Book Description
A product of twenty years of analysis and activism, this unique book poses a radical alternative to the current free-market industrial system. A book of history, theory and polemic, the authors show how, if we are to survive, economies must become needs-based, environmentally sustainable, co-operative and local. They explain how the current capitalist system is none of these things, is inherently unstable and is dependent on the exploitation of various marginalized groups, particularly women, and of the environment. They call instead for a new politics and economics based on subsistence and present examples of such a perspective in practice.
Book Description
Most scholars and practitioners are now agreed that the world is on the threshold of a completely new era in the history of development. This Reader brings together in a powerfully diverse, but ultimately coherent, statement some of the very best thinking on the subject by scholars and activists from both North and South. They provide a devastating critique of what the mainstream paradigm has in practice done to the peoples of the world and to their richly diverse and sustainable ways of living. They also present some of the essential ideas out of which the victims of development are now constructing new, humane, culturally and ecologically respectful modes of development.
Customer Reviews:
Best of Post-development Perspectives .......2005-09-24
This is an excellent collection of papers by the best known scholars in the tradition of Post-development perspective. It examines critically most of the key conceptual categories of mainstream developmentalism. Various papers also demonstrate how the radical elements of 'alternative development' are coopted by mainstream developmentalism and therefore end up rejecting altogether the idea of development. A clear statement of the perspective of Post-development also helps its critics who, while critical of many aspects of mainstream developmentalism, refuse to 'throw the baby out with the bathwater'. Thus The Post-Development Reader is an extremely useful contribution to the literature on development at a time when there is tremendous confusion in development discourses which use the same terms to state very different ideas.
Diverse, multi-faceted.......2003-10-06
Like its subject, this book is incredibly diverse and many-sided. With so many illustrious contributors, it's hard not to be enlightened.
Mandatory Reading.......2003-01-02
As an "international development studies" major, I have leared a lot about the issue at my university but have consistently felt that something was missing or maybe wrong. After field experience in rural Bolivia and increasing doubts about the development paradigm, my advisor pointed me to this book (along with Wolfgang Sachs's "Development Dictionary"). At that moment reading these two books, which share much in common, felt like an intellectual revelation. The insights of great authors such as Escobar, Rahnema, Illich, and Shiva felt like a fresh breeze compared to my past studies. The deep insights of the writers have spurred only more questions which have occupied my time and imagination since. Given the stale manner in which development is taught and discussed in the academia and the media, I feel that this book is mandatory for any development student or practitioner regarless of experience or age. It is bound to make you think.
Must have.......2002-12-02
This book is a must have for anyone critical of the development discourse. Heavy texts from around forty different progressive scholars are accompanied by boxes with excerpts from even more, such radical thinkers and activists. Refreshing and almost invaluable!
Average customer rating:
|
Subsistence and Change: Lessons of Agropastoralism in Somalia (Wvss in Social, Political and Economic Development)
Garth Massey
Manufacturer: Westview Pr (Short Disc)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
 Production & Operations
| Management & Leadership
| Business & Investing
| Subjects
| Books
Agricultural
| Economics
| Business & Investing
| Subjects
| Books
Africa
| History
| Subjects
| Books
| African Studies
| Algeria
| Angola
| Benin
| Botswana
| Central Africa
| Comoros
| Democratic Republic of Congo
| Djibouti
| East Africa
| Egypt
| Equatorial Guinea
| Eritrea
| Ethiopia
| Gabon
| Gambia
| General
| Ghana
| Guinea
| Guinea Bissau
| Ivory Coast
| Kenya
| Lesotho
| Liberia
| Libya
| Madagascar
| Malawi
| Mali
| Mauritania
| Morocco
| Mozambique
| Namibia
| Niger
| Nigeria
| North Africa
| Rwanda
| Sao Tome and Principe
| Senegal
| Sierra Leone
| Somalia
| South Africa
| Southern Africa
| Sudan
| Swaziland
| Tanzania
| Togo
| Tunisia
| Uganda
| West Africa
| Western Sahara
| Zambia
| Zimbabwe
General
| Sociology
| Social Sciences
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
Look Inside Business Books
| Trip
| Specialty Stores
| Books
Look Inside History Books
| Trip
| Specialty Stores
| Books
ASIN: 0813372941 |
Average customer rating:
|
Macrofoundations of Political Economy and Development: Survival Conditions Analysis
David Goalstone
Manufacturer: Palgrave Macmillan
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
