288 results for "Business"

For a New Liberty The Libertarian Manifesto

Murray N. Rothbard
In For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto, Rothbard proposes a once-and-for-all escape from the two major political parties, the ideologies they embrace, and their central plans for using state power against people. Libertarianism is Rothbard's radical alternative that says state power is unworkable and immoral and ought to be curbed and finally overthrown.To make his case, Rothbard deploys his entire system of thought: natural law, natural rights, Austrian economics, American history, the theory of the state, and more.It is relentless, scientific, analytical, and morally energetic — a book that makes an overwhelming case. Indeed, it gave an entire movement its intellectual consciousness and earned Rothbard the titles "Mr. Libertarian" and "The State's Greatest Living Enemy."Society without the nation-state? Rothbard shows that this is the way for peace, prosperity, security, and freedom for all. In the entire history of libertarian ideas, no book has more successfully combined ideological rigor, theoretical exposition, political rhetoric, historical illustration, and strategic acumen. Rothbard poured a lifetime of research and all his intellectual energy into this project and he succeeded in writing a classic.The book is the result of the only contract Rothbard ever received from a mainstream commercial publisher. He was asked to sum up the whole of the libertarian creed. Looking at the original manuscript, which was nearly complete after its first draft, it seems that it was a nearly effortless joy for him to write. It is seamless, unrelenting, and full of life.He cut no corners and pulled no punches. It appeared in 1973 and created a whole movement that set out to crush the political monopoly.In subject after subject, this book is informative, bracing, and challenging. It also features the characteristically clear writing style for which Rothbard is famous, which stemmed from his organized thinking and passionate drive to teach and change the world.The book begins with American history to show that the revolution of 1776 was the most libertarian of any in history. The pastors, pamphleteers, and statesmen who led it held that the state has no rights that the people themselves do not possess. They demanded full liberty, not some truncated version that existed in the old world. In this discussion, the reader comes to appreciate the founders of the United States of America as never before.Rothbard then sets out to rekindle that fire, first through a discussion of the philosophy and ethics of freedom. The central axiom: no man or group of men may aggress against the person and property of anyone else. He justifies the axiom on the basis of natural rights. It is an axiom that has few opponents, until Rothbard spells out its implications: taxation is theft, conscription is slavery, and war is mass murder, among many other points.Bracing indeed! But the state is the primary violator of this simple axiom. It presumes the right to rob and kill while purporting to protect us from robbing and killing. Thus follows a full theory of the state, how it gains and maintains controls over the population (but not through a "social contract"!), the various failed methods for keeping it in check (not even constitutions work!), its operations and tendencies to work its evil (it never has enough power), and how intellectuals become co-opted by the forces of state power.The book is still regarded as "dangerous" precisely because, once the exposure to Rothbardianism takes place, no other book on politics, economics, history, or sociology can be read the same way again.
Ludwig von Mises Institute 2020 420 pages

The road to a free economy: shifting from a socialist system : the example of Hungary

Kornai, János
The socialist world of Eastern Europe is undergoing its second revolution of the 20th century, moving away from a centralized government to one which is more democratic. One of the central questions of this transition is how economic mechanisms may be used to help effect the change. Focusing on the example of Hungary, this text examines the problems faced today by all Eastern European economies, in the light of the rapidly changing political situation. The author criticizes the current practice of state ownership, calling instead for the steady liberalization of the private sector. He proposes a "surgical operation for stabilization" that would put an end to inflation, balance budgets and open the way for more realistic market prices. The text also examines the political necessities for a successful economic transition. It outlines welfare policies necessary for the human execution of economic change and highlights the connections between political democracy and economic stabilization.
W.W. Norton 1990 224 pages

Making fast food: from the frying pan into the fryer

Reiter, Ester
The flourishing fast food industry represents one particular blueprint of how to live. Reiter analyses the profound consequences of this blueprint for many spheres of life: women's work, youth employment, the labour movement, the family, and the community. Since the 1970s young people and women have increasingly entered the job market in low waged, service-sector jobs. Family life, she explains, has changed dramatically in the last forty years as many activities that were traditionally part of the home have been replaced by services available in the marketplace. The production of meals and those who produce them have moved from the family kitchen to the highly regulated corporate workplace where workers are like the interchangeable parts of a machine.
McGill-Queen's University Press 1991-09-03 211 pages

