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Open-Economy Politics
Robert H. Bates
Manufacturer: Princeton University Press
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Coffee, Society, and Power in Latin America (Johns Hopkins Studies in Atlantic History and Culture)
ASIN: 0691005192 |
Book Description
Coffee is traded in one of the few international markets ever subject to effective political regulation. In Open-Economy Politics, Robert Bates explores the origins, the operations, and the collapse of the International Coffee Organization, an international "government of coffee" that was formed in the 1960s. In so doing, he addresses key issues in international political economy and comparative politics, and analyzes the creation of political institutions and their impact on markets. Drawing upon field work in East Africa, Colombia, and Brazil, Bates explores the domestic sources of international politics within a unique theoretical framework that blends game theoretic and more established approaches to the study of politics.
The book will appeal to those interested in international political economy, comparative politics, and the political economy of development, especially in Latin America and Africa, and to readers wanting to learn more about the economic and political realities that underlie the coffee market. It is also must reading for those interested in "the new institutionalism" and modern political economy.
Book Description
A leading economic journalist explains why Washington's responses to globalization have created a global worker surplus that undermines both American workers and those in developing nations.
As evidenced by the WTO riots in Seattle in December 1999, there is a volatile debate among Americans over how the new world economy affects our standards of living and our country's chances for future prosperity. With giant multinational companies based in the U.S. and other wealthy countries transferring ever more factories and labs to poorer countries, the fear is that slave-wage workers overseas are undermining the bargaining power of labor in the industrialized world.
As evidenced by the WTO riots in Seattle in December 1999, there is a volatile debate among Americans over how the new world economy affects our standards of living and our country's chances for future prosperity. With giant multinational companies based in the U.S. and other wealthy countries transferring ever more factories and labs to poorer countries, the fear is that slave-wage workers overseas are undermining the bargaining power of labor in the industrialized world.
In this book Alan Tonelson explains how a competition has emerged in which countries with the weakest workplace safety laws, the lowest taxes, and the toughest unionization laws win investment from American and European countries. Tonelson argues that this "race to the bottom" of labor standards has been the driving force behind the decline of American living standards for the past quarter century, and, as we have already begun to see, will cause even bigger problems for the worldwide economy as it continues.
Tonelson analyzes how the entry of such population giants as China, India, and Brazil into the global market have added fuel to the eroding labor standards. He reveals how an ever larger share of the foreign competition faced by American laborers is hitting not just fields such as apparel and toys, but many of America's highest wage industries such as aerospace and software. And he describes how the reeducation and retraining programs that political leaders say is the remedy to the problem will do nothing to help most Americans cope with competition from the global workforce.
A lively, provocative guide to the new global economy, The Race to the Bottom fills the gap of hard evidence in readable form in the globalization debate, providing the guidebook that American workers have been waiting for, and the indictment that our economic and policy establishments have been dreading.
Customer Reviews:
Dated would like to see a new updated edition.......2007-01-02
I'd like to see this book be updated so that it addresses current conditions, as it is now quite dated. Many of the premises have not come to pass, although some have. The global economy is booming, but how is the U.S. economy really doing considering the savings rate in the U.S. was below 0 last year and the trade deficit is so large? Unemployment in the U.S. is down, but what is the nature of the jobs workers in the U.S. are doing now, in comparison to the nature of those jobs when the book was first written? What predictions have come to pass and which ones have not come to pass?
Real free trade is based on comparative advantage,not absolute advantage and offsets.......2006-01-17
Tonelson has done an excellent job of empirically demonstrating the irreparable harm being done to the American industrial manufacturing sector, resulting from the pseudo-free trade argument that currently masquerades by the name of globalization.The entire globalization argument rests on an appeal to absolute advantage(for example,American firms should locate their factories and production facilities where labor costs are the lowest).Free trade is based on comparative advantage,not absolute advantage.American firms are free to locate production facilities in foreign countries as long as the output produced from these facilities is used to supply the foreign market.The output can't be shipped back to the home market without violating the basic rules of comparative advantage.Any requirement by a foreign country that ,in order for American firms to locate production facilities in that country,the American firms must hand over or share their technological breakthroughs,inventions,patents,or innovations involves a direct violation of the theory of trade between counties based on the existing comparative advantages that exist in both countries industries.Unfortunately,Tonelson does not spell this out clearly,although his discussions on pp.97-98 demonstate that the correct definition of comparatve advantage has been replaced by one that has no connection to the meaning of the term as used by Adam Smith or David Ricardo.I have deducted one star for this omission.
