The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups


Mancur Olson - 1965
    Applying economic analysis to the subjects of the political scientist, sociologist, and economist, Mancur Olson examines the extent to which the individuals that share a common interest find it in their individual interest to bear the costs of the organizational effort.The theory shows that most organizations produce what the economist calls "public goods"--goods or services that are available to every member, whether or not he has borne any of the costs of providing them. Economists have long understood that defense, law, and order were public goods that could not be marketed to individuals, and that taxation was necessary. They have not, however, taken account of the fact that private as well as governmental organizations produce public goods.The services the labor union provides for the worker it represents, or the benefits a lobby obtains for the group it represents, are public goods: they automatically go to every individual in the group, whether or not he helped bear the costs. It follows that, just as governments require compulsory taxation, many large private organizations require special (and sometimes coercive) devices to obtain the resources they need. This is not true of smaller organizations for, as this book shows, small and large organizations support themselves in entirely different ways. The theory indicates that, though small groups can act to further their interest much more easily than large ones, they will tend to devote too few resources to the satisfaction of their common interests, and that there is a surprising tendency for the "lesser" members of the small group to exploit the "greater" members by making them bear a disproportionate share of the burden of any group action.All of the theory in the book is in Chapter 1; the remaining chapters contain empirical and historical evidence of the theory's relevance to labor unions, pressure groups, corporations, and Marxian class action.

DIY Financial Advisor: A Simple Solution to Build and Protect Your Wealth (Wiley Finance)


Wesley R. Gray - 2015
    By way of background, a family office is a company, or group of people, who manage the wealth a family has gained over generations. The term 'family office' has an element of cachet, and even mystique, because it is usually associated with the mega-wealthy. However, practically speaking, virtually any family that manages its investments—independent of the size of the investment pool—could be considered a family office. The difference is mainly semantic. DIY Financial Advisor outlines a step-by-step process through which investors can take control of their hard-earned wealth and manage their own family office. Our research indicates that what matters in investing are minimizing psychology traps and managing fees and taxes. These simple concepts apply to all families, not just the ultra-wealthy. But can—or should—we be managing our own wealth? Our natural inclination is to succumb to the challenge of portfolio management and let an 'expert' deal with the problem. For a variety of reasons we discuss in this book, we should resist the gut reaction to hire experts. We suggest that investors maintain direct control, or at least a thorough understanding, of how their hard-earned wealth is managed. Our book is meant to be an educational journey that slowly builds confidence in one's own ability to manage a portfolio. We end our book with a potential solution that could be applicable to a wide-variety of investors, from the ultra-high net worth to middle class individuals, all of whom are focused on similar goals of preserving and growing their capital over time. DIY Financial Advisor is a unique resource. This book is the only comprehensive guide to implementing simple quantitative models that can beat the experts. And it comes at the perfect time, as the investment industry is undergoing a significant shift due in part to the use of automated investment strategies that do not require a financial advisor's involvement. DIY Financial Advisor is an essential text that guides you in making your money work for you—not for someone else!

Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste: How Neoliberalism Survived the Financial Meltdown


Philip Mirowski - 2013
    Yet in the harsh light of a new day, attacks against government intervention and the global drive for austerity are as strong as ever. Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste is the definitive account of the wreckage of what passes for economic thought, and how neoliberal ideas were used to solve the very crisis they had created. Now updated with a new afterword, Philip Mirowski’s sharp and witty work provides a roadmap for those looking to escape today’s misguided economic dogma.

The Long Twentieth Century


Giovanni Arrighi - 1994
    Arrighi argues that capitalism has unfolded as a succession of “long centuries,” each of which produced a new world power that secured control over an expanding world-economic space. Examining the changing fortunes of Florentine, Venetian, Genoese, Dutch, English and finally American capitalism, Arrighi concludes with an examination of the forces that have shaped and are now poised to undermine America’s world dominance. A masterpiece of historical sociology, The Long Twentieth Century rivals in scope and ambition contemporary classics by Perry Anderson, Charles Tilly and Michael Mann.