The Making of Global Capitalism The Political Economy of American Empire

Sam Gindin,Leo Panitch
The all-encompassing embrace of world capitalism at the beginning of the twenty-first century was generally attributed to the superiority of competitive markets. Globalization had appeared to be the natural outcome of this unstoppable process. But today, with global markets roiling and increasingly reliant on state intervention to stay afloat, it has become clear that markets and states aren’t straightforwardly opposing forces. In this groundbreaking work, Leo Panitch and Sam Gindin demonstrate the intimate relationship between modern capitalism and the American state, including its role as an “informal empire” promoting free trade and capital movements. Through a powerful historical survey, they show how the US has superintended the restructuring of other states in favor of competitive markets and coordinated the management of increasingly frequent financial crises. The Making of Global Capitalism , through its highly original analysis of the first great economic crisis of the twenty-first century, identifies the centrality of the social conflicts that occur within states rather than between them. These emerging fault lines hold out the possibility of new political movements transforming nation states and transcending global markets.
Verso Books 2025-08-05 480 pages

Famine crimes: politics & the disaster relief industry in Africa

De Waal, Alexander
Famine Crimes is a factually rich, powerfully intelligent, morally important analysis of the persistence of famine in Africa. Using comparative studies from other parts of the world and a detailed knowledge of specific cases in Africa, de Waal lays the blame for Africa's problems with starvation on the political failings of African governments, western donors, and international relief agencies. The message of this important book is that no one need starve in Africa.
African Rights & the International African Institute in association with James Currey, Oxford & Indiana University Press, Bloomington 1997-10-01 238 pages

Capital and credit in British overseas trade: the view from the Chesapeake, 1700-1776

Price, Jacob M.
In a model study Jacob Price illuminates the dynamic growth of Britain’s foreign trade in the eighteenth century through an investigation of the investment patterns and credit institutions that financed that expansion. Concentrating on the trade between Britain and the Chesapeake tobacco colonies of Virginia and Maryland, for which a unique set of records exists, Price surveys the ways in which commerce developed and working capital was mobilized in Britain to support expanding overseas trade. Price develops the clearest picture ever of the financial environment within Britain as it affected Southern colonies in the preindustrial age. He does so by determining the kind of capital resources merchants in foreign trade actually commanded and measuring how much of their own wealth merchants brought to trade. In great and absorbing detail he discusses also the development of merchant-oriented banks in London and other ports, reinvestment of profits, long-term borrowing on bond, and the long-term credit provided to export merchants by wholesalers in textiles, ironmongery, and other industries. The relationship of debt to the coming of the American Revolution is also treated. Tobacco growers suffered more than others from a psychological unease caused by immense debt and were more revolutionary than farmers with less intensive capital needs and, hence, with lighter debt. This history will enlighten Anglo-American historians, economic historians, and historians of the American revolutionary era.
Harvard University Press 1980-12-02 233 pages

World view: global strategies for the new economy

Garten,JeffreyE
How to Globalize to Survive in the New Economy At a time in which globalization impacts corporate strategy as never before, corporate leaders are challenged to consider all the implications of a new global economy. Characterized by a myriad of competing forces, this new global economy is highlighted by unprecedented advances in technology of all kinds. With such unrelenting change blurring the view, corporate leaders need the benefit of the best thinking in order to focus on the right global strategies. World View offers just such thinking, featuring examples of strategies and best practices used by successful companies worldwide in moving toward global markets. In his introduction to this collection of Harvard Business Review articles, editor Jeffrey Garten pinpoints five emerging themes: * Operating in a global market requires CEOs to rethink every aspect of their strategies. * The best strategies require that organizations gather massive amounts of information and process it effectively. * Companies that succeed on a global scale are constant innovators, learning and implementing simultaneously. * Great global companies create cultures conducive to extensive internal and external collaboration and networking. * Radical change brings unprecedented opportunity to capture markets and enhance shareholder value. Seeing globalization through the eyes of leading thinkers and executives who have mastered its challenges, World View presents forward-thinking insights for corporate leaders determined to succeed in the always-new and uncertain global economy. A Harvard Business Review Book.
Harvard Business School Press 2000-01-02 340 pages

