Book picks similar to
Freer Markets, More Rules by Steven Kent Vogel


governance
economics
political-economy
intl-relations

Losing Isn't Everything: The Untold Stories and Hidden Lessons Behind the Toughest Losses in Sports History


Curt Menefee - 2016
    Yet lost are the stories on the other side of these history-making moments, the athletes who experienced not transcendent glory but crushing disappointment: the cornerback who missed the tackle on the big touchdown; the relief pitcher who lost the series; the world-record holding Olympian who fell on the ice.In Losing Isn’t Everything, famed sportscaster Curt Menefee, joined by bestselling writer Michael Arkush, examines a range of signature "disappointments" from the wide world of sports, interviewing the subject at the heart of each loss and uncovering what it means—months, years, or decades later—to be associated with failure. While history is written by the victorious, Menefee argues that these moments when an athlete has fallen short are equally valuable to sports history, offering deep insights into the individuals who suffered them and about humanity itself.Telling the losing stories behind such famous moments as the Patriots’ Rodney Harrison guarding the Giants' David Tyree during the "Helmet Catch" in Super Bowl XLII, Mary Decker’s fall in the 1984 Olympic 1500m, and Craig Ehlo who gave up "The Shot" to Michael Jordan in the 1989 NBA playoffs, Menefee examines the legacy of the hardest loses, revealing the unique path that athletes have to walk after they lose on their sport’s biggest stage. Shedding new light some of the most accepted scapegoat stories in the sports cannon, he also revisits both the Baltimore Colts' loss to the Jets in Super Bowl III, as well as the Red Sox loss in the 1986 World Series, showing why, despite years of humiliation, it might not be all Bill Buckner's fault.Illustrated with sixteen pages of color photos, this considered and compassionate study offers invaluable lessons about pain, resilience, disappointment, remorse, and acceptance that can help us look at our lives and ourselves in a profound new way.

Structure and Change in Economic History


Douglass C. North - 1981
    North's investigation is the question of property rights, the arrangements individuals & groups have made thru history to deal with the fundamental economic problem of scarce resources. In six theoretical chapters, North examines the structure of economic systems, outlines an economic theory of the state & the ideologies that undergird various modes of economic organization, & then explores the dynamic forces such as new technologies that cause institutions to adapt in order to survive. With this analytical framework in place, major phases in Western history come under careful reappraisal, from the origins of agriculture & the neolithic revolution thru the political economy of the ancient & medieval worlds to the industrial revolution & the economic transformations of the 20th century. Structure & Change in Economic History is a work that will reshape many established explanations of the growth of the west.

The Elusive Republic: Political Economy in Jeffersonian America


Drew R. McCoy - 1980
    The book was originally published by UNC Press in 1980.

Meltdown: A Free-Market Look at Why the Stock Market Collapsed, the Economy Tanked, and the Government Bailout Will Make Things Worse


Thomas E. Woods Jr. - 2009
    In clear, no-nonsense terms, Woods explains what led up to this economic crisis, who's really to blame, and why government bailouts won't work. Woods will reveal:* Which brave few economists predicted the economic fallout--and why nobody listened* What really caused the collapse* Why the Fed--not taxpayers--should have to answer for the current economic crisis* Why bailouts are band-aids that will only provide temporary relief and ultimately make things worse* What we should do instead, to put our economy on a healthy path to recoveryWith a foreword from Ron Paul, Meltdown is the free-market answer to the Fed-created economic crisis. As the new Obama administration inevitably calls for more regulations, Woods argues that the only way to rebuild our economy is by returning to the fundamentals of capitalism and letting the free market work

An Economic Theory of Democracy


Anthony Downs - 1957
    Downs treats this differently than do other students of politics. His explanations are systematically related to, and deductible from, precisely stated assumptions about the motivations that attend the decisions of voters and parties and the environment in which they act. He is consciously concerned with the economy in explanation, that is, with attempting to account for phenomena in terms of a very limited number of facts and postulates. He is concerned also with the central features of party politics in any democratic state, not with that in the United State or any other single country. I. BASIC STRUCTURE OF THE MODEL. 1. Introduction. 2. Party Motivation and the Function of Government in Society. 3. The Basic Logic of Voting. 4. The Basic Logic of Government Decision-Making. II. THE GENERAL EFFECTS OF UNCERTAINTY. 5. The Meaning of Uncertainty. 6. How Uncertainty Affects Government Decision-Making. 7. The Development of Political Ideologies as Means of Getting Votes. 8. The Statics and Dynamics of Party Ideologies 9. Problems of Rationality Under Coalition Governments. 10. Government Vote-Maximizing and Individual marginal Equilibrium. III. SPECIFIC EFFECTS OF INFORMATION COSTS. 11. The Process of Becoming Informed. 12. How Rational Citizens Reduce Information Costs. 13. The Returns From Information and Their Diminution. 14. The Causes and Effects of Rational Abstention. IV. DERIVATIVE IMPLICATIONS AND HYPOTHESIS. 15. A Comment on Economic Theories of Government Behavior. 16. Testable Prepositions Derived from the Theory.