Gambling with Other People’s Money: How Perverse Incentives Caused the Financial Crisis


Russ Roberts - 2019
    Russ Roberts argues that the true underlying cause of the mess was the past bailouts of large financial institutions that allowed these institutions to gamble carelessly because they were effectively using other people’s money. The author warns that despite the passage of Dodd-Frank, it is widely believed that we have done nothing to eliminate ‘Too Big to Fail.’ That perception allows the largest financial institutions to continue to gamble with taxpayer money.

Scandinavian Unexceptionalism: Culture, Markets and the Failure of Third-Way Socialism (Readings in Political Economy)


Nima Sanandaji - 2015
    It is also vital that Scandinavians themselves read this book to help them understand the market reforms that are essential for a successful future.

Make Money from Non-Fiction Kindle Books: How to Maximize Your Royalties, Get Paid to Capture Leads and Rapidly Build a Successful "Backend" Business


John Tighe - 2015
    This is not a book about how to write or market Kindle books...This is a book about how to make money from non-fiction Kindle books.That distinction is critical. Before you even think about what to write or how to market your books you need to be crystal clear on how you plan to make money from them. Most people don’t bother and they leave a huge amount of money on the table as a result!They could be losing anywhere from thousands of dollars a year to tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands…It depends on the number of Kindle books they have and the nature of their Kindle business and the crazy thing is they don’t even know it!I don’t want you to make that make that mistake. I don’t want you to leave thousands of dollars on the table month after month because you didn’t know how to tap into the multiple income streams that are possible through Kindle books.I don’t want you to be out of pocket to the tune of thousands of dollars because you weren’t aware of how simple pricing strategies can triple your royalties or double your leads overnight.This book will help you think through how you will make money from your non-fiction Kindle books so that you can maximize your income from each one.If you get this right then you have the chance to achieve something that’s both very rare and very special. You have the chance to build powerful income streams and start living life on your terms.

The Failure of the New Economics


Henry Hazlitt - 1959
    He wrote a line-by-line commentary and refutation of one of the most destructive, fallacious, and convoluted books of the century. The target here is John Maynard Keynes's General Theory, the book that appeared in 1936 and swept all before it. In economic science, Keynes changed everything. He supposedly demonstrated that prices don't work, that private investment is unstable, that sound money is intolerable, and that government was needed to shore up the system and save it. It was simply astonishing how economists the world over put up with this, but it happened. He converted a whole generation in the late period of the Great Depression. By the 1950s, almost everyone was Keynesian. But Hazlitt, the nation's economics teacher, would have none of it. And he did the hard work of actually going through the book to evaluate its logic according to Austrian-style logical reasoning. The result: a 500-page masterpiece of exposition. Murray Rothbard was blown away.

Confessions of an Economic Hit Man


John Perkins - 2004
    Former Economic Hit Man John Perkins goes behind the scenes of the current geopolitical crisis and offers bold solutions to our most pressing problems. Drawing on interviews with other EHMs, jackals, CIA operatives, reporters, businessmen, and activists, Perkins reveals the secret history of events that have created the current American Empire, including: How the defeats in Vietnam and Iraq have benefited big businessThe role of Israel as Fortress America in the Middle EastTragic repercussions of the IMF's Asian Economic CollapseThe current Latin American revolution and its lessons for democracyU.S. blunders in Tibet, Congo, Lebanon, and VenezuelaFrom the U.S. military in Iraq to infrastructure development in Indonesia, from Peace Corps volunteers in Africa to jackals in Venezuela, Perkins exposes a conspiracy of corruption that has fueled instability and anti-Americanism around the globe, with consequences reflected in our daily headlines. Having raised the alarm, Perkins passionately addresses how Americans can work to create a more peaceful and stable world for future generations.