Policy & Current Events
| Popular Economics
| Business & Investing
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Popular Economics
| Business & Investing
| Subjects
| Books
Development & Growth
| Economics
| Business & Investing
| Subjects
| Books
Economic Conditions
| Economics
| Business & Investing
| Subjects
| Books
Economic Policy & Development
| Economics
| Business & Investing
| Subjects
| Books
Economic History
| Economics
| Business & Investing
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Politics
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
All Titles
| Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007
| Stores
| Books
ASIN: 140397621X
Release Date: 2007-04-03 |
Book Description
This book focuses on the macro factors behind underdevelopment. The author builds two macro foundations which lead to an understanding of the economic conditions a society must satisfy in order to exist, survive, and develop. Social subsistence is used as the entry point and fundamental principle, while both production and distribution survival conditions are formulated. Demography plays a large role in the analysis. Economic history and the history of economic thought are reinterpreted through the lens of macro foundations. The author posits the need for lesser-developed countries to achieve survival conditions as the fundamental basis for economic progress.
Book Description
Peter Bauer, a pioneer of development economics, is an incisive thinker whose work continues to influence fields from political science to history to anthropology. As Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen writes in the introduction to this book, "the originality, force, and extensive bearing of his writings have been quite astonishing." This collection of Bauer's essays reveals the full power and range of his thought as well as the central concern that underlies so much of his diverse work: the impact of people's conduct, their cultural institutions, and the policies of their governments on economic progress.
The papers here cover pressing and controversial issues, including the process that transforms a subsistence economy into an exchange economy, the reputed correlation between poverty and population density, the alleged responsibility of the West for Third World poverty, the often counterproductive results of foreign aid, and the effects of egalitarian policies on individual freedoms. Bauer addresses these and other matters with clarity, verve, and wit, combining his deep understanding of economic theory and methodology with keen insights into human nature. The book is a penetrating account of how to develop a prosperous economy alongside a free and fair society and a stimulating introduction to the work of a man who has done so much to shape our modern understanding of developing economies and of the relationship of economics to the other social sciences.
"This selection of essays will give readers a wonderful opportunity to learn about the rich world of cognizance and analysis erected by one of the great architects of political economy. I feel privileged to be able to offer this letter of invitation."--From the introduction by Amartya Sen, Nobel Laureate in economics
Customer Reviews:
An unsurpassed introduction to the economics of development.......2007-04-19
Peter Tamas Bauer, later made Baron Bauer by a grateful British government, was an unlikely, and in my opinion heroic, economist. Baron Bauer was born in Habsburg Hungary, and emigrated to Great Britain when its political climate became uncongenial. After some years of working for banks in the third world, he returned to England, where he somewhat reluctantly became a professor of economics, and the Diogenes of development economists.
At the time, economics was still greatly influenced by the economic theories advanced in the 1930s, when FDR for somewhat complicated reasons preferred to use fiscal rather than monetary policy to resolve the Great Depression. Economists were getting away with saying that less developed countries had no chance of becoming more developed unless they, the economists specialized in development, were given carte blanche to transfer significant sums of money to the third world, and allowed them to manage the economy. This, of course, provided them and the politicians with whom they had allied themselves, with many sinecures, and numerous sources of patronage and graft.
Peter Bauer didn't go along with this, and for many years was a voice in the wilderness, lamenting that economics had been taken over by a claque of charlatans. This book, with its introduction by a Nobel Prize winning economist, is one of his many books that are critical examinations of the dogmas of the economics of development, in which he expounds, in wonderful prose, on why many of the claims made by these economists defy common sense, and cannot be true. For example, he explains why the theory that the developing nations cannot develop without outside capital cannot be true; if outside capital were a condition sine qua non for economic development, the developed countries would never have been able to develop. I could go on and on.