Kaleem needs and education!.......2005-12-04
Kaleem 9984....LOL....THIS dudes a hypocrit! First of all...a foreigner (who's probably an Indian programmer) is not a impartial reviewer. I am a programmer and work with numerous foreigners...BTW they are not as talented as rumor has it. They frequently lie on their resumes to get into positions and...as evidenced by the exporation of NUMEROUS PROGRAMMING jobs back to India...they are not loyal to this country or any corporation that hired them on the H1b visa (a political bill that was fronted by american corporations). This book however...is right on target.
Kaleem should speak in terms of the substance of the book..and not of other reviewers who may differ from his opinion. I believe, as many americans, that we should no longer import items from other countries...we don't need them.
Whats wrong with amazon.......2005-11-11
Whats wrong with Amazon how could they put review by this person - " John W. Runyan III "Too much time on my hands " in spotlight. It's clearly evident he is one of those people who have some small town mentality, come with a preconceived opinion which will never change and probably didnt read the book and wrote a review.
By the way talking of indian programmers, I am a development manager and work with lots of them. They are helping our economy in many ways. I seen that most americans do not go to school, do not have strong mathematical background, do not have strong analytical skills, this is where the indians are useful. Most of them I see have their Master's degree and often have strong engineering backgrounds. If you are a programmer you would know how useful these skills can be. In my experience americans are generally good with the quality-assurance, management level or business side of work. Leave the hard-core intense programming to the foreigners, they seem to do it better.
No better book for understanding the truth about "free trade.......2004-08-05
I have ready many books about globalization and its effects, but Alan Tonelson's "The Race to the Bottom: Why a Worldwide Worker Surplus and Uncontrolled Free Trade are Sinking American Living Standards" is the ONLY book to explain the truth behind globalization. If the US public understood just simple facts, like the difference between producer goods and consumer goods, it would be clear why the US has the most massive trade deficit in history; and the US public would demand that congress act to stop the fast track legislation given to the president. (This is being carried out now by Bush, but was negotiated under Clinton. In other words, both parties are complicit in the destruction of the US middle class.)
As Tonelson says, "Current globalization policies have plunged the great majority of U.S. workers into a great worldwide race to the bottom, into a no-win scramble for work and livelihoods with hundreds of millions of their already impoverished counterparts across the globe. In addition, by sapping the earnings power of U.S. consumers, who are almost single-handedly propping up the world economy despite their sagging earnings, continuing this race could all too easily bring the global financial house of cards tumbling down."
Tonelson doesn't merely make a statement like this, he proves it with expert economic analysis that he explains clearly to the lay public.
Read this book and act on it, before the U.S. middle-class is further eroded.
Book Description
Until a 1998 federal court decision, a Minnesota publisher claimed a monopoly on access to all federal court decisions. A Texas company recently filed a patent on a kind of rice grown in India for centuries. Other businesses now claim ownership of mathematical algorithms embedded in software, valuable public lands acquired for five dollars an acre, and icebergs that they plan to transport and sell as fresh water.
In Silent Theft, David Bollier argues that a great untold story of our time is the staggering privatization and abuse of our common wealth. Corporations are engaged in a relentless plunder of dozens of resources that we collectively own-publicly funded medical breakthroughs, software innovation, the airwaves, the public domain of creative works, and even the DNA of plants, animals and humans. Too often, however, our government turns a blind eye-or sometimes helps give away our assets.
Amazingly, the silent theft of our shared wealth has gone largely unnoticed because we have lost our ability to see the commons. Spooling out one outrageous story after another, Bollier skillfully weaves together debates about the Internet, the environment, biotechnology, and the communications revolution. His fresh and compelling critique illuminates a rarely explored landscape in our political and cultural life.
Crisp and revelatory, Silent Theft is a bold attempt to develop a new language of the commons and, in the face of a market order that knows no bounds, to outline an ambitious new project for reclaiming our common wealth.
Customer Reviews:
Nothing new here.......2003-02-16
Bollier does a credible hob outlining the issues surrounding the theft of the public commons. Many of the issues he highlights are unbelievable. Just thinking about how much of the public commons are being given away is truly astounding (the mining act of 1872 is one example that has always bugged me. A pretty good deal to lock up mineral rights for a few dollars an acre.)
However, Bollier comes up short in his recommendations. He outlines a few suggestions as to how to stop the "silent theft", however, many of his ideas will require a quantum change in how business operates. There is no way Congress will agree to any of them. I would loved to have seen him address how to jump that obstacle.
