Every time we interact with another person - to make a purchase, work on a project, or share a living space - we rely on trust. Institutions and relationships function because people place confidence in them. Benjamin Ho reveals the surprising importance of trust to how we understand our day-to-day economic lives.