To read Bauer's writing today, when China is growing rapidly is to read the work of a vindicated economical heretic. Nevertheless, the clarity and elegance of his prose, many of his insights into human nature, and the arrant arrogance of many politicians and economics are as timely as ever. His calls for responsible behavior, and emphasis on the fact that history is nothing less than the consequences of our actions are as timely as ever.
If your child is interested by politics or economics, or you are an academic wondering if it's not worth selling out to the erroneous party line, this book is well worth your while. Bauer was once a voice in the wilderness, today he's vindicated, and his ideas have done so much to advance the plight of the world's poorest, which, I suspect, is why Baron Bauer didn't pursue a more lucrative job in the business world.
Contrary to the claims of another reviewer, this is not the work of a reactionary; Baron Bauer was deeply skeptical of nation/building, imposing solutions from think tanks continents away, and the very idea that the English-speaker knows best, ideas which have found favor with the Bush and Blair regime. He was, instead an ardent Liberal in the classical sense of the word, who believed that people should be given the opportunity to make their fortune. It is indeed both an irony of history, and proof of the success of Bauer's ideas, that the very think tanks at which some of the lectures in this book were given, have now adopted the very mindset that Baron Bauer spent his entire life discrediting.
Collection of influential essays, most however twenty years.......2004-07-01
These are essays, which in the main were dissenting from the received wisdom of the 1970s concerning Third World - that population expansion was `out of control' and keeping people in debt, that there existed a vicious cycle of deprivation and so on.
His views on the supremacy of free trade, the counter productive nature of most forms of aid, and good local governance have become mainstream opinions, however they were not always so.
As this is a collection of transcripts and speeches, quite forceful language is used, and there is a lack of reference to empirical evidence, which I found quite disappointing - as anecdotal evidence is fine, but examples can also invoke counter examples e.g. if Hong Kong exemplifies the innate progress of motivated, free people in the absence of natural resources, secure boundaries and representative government then what does the economic progress of Mainland China represent?
His positive essays - Land and People, Population, Honk Kong, Western Aid and the title essay are very thought provoking and convincing. There is a challenging essay on egalitarianism - that people are born unequal in terms of talents, which is very thought provoking. However I was unhappy with his critical essays - on Western Guilt, the Liberal Death Wish as these had the flavour of an after dinner speech in a particularly reactionary dinner party. These seemed to be a wide ranging attack without purpose. It is quite useful to propose that wealth is a result of differential economic activity, but how useful is it to propose that western guilt about slavery is misguided because Arab countries practiced slavery more brutally for longer?
The book is worth reading for the title essay alone, and the introduction by Amartya Sen is erudite and intriguing. The key emphasis of the book is on freedom as the basis for development, freeing the individual within society to make progress and to retain the benefits of that progress.
Beyond the economics of self-denial.......2004-02-02
"We have sunk to such a depth that the restatement of the obvious has become the first duty of intelligent men." So wrote George Orwell, whom Peter Bauer quotes approvingly. Indeed, "From Subsistence to Exchange" is little more than an attempt to dispel popular misconceptions in the conventional wisdom of development economics.
The heart of Lord Bauer's argument is to take issue with the widespread excuses that have been put forth to explain why certain countries seem unable to prosper. Writing in times when state planning was in its intellectual apogee, Lord Bauer offered an alternative where the role of the individual and the market were central.
From this basic outlook follow many attacks on the fallacies of development economics. Lord Bauer dismisses with great ease the assumption that countries are poor due to the lack of adequate resources: at some point, he writes, every country was poor; if infusion of capital was a necessary condition for growth, then the West would still be living in the Stone Age.