Highly Useful.......2002-12-08
Bollier has written a very useful little book, of particular interest to liberals, Greens, and Libertarians, as well as the broader public. The book's thesis holds that the 'commons' -- understood as our collectively owned assets, (natural resources being one example) -- are under steady threat of enclosure (privatization) by an increasingly aggressive commercial sphere in search of expanding profits. His use of the more archaic terms 'commons' and 'enclosure' to describe the process is a shrewd one, connecting current encroachments to those more infamous enclosure laws of time past. Despite appearances, this is not an abstract bookish issue. Daily, the public faces such benchmark symptoms as depleted public resources, brand-name idolatry, open spaces overwhelmed by advertising, and threats to an unfettered internet. Ironically, what is disappearing, as Bollier points out, are those very public and personal places that provide a market economy with the societal wherewithall it needs to reproduce itself. Inasmuch as the market has its own parochial definition of rationality -- one that has increasingly become the public standard -- such commons are too often unable to justify themselves and thus are contracted and sold, disappearing at an alarming rate. Government's role in aiding and abetting these enclosures is also detailed, and while the book is severely critical of market myopia, it does not call for their elimination, but for an intelligent circumscription.
Traditionally, liberals have defended the public sphere. This work should help provide some backbone for rediscovering the importance of that commitment. It is a call to arms for those who understand the long-term significance of what the author calls the "Gift Economy", i.e. a free exchange among parties, as exemplified in the conditions leading to the explosive growth of the internet. Greens should like the emphasis on community-based solutions, while Libertarians should feel challenged to justify their paradigm, given the sociological priority of gift economies. Bollier's style makes for easy reading, along with a helpful bibliography. The book is neither weighty nor deep, but it does maintain a steady focus and serves as a useful compendium for understanding the rapidly shrinking public domain, and what we are losing in the process.
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Privatization South American Style (Oxford Studies in Democratization)
Luigi Manzetti
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
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ASIN: 0198294662 |
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Privatization South American Style focuses on the politics of privatization in Argentina, Brazil, and Peru. It examines both the micro and macroeconomics of achieving privatization, the policy measures introduced, and factors affecting the implementation of privatization. The political dimensions of privatization are analysed in order to explain the variations in national success in formulation and implementing privatization programmes. The author argues that evidence suggests that national governments as planned, and that rarely implement most divestiture policies from a technical standpoint, privatization is a learning process that evolves through trial and error. It also examines the apparently 'unconventional' methods used by the governments of Argentina, Brazil, and Peru to achieve privatization Comparative in its approach, the book seeks also to shed light on the nature of privatization in countries throughout the developing world. The book more generally argues that poorly designed privatization policies may have future serious implications on issues such as the rule of law, and the regulation of public utilities.
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Contracting Out Government Services (Privatizing Government: An Interdisciplinary Series)
Manufacturer: Praeger Publishers
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ASIN: 0275965422 |
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Privatization of government services in the United States has accelerated in the last two decades, especially at the state and local levels. This work focuses on contracting out--the most widely used method of privatization. Contributors from academia, consulting firms, government agencies, and private providers discuss the why and how of contracting out and examine the results of contracted services, including quality and cost measures of performance. Some chapters apply economic theory to contracting out. Others examine recent case studies of contracting out initiatives. The book begins with a thoughtful essay on the theory of privatization and examines the recent record of use in state and local governments. Section 1 takes an overview look at contracting out. Section 2 examines contracting in the criminal justice area as well as examples of contracting in such diverse areas as trash collection and the operation of golf courses. The final section looks in depth at the mechanics, obstacles, and effects of contracting. The book points out the pluses and minuses of contracting out and points to the lessons that can be learned from the recent history of this privatization technique.
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Budget and Control: Reforming the Public Sector in Latin America (Inter-American Development Bank)
Humberto Petrei
Manufacturer: Inter-American Development Bank
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ASIN: 1886938415 |
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New methods of public management are transforming the structure of modern governments. These methods, sometimes called managerialism, essentially adapt private sector management principles and practices to the public sector.
Although in theory Latin American governments prepare their budgets according to programs, for the most part they are still input-based--focused mainly on what the state plans to purchase. This approach should be replaced either by output-based budgeting, a system geared towards goods and services to be provided by the state, or by results budgeting, which focuses on what the state proposes to accomplish.