Lessons from the Great Depression

Temin, Peter
Do events of the 1930s carry a message for the 1990s? If there is one key lesson to be learned, Peter Temin points out, it is that political ideology drives economic events. The Great Depression was caused by politicians and policymakers following the wrong economic ideology, not by a mechanical breakdown of the system. "Lessons from the Great Depression "provides an integrated view of the depression, covering the experience in Britain France, Germany, and the United States. It describes the causes of the depression, why it was so widespread and prolonged, and what brought about eventual recovery. Temin finds parallels today in the relentless deflationary course followed by the VS. Federal Reserve Board and the British government in the early 1980s, and in the dogged adherence by the Reagan administration to policies generated by a discredited economic theory - supply side economics. Throughout this informative and highly readable account, Temin searches for and identifies guidelines for the economic and political decisions to be made in the final decade of this century. He considers the proper role of economic and political models and ideologies in the fashioning of economic policy, the advantages and disadvantages of international economic cooperation and long term versus short term focus in the making of economic policy Peter Temin is Professor of Economics at MIT. "Lessons from the Great Depression "is included in the Lionel Robbins Lecture Series.
MIT Press 1989 193 pages

Struggle and hope

Kornai, János
This major book presents an objective and penetrating economic analysis of stabilization and reform in Eastern Europe, combined with a compassionate plea for individual rights and solidarity. Janos Kornai - one of the most famous Hungarian economists of his generation - focuses on two main issues: first, the problems of stabilization and adjustment, which are painful but necessary conditions of sustainable growth and second, the reform of the 'premature welfare state' of Eastern European countries, which is disproportionately large in relation to the resources available and which was hitherto managed in a highly centralized, bureaucratic and paternalistic way. Struggle and Hope goes beyond most other books on the transition process by placing considerable emphasis on the understanding of the ethical implications and the historical roots of each problem, and also the political conditions and consequences of change. Although economic efficiency is extremely important, it is not the exclusive criterion; ethical principles of individual sovereignty and solidarity must also receive particular attention. Professor Kornai's insightful analysis will become required reading for all those concerned with the process of post-socialist transition.
Edward Elgar 1999 304 pages

An Economic Theorist's Book of Tales China Edition

Akerlof, George A.
These essays explore what happens when a skilful economist makes unconventional assumptions. Economic theory has traditionally relied upon a tacit and 'classical' set of assumptions that have gradually acquired a life of their own in defining how economists write and how they justify economic models. Similarly, these assumptions have acquired an autonomous character: they guide the way economists think about the world. In consequence, consideration of alternative assumptions has become taboo. These essays are substantively and stylistically novel because they break these taboos and bring new assumptions into economic theory. The papers apply this adventurous approach to a wide range of issues - from insurance markets and trade in underdeveloped countries to unemployment and discrimination. Some of the essays derive the implications for economic markets of costly asymmetric information. Others explore the findings of other social sciences such as anthropology, psychology and sociology.
Cambridge University Press 2015-01-29 240 pages

Agriculture and food in crisis: conflict, resistance, and renewal

Fred Magdoff,Brian Tokar
The failures of “free-market” capitalism are perhaps nowhere more evident than in the production and distribution of food. Although modern human societies have attained unprecedented levels of wealth, a significant amount of the world’s population continues to suffer from hunger or food insecurity on a daily basis. In Agriculture and Food in Crisis , Fred Magdoff and Brian Tokar have assembled an exceptional collection of scholars from around the world to explore this frightening long-term trend in food production. While approaching the issue from many angles, the contributors to this volume share a focus on investigating how agricultural production is shaped by a system that is oriented around the creation of profit above all else, with food as nothing but an afterthought. As the authors make clear, it is technically possible to feed to world’s people, but it is not possible to do so as long as capitalism exists. Toward that end, they examine what can be, and is being, done to create a human-centered and ecologically sound system of food production, from sustainable agriculture and organic farming on a large scale to movements for radical land reform and national food sovereignty. This book will serve as an indispensible guide to the years ahead, in which world politics will no doubt come to be increasingly understood as food politics.
Monthly Review Press 2010-11-01 348 pages