But Lord Bauer does not stop there. He takes on other issues such as foreign aid. Not only is foreign aid based on the false premise of the vicious cycle of poverty, but it also creates a mentality of dependence. Even worse, the result in the recipient countries is the emergence of powerful interests whose sole purpose is to obtain a bigger piece of the aid cake.
Why then do rich countries offer so much aid? The answer for Lord Bauer is simple: guilt. Western and African intelligentsia does what it can to cultivate the belief that Africa's evils are of European doing. No matter that the evidence for this claim is scant or non-existent. After all, Lord Bauer writes, Africans were poor before Europeans got there and remain poor for long after they have left.
In the end, the message is clear. The legacy of post-war development economics was to construct a distorted image of why some countries are rich and some poor. At the basis of the convolution was the desire to find excuses for the failure to grow economically. "From Subsistence to Exchange" is a collection of essays that have rescued us from this intellectual trap.
Enlightening.......2003-09-07
The other reviewers are generally spot on with their comments about this collection of Bauer's works: wonderful, even if a little repetitive. I myself found the repetition useful for most of the book, even if the feeling of déjâ vu came over me once in a while. I'll thus say nothing more in general except that his writing style is erudite and fluid but gets a little arcane at a few points (especially in the first few essays).
As for the essays themselves: they're all great. My favorites were "Subsistance to Exchange," "Western Guilt," "Hong Kong," "Class on the Brain" and "Egalitariansim." These are penetrating in their analysis and effective in their prose. The last was truly inspirational as an attack on the foundations of egalitarianism.
"Eclessiatical Economics" was an interesting demonstration of the contradiction of the Vatican's position on development, but lacked some of the oomph of the others. "Liberal Death Wish" had the oomph and was interesting, but seemed a little of a diatribe, but can serve as an effective summary to most of the entire collection of essays. The title is a little misleading too, as Bauer doesn't discuss either classical-liberals or how left-"liberals" might have a death wish, except for western guilt. The others are almost too short to call essays, but still worthwhile.
While Bauer doesn't set out to expound the free-market or classical-liberal policies, per se, it's clear he feels that they are more likely to hold the keys to economic development than the vicious-cycle-of-poverty theory or western guilt.
Bastiat would be proud that classical-liberals can still write like this.
Excellent introdiction to Bauer and great as a stand-alone.......2001-05-20
"From Subsistence to Exchange: and other essays" (FSE), is a wonderfully insightful little book that throws light on the problems of the Third World economies, egalitarianism, the "mathematized" economics profession, and, among other things, offers rigorous arguments against foreign aid and Western guilt (for allegedly causing Third World poverty).
I found this book to be both a great introduction to development economics and Peter Bauer, as well as a handy catalog of refutations of popular economic myths. Additionally, the critical essay on the mathematization of the economics profession is valuable: It helps to buttress Bauer's thesis that economics is not an "ivory tower profession" (my words): It is a social science that must rely heavily on historical investigation and direct observation; it is not, nor can it ever be, like the natural sciences of physics and chemistry. The attempt to make it more "respectable" by hiding simple truths among complex formulae, or worse, by deriving conclusions from mathematical models that do not resemble the real world, has resulted in putting elaborate clothes on a non-existent emperor (Bauer's words). It has also fueled fallacious attacks on the entire field and reduced both public understanding of and respect for economics. Bauer's essay on that topic is a breath of fresh air.
In discussing popular myths, Bauer tackles the "viscous circle of poverty," among numerous others, e.g., that the West is rich because the Third World is poor. Often these myths are based on similar false premises. For example, the refutation of the vicious circle argument also undermines the exploitation one (noted above).
Here's how: If the vicious circle of poverty is correct, then this statement is also: Without outside investment, third world countries cannot break out of the circle of poverty, because they can not save in order to invest in capital, because they live at a subsistence level and (usually) produce only enough to meet short-term needs.