Budget and Control examines the institutional arrangements required for the countries of the region to reform their budget and control systems. The book is based on two decades of reform experience in the leading countries in the field of budget preparation, evaluation and control, with case studies of six Latin American countries. Public officials and policymakers working with budgets, as well as students of development economics, will find this book a valuable tool.
Book Description
"The intellectual history of capitalism finally gets its due in this volume of fresh, arresting essays. This book marks the willingness of a new generation of scholars to open up issues rarely addressed by the labor and business historians who until now have been our leading historians of capitalism."--David A. Hollinger, author of Postethnic America: Beyond Multiculturalism "American Capitalism is an important contribution to our understanding of postwar American thought and culture. It will force historians to revise their pantheon of important thinkers for the period. This book reminds us how, in the postwar era, the triumph of a capitalist worldview remained open to serious questioning and alternatives."--George Cotkin, author of Existential America At the dawn of the twenty-first century, the legitimacy of American capitalism seems unchallenged. The link between open markets, economic growth, and democratic success has become common wisdom, not only among policy makers but for many intellectuals as well. In this instance, however, the past has hardly been prologue to contemporary confidence in the free market. American Capitalism presents thirteen thought-provoking essays that explain how a variety of individuals, many prominent intellectuals but others partisans in the combative world of business and policy, engaged with anxieties about the seismic economic changes in postwar America and, in the process, reconfigured the early twentieth-century ideology that put critique of economic power and privilege at its center. The essays consider a broad spectrum of figures--from C. L. R. James and John Kenneth Galbraith to Peter Drucker and Ayn Rand--and topics ranging from theories of Cold War "convergence" to the rise of the philanthropic Right. They examine how the shift away from political economy at midcentury paved the way for the 1960s and the "culture wars" that followed. Contributors interrogate what was lost and gained when intellectuals moved their focus from political economy to cultural criticism. The volume thereby offers a blueprint for a dramatic reevaluation of how we should think about the trajectory of American intellectual history in twentieth-century United States.
Nelson Lichtenstein is Professor of History at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he directs the Center for Work, Labor, and Democracy. He is the author of Walter Reuther: The Most Dangerous Man in Detroit and State of the Union: A Century of American Labor, and editor of Wal-Mart: The Face of Twenty-First-Century Capitalism.
Customer Reviews:
Very strongly recommended for students of political science, economics, and anthropology.......2006-05-07
Expertly compiled and edited by Nelson Lichtenstein (Professor of History at the University of California, Santa Barbara and director of the Center for Work, Labor, and Democracy), American Capitalism: Social Thought And Political Economy In The Twentieth Century is an impressive and thought-provoking compilation of essays from political and national figures on recent and continuing America social and economic issues. Inclusive of thirteen essays contributed by such influential intellectuals and scholars as Ayn Rand, Kevin Mattson, Juliet Williams, and others, American Capitalism substantially contributes to our knowledge and prediction of the need for reform, as well as ideological constructs applicable to the twenty-first century as capitalist economics continues to remain accepted by most countries as the basis for their social systems and development. For its paradigm-shifting knowledge and scholarship-based comprehension of modern American societal thought and economic theory, American Capitalism is very strongly recommended for students of political science, economics, and anthropology.
Very strongly recommended for students of political science, economics, and anthropology.......2006-05-07
Expertly compiled and edited by Nelson Lichtenstein (Professor of History at the University of California, Santa Barbara and director of the Center for Work, Labor, and Democracy), American Capitalism: Social Thought And Political Economy In The Twentieth Century is an impressive and thought-provoking compilation of essays from political and national figures on recent and continuing America social and economic issues. Inclusive of thirteen essays contributed by such influential intellectuals and scholars as Ayn Rand, Kevin Mattson, Juliet Williams, and others, American Capitalism substantially contributes to our knowledge and prediction of the need for reform, as well as ideological constructs applicable to the twenty-first century as capitalist economics continues to remain accepted by most countries as the basis for their social systems and development. For its paradigm-shifting knowledge and scholarship-based comprehension of modern American societal thought and economic theory, American Capitalism is very strongly recommended for students of political science, economics, and anthropology.
