Wealth and Freedom: An Introduction to Political Economy
Cambridge University Press, 7/6/1995
EAN 9780521447911, ISBN10: 0521447917
Paperback, 204 pages, 22.8 x 15.2 x 1.3 cm
Language: English
Modern life places a special emphasis on private affairs. Social institutions, and especially our economies, have been organized to facilitate the pursuit of private interests. At the center of this private world is a system of private property which, more than anything, satisfies our wants. Political economy studies the properties of this private world: How does it work, and how well does it satisfy our wants? What are the limits of the world of private affairs? Wealth and Freedom provides an introduction to political economy for the student or other interested nonspecialist. The book explores such key issues as the place of our economy in the larger social system, the importance of market institutions for individual autonomy, private enterprise as a system of economic development, poverty and inequality in market economies, global inequality, and the limits of the market and the role of government. Wealth and Freedom is distinctive in employing a rights-based approach to understanding and evaluating economic institutions. The author emphasizes the distinction between needs and wants as the basis for establishing the limits of the market, and concludes the book with a discussion of the relation between private wants and public ends.
List of figures and tables
Preface
Introduction
Part I. Economy and Society
1. The place of the economy
2. Needs and wants
Part II. Capitalism
3. Capitalism
4. The self-regulating market
5. Creative destruction
6. Labor
Part III. Inequality and Difference
7. The classical argument for inequality
8. Income and productive contribution
9. Rights and the market
10. Poverty and inequality
Part IV. International Society
11. International inequality
12. International society
Part V. Individual and Community
13. The limits of the market
14. Private ends, public good
References
Index.