Them And Us: Politics, Greed And Inequality Why We Need A Fair Society


Will Hutton - 2010
    Pub Date: 2010 Pages: 256 Publisher: Little own An incisive look at how our society has the fuller the into inequality and how to address this most crucial blight is on our times

Right-Wing Collectivism: The Other Threat to Liberty


Jeffrey Tucker - 2017
    Most people of the current generation lack a sense of the historical sweep of the intellectual side of the right-wing collectivist position. Jeffrey Tucker, in this collection written between 2015 and 2017, argues that this movement represents the revival of a tradition of interwar collectivist thought that might at first seem like a hybrid but was distinctly mainstream between the two world wars. It is anti-communist but not for the reasons that were conventional during the Cold War, that is, because communism opposed freedom in the liberal tradition.Right-collectivism also opposes traditional liberalism. It opposes free trade, freedom of association, free migration, and capitalism understood as a laissez-faire free market. It rallies around nation and state as the organizing principles of the social order—and trends in the direction of favoring one-man rule—but positions itself as opposed to leftism traditionally understood.We know about certain fascist leaders from the mid-20th century, but not the ideological orientation that led to them or the ideas they left on the table to be picked up generations later. For the most part, and until recently, it seemed to have dropped from history. Meanwhile, the prospects for social democratic ideology are fading, and something else is coming to fill that vacuum. What is it? Where does it come from? Where is it leading?This book seeks to fill the knowledge gap, to explain what this movement is about and why anyone who genuinely loves and longs for liberty classically understood needs to develop a nose and instinct for spotting the opposite when it comes in an unfamiliar form. We need to learn to recognize the language, the thinkers, the themes, the goals of a political ethos that is properly identified as fascist."Jeffrey Tucker in his brilliant book calls right-wing populism what it actually is, namely, fascism, or, in its German form national socialism, nazism. You need Tucker’s book. You need to worry. If you are a real liberal, you need to know where the new national socialism comes from, the better to call it out and shame it back into the shadows. Now."— Deirdre McCloskey

Shaky Ground: The Strange Saga of the U.S. Mortgage Giants


Bethany McLean - 2015
    The U.S. housing market is roughly $10 trillion, making it one of the largest segments of the bond market. Roughly 70 percent of the American population has a mortgage, and for most people, the mortgage is the most important financial instrument in their lives. But until the financial crisis, few people knew the essential role that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac play in their mortgages. Given the $188 billion government bailout of the two firms — the most expensive bailout in history — the politics surrounding housing are worse than they've ever been, and the two gigantic firms sit in limbo. Best-selling investigative journalist Bethany McLean, the coauthor of The Smartest Guys in the Room and All the Devils Are Here, explains why the situation is dangerous and unsustainable, and proposes a few solutions — from the perfect, but politically unfeasible to the doable, but ugly.

The Economics Book: Big Ideas Simply Explained


Niall Kishtainy - 2012
    Whether you're a beginner, and avid student, or an armchair expert, you'll find plenty to stimulate you within this book.--book jacket

The Instant Economist: Everything You Need to Know About How the Economy Works


Timothy Taylor - 2012
    We are all economists-when we work, save for the future, invest, pay taxes, and buy our groceries. Yet many of us feel lost when the subject arises. Award-winning professor Timothy Taylor tackles all the key questions and hot topics of both microeconomics and macroeconomics, including:• Why do budget deficits matter?• What exactly does the Federal Reserve do?• Does globalization take jobs away from American workers?• Why is health insurance so costly?The Instant Economist offers the knowledge and sophistication to understand the issues- so you can understand and discuss economics on a personal, national, and global level.

The New Empire of Debt


William Bonner - 2009
    Along the way, Bonner and Wiggin cast a wide angle lens that looks back in history and ahead to the coming century: showing how dramatic changes in the economic power of the United States will inevitably impact every American.Reveals the financial realities the United States currently faces and what the ultimate outcome may be Weaves together the worlds of politics, economics, and personal finance in a way that underscores the severity of the situation Addresses the events leading up to the implosion of the U.S. financial system Looks ahead to help you avoid the pitfalls presented by a weaker United States Other titles by Bonner: Empire of Debt, Financial Reckoning Day, and Mobs, Messiahs, and MarketsOther titles by Wiggin: I.O.U.S.A., Demise of the Dollar, and Financial Reckoning DayThe United States is heading down a difficult path. The New Empire of Debt clearly shows how this has happened and discusses what you can do to overcome the financial challenges that will arise as the situation deteriorates.