Taxing Ourselves: A Citizen's Guide to the Debate Over Taxes


Joel B. Slemrod - 1996
    tax reform, the interested citizen is forced to choose between misleading sound bites and academic treatises. Taxing Ourselves bridges the gap between the two by presenting in clear non-technical language the key issues in U.S. tax reform: who should pay taxes, how taxes affect the economy and whether to reform or replace the current tax system. The authors discuss various alternative proposals in detail, including the flat tax and the sales tax, but they are not advocates for any of them; instead, they provide readers with the knowledge and the tools - including an informative overview of the U.S. tax system and an invaluable voter's guide to the tax policy debate - to make their own informed choices about how American citizens should tax themselves. The third edition of this popular guide has been extensively revised and updated to cover all changes in U.S. tax laws through to May 2003 and to reflect the most recent research and relevant data. It also provides new or expanded treatment of issues in the current debate, including tax cuts and whether they stimulate the economy, savings incentives, double taxation of corporate income, the estate tax, c

The Moral Foundations of Politics


Ian Shapiro - 2003
    Showing how these political philosophies have all been decisively shaped by the core values of the Enlightenment, he demonstrates that each one contains useful insights that survive their failures as comprehensive doctrines and that should inform our thinking about political legitimacy. Shapiro then turns to the democratic tradition. Exploring the main arguments for and against democracy from Plato's time until our own, he argues that democracy offers the best resources for realizing the Enlightenment's promise and managing its internal tensions. As such, democracy supplies the most attractive available basis for political legitimacy.

Fair Trade for All: How Trade Can Promote Development


Joseph E. Stiglitz - 2005
    Stiglitz here joins with fellow economist Andrew Charlton to offer a challenging and controversial argument about how globalization can actually help Third World countries to develop and prosper.In Fair Trade For All, Stiglitz and Charlton address one of the key issues facing world leaders today--how can the poorer countries of the world be helped to help themselves through freer, fairer trade? To answer this question, the authors put forward a radical and realistic new model for managing trading relationships between the richest and the poorest countries. Their approach is designed to open up markets in the interests of all nations and not just the most powerful economies, to ensure that trade promotes development, and to minimize the costs of adjustments. The book illuminates the reforms and principles upon which a successful settlement must be based.Vividly written, highly topical, and packed with insightful analyses, Fair Trade For All offers a radical new solution to the problems of world trade. It is a must read for anyone interested in globalization and development in the Third World.

The No-Nonsense Guide to International Development


Maggie Black - 2002
    The economic benefits of expensive large-scale infrastructure projects have not trickled down. Increasing concern about the environmental effects of rapid industrialization and a recognition of the need for sustainable development has led to tension between the industrial countries that have already damaged their environments and the poorer countries now being urged to take a globally responsible view. In this book Maggie Black traces the history of development from its post-colonial beginnings, and examines the relationship between development and economic growth, the impact development has had on the living conditions of the poor and on the environment, and whether development will have a specific role in the future or whether it will simply be subsumed under the concept of globalization.