Bauer states it better, but that's a decent summary. Bauer takes this to the limit of its logic: If the above were true, then the human race could never have left the stone age: the world never received capital (or any) investment from outside of itself. The vicious circle argument ignores the factors that Bauer notes are crucial to finding answers to economic problems: namely, "that economic performance depends on personal, cultural, and political factors, on people's aptitudes, attitudes, motivations, and social and political institutions."
That kind of outlook, intuitively valuable, is inimical to modern applied "mathecomics," the practitioners of which typically deride an outlook like Bauer's as mere "empiricism." Indeed, Bauer discusses just such a caricature.
The argument against the circle of poverty implies that there is no fixed amount of income to be distributed. Again, for someone with an eye on economic history, that should be intuitively true. Yet if there is no fixed income, then the people in the West are not necessarily rich only because the Third World is poor. Bauer notes, having extensively studied the Third World countries and its people, that those with the least number of ties to the West are the worst off!
There are so many other insights in this book that to adequately catalog them all would require thousands of words. Yet FSE is short and easy to understand. I read this book alongside Chomsky's "World Orders Old and New" until I realized that Chomsky, when he actually gave an argument, was eviscerated by Bauer's arguments and knowledge. Of course, this represents the merits of Bauer's historical and observational approach to Chomsky's pronouncement from on-high approach. Bauer lives in and describes reality. Chomsky does neither.
As a final note, although this book is repetitive as the reviewer below me noted, Bauer's points need to be drilled into people's minds. Repetition of key points and arguments helps to cement them in one's memory; Bauer's excellent and fascinating writing does not get the justice it deserves from this review, and it is not something that, once read, you will want to forget.
Book Description
This book follows the difficult lives of people living in the village of Kragur in Papua New Guinea. They have been in poverty since European contact and now must find a way to become prosperous.
Book Description
Originally published in 1978.
Book Description
This book describes research on low-literate, poor buyers and sellers in subsistence marketplaces, the consequent development of an innovative marketplace literacy educational program that enables consumer and entrepreneurial literacy, and implications of the research and the educational program for business, education, and a variety of disciplines and functions. There are two important resources that individuals living in subsistence need to function in the economic realm: finances and know-how. The book describes an educational program that focuses on enabling generic skills about the marketplace. This program uses the “know-why” or an understanding of marketplaces as a basis for the know-how of being an informed buyer or seller. This volume discusses implications of the research and the educational program for non-profit organizations, for research and practice in education, for business research and practice, and for academic and applied research.
Books:
- The Toyota Product Development System: Integrating People, Process And Technology
- The Wheat-Free Cook: Gluten-Free Recipes for Everyone
- The Writings of Florence Scovel Shinn: The Game of Life and How to Play It, Your Word Is Your Wand,the Secret Door to Success, the Power of the Spok
- This Moment on Earth: Today's New Environmentalists and Their Vision for the Future
- This Moment on Earth: Today's New Environmentalists and Their Vision for the Future
- Thomas Jefferson's Travels in Europe, 1784-1789
- Thomson Advantage Books: Sustaining the Earth: An Integrated Approach (with ThomsonNOW, InfoTrac® 1-Semester Printed Access Card) (Advantage Series:)
- Traditional Mexican Style Interiors (Schiffer Design Book)
- Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1,500 Years
- Versailles
Books Index
Books Home
Recommended Books
- Robert Rauschenberg: Combines
- King of the World: Muhammed Ali and the Rise of an American Hero
- Field Desorption Mass Spectrometry
- In the Twilight, in the Evening
- Living with Feeling: The Art of Emotional Expression
- Learning from Las Vegas - Revised Edition: The Forgotten Symbolism of Architectural Form
- Lost Women of the Bible: Finding Strength & Significance through Their Stories
- The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation
- Esprit: The Comprehensive Design Principle
- Fungal Physiology, 2nd Edition
Gaviotas: A Village to Reinvent the World
Nature and Properties of Soils, The (14th Edition)
There Is An Alternative: Subsistence and Worldwide Resistance to Corporate Globalization
The Essential Agrarian Reader: The Future of Culture, Community, and the Land
Ecofeminism