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Government, Business, and the American Economy
Robert Langran
Manufacturer: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
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ASIN: 0742553248 |
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This current and inclusive book discusses the role of government in American economy—covering such topics as antitrust laws, deregulation of communication, consumer protection, employment policy, and the roles of special interest groups. A look at international trading blocks, and America in a global economy, provides readers with an understanding of the far reaching effects of government on the U.S., and gives them a wealth of knowledge valuable in their everyday life as American citizens and consumers. Chapter topics include government regulation; the Supreme Court and the Sherman Act, Federal Trade Commission, and Clayton Acts; employment policies; environmental protection; deregulation of transportation, financial institutions, and communications; foreign trade; international trade; and the United States in a world economy. For individuals interested in learning more about the ways in which the government impacts the American economy—ranging from taxing to spending, and economic to social regulation.
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Politics and the American Economy
James Gosling
Manufacturer: Longman
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Contemporary Regulatory Policy
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Budgetary Politics in American Governments
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Everything for Sale: The Virtues and Limits of Markets
ASIN: 0321070445 |
Average customer rating:
- Uneven but worth a look
- Great Teacher
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The Defining Moment: The Great Depression and the American Economy in the Twentieth Century (National Bureau of Economic Research Project Report)
Manufacturer: University Of Chicago Press
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ASIN: 0226065898 |
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In contemporary American political discourse, issues related to the scope, authority, and the cost of the federal government are perennially at the center of discussion. Any historical analysis of this topic points directly to the Great Depression, the "moment" to which most historians and economists connect the origins of the fiscal, monetary, and social policies that have characterized American government in the second half of the twentieth century. In the most comprehensive collection of essays available on these topics, The Defining Moment poses the question directly: to what extent, if any, was the Depression a watershed period in the history of the American economy? This volume organizes twelve scholars' responses into four categories: fiscal and monetary policies, the economic expansion of government, the innovation and extension of social programs, and the changing international economy. The central focus across the chapters is the well-known alternations to national government during the 1930s. The Defining Moment attempts to evaluate the significance of the past half-century to the American economy, while not omitting reference to the 1930s.
The essays consider whether New Deal-style legislation continues to operate today as originally envisioned, whether it altered government and the economy as substantially as did policies inaugurated during World War II, the 1950s, and the 1960s, and whether the legislation had important precedents before the Depression, specifically during World War I. Some chapters find that, surprisingly, in certain areas such as labor organization, the 1930s responses to the Depression contributed less to lasting change in the economy than a traditional view of the time would suggest. On the whole, however, these essays offer testimony to the Depression's legacy as a "defining moment." The large role of today's government and its methods of intervention—from the pursuit of a more active monetary policy to the maintenance and extension of a wide range of insurance for labor and business—derive from the crisis years of the 1930s.
Customer Reviews:
Uneven but worth a look.......2000-03-15
The editors of "The Defining Moment" pose an interesting set of questions: Did the Great Depression cause a quantum increase of the federal government's involvement in the U.S. economy? If so, how and why?
Given the multitude of federal interventions into various sectors of the economy, the editors sensibly subdivided the questions into twelve topic areas, so that each chapter pertains to a particular program or sector. They then assigned the topics to respected academic economic historians affiliated with the National Bureau of Economic Research. Most of the authors actually try to answer the editors' questions, which gives the collection unusual coherence for a conference volume. Still more remarkable, most of them write well. They offer arguments and evidence that are far more accessible than those a reader will typically find in academic economics journals. The authors do not examine the question of whether the new roles played by the federal government during the 1930s contributed to, rather than only resulted from, the length and severity of the depression.
In their introduction to the volume, the editors set forth the quantum-increase or "defining moment" hypothesis and summarize the authors' answers. They provide useful line charts plotting the growing size of total government spending during the twentieth century, as a share of GNP and as divided among federal, state, and local governments. To my eyes, the time series for total government purchases of goods and services as a share of GNP shows two distinct upward steps. It first rises from a plateau of around 8 percent in the 1920s to a higher plateau of 14 to 15 percent in 1932-40. It then (after the spike associated with World War II) rises to a still higher plateau of around 21 percent after 1952. As is consistent with the theme developed by Robert Higgs in "Crisis and Leviathan" (1987), the crisis of the Great Depression is associated with the first upward "ratchet effect." The second ratcheting upward is a puzzle not examined in the current volume, beyond a passing reference or two to "the cold war."
Like most conference volumes, "The Defining Moment" is a mixed bag; some chapters are stronger than others. Few readers will want to read it cover to cover, but anyone seriously interested in the economic history of the United States in the twentieth century particularly those called upon to teach that subject should give the volume a look.
Great Teacher.......1998-12-15
Prof. Bordo is my instructor for my Financial & Monetary History of the US class here at Rutgers University. He is a brilliant guy and I am sure this book is great. I have never read it but he is no slouch.
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