HOW THE 1 PERCENT PROVIDES THE STANDARD OF LIVING OF THE 99 PERCENT


George Reisman - 2015
    As they see matters, wealth in the form of means of production and wealth in the form of consumers’ goods are essentially indistinguishable. For all practical purposes, they have no awareness of the existence of capital and of its importance. Thus, capitalists are generally depicted as fat men, whose girth allegedly signifies an excessive consumption of food and of wealth in general, while their alleged victims, the wage earners, are typically depicted as substantially underweight, allegedly signifying their inability to consume, thanks to the allegedly starvation wages paid by the capitalists.The truth is that in a capitalist economic system, the wealth of the capitalists is not only overwhelmingly in the form of means of production, such as factory buildings, machinery, farms, mines, stores, warehouses, and means of transportation and communication, but all of this wealth is employed in producing for the market, where its benefit is made available to everyone in the economic system who is able to afford to buy its products.Consider. Whoever can afford to buy an automobile benefits from the existence of the automobile factory and its equipment where that car was made. He also benefits from the existence of all the other automobile factories, whose existence and competition served to reduce the price he had to pay for his automobile. He benefits from the existence of the steel mill that provided the steel for his car, and from the iron mine that provided the iron ore needed for the production of that steel, and, of course, from the existence of all the other steel mills and iron mines whose existence and competition served to hold down the prices of the steel and iron ore that contributed to the production of his car.And, thanks to the great magnitude of wealth employed as capital, the demand for labor, of which capital is the foundation, is great enough and thus wages are high enough that virtually everyone is able to afford to a substantial degree most of the products of the economic system. For the capital of the capitalists is the foundation both of the supply of products that everyone buys and of the demand for the labor that all wage earners sell. More capital—a greater amount of wealth in the possession of the capitalists—means a both a larger and better supply of products for wage earners to buy and a greater demand for the labor that wage earners sell. Everyone, wage earners and capitalists alike, benefits from the wealth of the capitalists, because, as I say, that wealth is the foundation of the supply of the products that everyone buys and of the demand for the labor that all wage earners sell. More capital in the hands of the capitalists always means a more abundant, better quality of goods and services offered for sale and a larger demand for labor. The further effect is lower prices and higher wages, and thus a higher standard of living for wage earners.Furthermore, the combination of the profit motive and competition operates continually to improve the products offered in the market and the efficiency with which they are produced, thus steadily further improving the standard of living of everyone.In the alleged conflict between the so-called 99 percent and the so-called 1 percent, the program of the 99 percent is to seize as far as possible the wealth of the 1 percent and consume it. To the extent that it is enacted, the effect of this program can only be to impoverish everyone, and the 99 percent to a far greater extent than the 1 percent. To the extent that the 1 percent loses its mansions, luxury cars, and champagne and caviar, 99 times as many people lose their houses, run-of-the mill cars, and steak and hamburger.

Rescue Your Money: Your Personal Investment Recovery Plan


Ric Edelman - 2009
    With a cheerful tone that will boost even the most panicked investor's spirit, Edelman reveals the best investments you can make right now.If you're scared or confused about how to handle your investments and fed up with “advice” from brokers, advisors, and media darlings that has cost you huge sums and placed your financial security at risk, the cure is in your hands. Ric Edelman, an award-winning advisor with more than two decades of experience, reveals the one investment goal you should have, the two obstacles you'll face, and why you've been failing with your investment strategies. Above all, he shares the secret to successful investing—and even includes a special section for those who are already retired. -Rescue yourself from the pain of watching your life savings go down the drain. -Regain the confidence that your investments can provide you with lifelong financial security and prosperity. -Get a great night's sleep by not having to lie awake worrying about your investments.

The ABCs of Capitalism


Vivek Chibber - 2018
    A series of three ~40-page pamphlets written by Jacobin and Catalyst Magazine explaining capitalism and it's relationship to the state and class struggle.

The Dogged Victims of Inexorable Fate


Dan Jenkins - 1970
    Book by Jenkins, Dan

The Submerged State: How Invisible Government Policies Undermine American Democracy


Suzanne Mettler - 2011
    Mettler argues that this difficulty is not merely a failure of communication; rather it is endemic to the formidable presence of the “submerged state.” In recent decades, federal policymakers have increasingly shunned the outright disbursing of benefits to individuals and families and favored instead less visible and more indirect incentives and subsidies, from tax breaks to payments for services to private companies. These submerged policies, Mettler shows, obscure the role of government and exaggerate that of the market. As a result, citizens are unaware not only of the benefits they receive, but of the massive advantages given to powerful interests, such as insurance companies and the financial industry. Neither do they realize that the policies of the submerged state shower their largest benefits on the most affluent Americans, exacerbating inequality. Mettler analyzes three Obama reforms—student aid, tax relief, and health care—to reveal the submerged state and its consequences, demonstrating how structurally difficult it is to enact policy reforms and even to obtain public recognition for achieving them. She concludes with recommendations for reform to help make hidden policies more visible and governance more comprehensible to all Americans. The sad truth is that many American citizens do not know how major social programs work—or even whether they benefit from them. Suzanne Mettler’s important new book will bring government policies back to the surface and encourage citizens to reclaim their voice in the political process.

Contesting Democracy: Political Ideas in Twentieth-Century Europe


Jan-Werner Müller - 2006
    Skillfully blending intellectual, political, and cultural history, Jan-Werner Müller elucidates the ideas that shaped the period of ideological extremes before 1945 and the liberalization of West European politics after the Second World War. He also offers vivid portraits of famous as well as unjustly forgotten political thinkers and the movements and institutions they inspired.Müller pays particular attention to ideas advanced to justify fascism and how they relate to the special kind of liberal democracy that was created in postwar Western Europe. He also explains the impact of the 1960s and neoliberalism, ending with a critical assessment of today's self-consciously post-ideological age.