economics theory

Hardcover. Salt Lake City, Gibbs Smith, 1st, 2005, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 229 pages, profusely illustrated in b&w. In "Building with Nature: Inspiration for the Arts & Crafts Home" Freudenheim weaves together the lives and philosophies of William Morris, John Ruskin, Frederick Law Olmsted, John Muir, Greene & Greene, Irving Gill, Bernard Maybeck, and others with the dramatic economic, social, design and cultural changes that took place in America between 1876 and 1916. Chronicling both intellectual theory and architectural history, this ground-breaking book will appeal to general readers as well as to those enthusiastic about the Arts and Crafts Movement, its architecture and furniture. Freudenheim demonstrates how the "simple life" manifested in the rustic architecture found in Yosemite, English cottages, Japanese barns, and Swiss chalets, became the basis for the design of the American Arts and Crafts home advocated by these pioneering thinkers. Their devotion to simplicity for both the interior and exterior design of these houses also helps to explain why they embraced plain, sturdy Mission Style furniture. Freudenheim points out how numerous individuals, both American and British, helped spread these ideas across America.

Hardcover. London/NY, Verso, 1st, 2008, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 194 pages. In this succinct and panoramic work--both stimulating for the specialist and accessible to the general reader--one of the world's leading social theorists, Goran Therborn, tackles the question of the trajectory of Marxism in the twentieth century and its legacy for radical thought in the twenty-first. Addressing the history of critical theory from the contemporary vantage-point characterized by postmodernism, post-Marxism and critiques of Eurocentrism, Therborn probes how the recent theoretical currents--including those of Slavoj Zizek, Antonio Negri, and Alain Badiou--have coped with the changed intellectual as well as political and economic contexts. In the light of these discussions, Therborn then proceeds to a global investigation of the parameters of twenty-first century politics. This will become the essential appraisal of Marxism in the modern age. Clean copy.

Hardcover. Princeton NJ, Princeton University Press, 1st, 2016, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 282 pages. Marx's Inferno reconstructs the major arguments of Karl Marx's Capital and inaugurates a completely new reading of a seminal classic. Rather than simply a critique of classical political economy, William Roberts argues that Capital was primarily a careful engagement with the motives and aims of the workers' movement. Understood in this light, Capital emerges as a profound work of political theory. Placing Marx against the background of nineteenth-century socialism, Roberts shows how Capital was ingeniously modeled on Dante's Inferno, and how Marx, playing the role of Virgil for the proletariat, introduced partisans of workers' emancipation to the secret depths of the modern "social Hell." In this manner, Marx revised republican ideas of freedom in response to the rise of capitalism. Clean copy.

Hardcover. UK, Cambridge University Press, 1st, 1984, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover in a lightly worn dust jacket, 251 pages. In a unique application of critical theory to the study of the role of ideology in politics, Jeffrey Herf explores the paradox inherent in the German fascists' rejection of the rationalism of the Enlightenment while fully embracing modern technology. He documents evidence of a cultural tradition he calls 'reactionary modernism' found in the writings of German engineers and of the major intellectuals of the. Weimar right: Ernst Juenger, Oswald Spengler, Werner Sombart, Hans Freyer, Carl Schmitt, and Martin Heidegger. The book shows how German nationalism and later National Socialism created what Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's propaganda minister, called the 'steel-like romanticism of the twentieth century'. By associating technology with the Germans, rather than the Jews, with beautiful form rather than the formlessness of the market, and with a strong state rather than a predominance of economic values and institutions, these right-wing intellectuals reconciled Germany's strength with its romantic soul and national identity. Light pencil underlining to some pages, otherwise clean.

Hardcover. NY, Viking, 1st, 2022, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 346 pages. In Status and Culture, W. David Marx weaves together the wisdom from history, psychology, sociology, anthropology, economics, philosophy, linguistics, semiotics, cultural theory, literary theory, art history, media studies, and neuroscience to demonstrate exactly how individual status seeking creates our cultural ecosystem. Marx examines three fundamental questions: Why do individuals cluster around arbitrary behaviors and take deep meaning from them? How do distinct styles, conventions, and sensibilities emerge? Why do we change behaviors over time and why do some behaviors stick around? The answers then provide new perspectives for understanding the seeming "weightlessness" of internet culture. Clean copy.

Softcover. Urbana IL, University of Illinois Press, 2nd Ed., 1986, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 226 pages. The important role of the Temperance movement throughout American history is analyzed as clashes and conflicts between rival social systems, cultures, and status groups. Sometimes the "dry" is winning the classic battle for prestige and political power. Sometimes, as in today's society, he is losing. This significant contribution to the theory of status conflict also discloses the importance of political acts as symbolic acts and offers a dramatistic theory of status politics, Gusfield provides a useful addition to the economic and psychological modes of analysis current in the study of political and social movements. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Harcourt, Brace and World, reprint, 1962, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover in a worn, chipped dust jacket, 403 pages. Distinguished British economist John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946) set off a series of movements that drastically altered the ways in which economists view the world. In his most important work, The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money (first published in1936), Keynes critiqued the laissez-faire policies of his day, particularly the proposition that a normally functioning market economy would bring full employment. Keynes's forward-looking work transformed economics from merely a descriptive and analytic discipline into one that is policy oriented. For Keynes, enlightened government intervention in a nation's economic life was essential to curbing what he saw as the inherent inequalities and instabilities of unregulated capitalism. No markings.

Softcover. NY, Macmillan, reprint, 1963, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 674 pages, b&w illustrations. According to Keynes' biographer, "Keynes' contributions to the theory of economics tended to be closely related to his practical proposals, and these in turn were also influenced by his general philosophy. An understanding of the background of his thought is indispensable for a correct interpretation of his conclusions. Furthermore, I venture to think that those who come after will be interested in Keynes, not only on account of his teachings and influence, but also for what he was in himself. If I am right in supposing that he was one of the greatest Englishmen of his age, then it is expedient that an attempt should be made to bring together all the varied aspects of his character and interests into a single biography." Light shelfwear.

Hardcover. Indianapolis, Liberty Press, 1st, 1976, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover in a worn, chipped dust jacket. 293 pages. SIGNED BY CHAMBERLAIN on title page, also INSCRIBED by him on the front fly leaf. Capitalism is a system that can stand on its own attainments, says John Chamberlain, and he offers here a fast-paced, provocative look at the intellectual forces and practical accomplishments that have created American capitalism.In clear, unequivocal language he discusses the ideas responsible for our economic institutions, the originators of these ideas, and the times in which they first became important. The political theories of the men who hammered out the Magna Carta and the Declaration of Independence; the thinking of John Locke, James Madison, and Adam Smith; the deeds and discoveries of the James Watts, Eli Whitneys, and Henry Fords-all these diverse elements are shown to be part of the tradition of a free society in which American capitalism has grown and flourished. A unique blend of political and economic theory and the practical accomplishments of businessmen and innovators, The Roots of Capitalism provides valuable insights into the ideas underlying the free economy. Clean copy.

Hardcover. Glencoe IL, The Free Press, 1st, 1957, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, brown cloth, 382 pages. Dust jacket flaps laid in, name inside front cover. Light pencil marking to about 10 pages. Ancient civilizations and medieval Europe had no "economies" -- no fixed prices for commodities, no production for markets. People have always exchanged goods, of course, but in the pre-modern world, exchange between individuals was most often done through social networks, always with a non-economic motivation. Scarcity, "entrepreneurship", the universal self-regulating market with fixed prices for goods, and the system of trade as we know it, and economics as the fundamental driving sector for all of society --- are all unique to the modern West.