Debunking Economics - Revised and Expanded Edition : The Naked Emperor Dethroned?

http://zedbooks.co.uk/paperback/debunking-economics-revised-and-expanded-edition

Debunking Economics exposes what many non-economists may have suspected and a minority of economists have long known: that economic theory is not only unpalatable, but also plain wrong. When the original Debunking was published back in 2001, the market economy seemed invincible, and conventional 'neoclassical' economic theory basked in the limelight. Steve Keen argued that economists deserved none of the credit for the economy's performance, and that 'the false confidence it has engendered in the stability of the market economy has encouraged policy-makers to dismantle some of the institutions which initially evolved to try to keep its instability within limits'. That instability exploded with the devastating financial crisis of 2007, and now haunts the global economy with the prospect of another Depression.

In this radically updated and greatly expanded new edition, Keen builds on his scathing critique of conventional economic theory whilst explaining what mainstream economists cannot: why the crisis occurred, why it is proving to be intractable, and what needs to be done to end it.

Essential for anyone who has ever doubted the advice or reasoning of economists, Debunking Economics provides a signpost to a better future.

Reviews

'Economics still awaits its Darwin. Keynes came close, but not close enough. Keen comes closer still. Economics, like biology used to be, remains mostly faith-based. No book poses a bigger threat to that faith than the second and expanded edition of Debunking Economics.' - Edward Fullbrook, Editor, Real World Economics Review

'The new edition of 'Debunking Economics'... provide[s] a more persuasive account of the causes of the crash and of its likely evolution than anything that has yet emerged from Constitution Avenue or Threadneedle Street. This is complicated, but it's in your interests to understand it.'
George Monbiot

'It is notorious that only the most mediocre students have the stomach to stick with graduate economics degree. The assumptions become so narrow-minded and tunnel-visioned that reality-based minds drop out. But economics obviously is important ­ too much so to be left to economists. Fortunately, Steve Keen is an empirical mathematician who views the economy logically and systematically. Having made a pioneering explanatory statistical model, he looked through the literature to review the history of economic thought ­ and saw how little today's assumptions had to contribute to Reality Economics. So his book does two things. First, it explains some of the most wrong-headed logical paths that led today's 'free market' economics down its detour to rationalize the status quo. Second, it explains how to view the economy from a more realistic, cause-and-effect light.' - Michael Hudson, Distinguished Research Professor of Economics, University of Missouri

'You would be hard-pressed to find an individual whose pre-crisis analyses of both the world financial system and the economics profession were more dead on than Steve Keen's. The original edition of this book not only demonstrated the irrelevance of modern theory, but it predicted the major economic and social crisis that occurred. This second edition updates earlier chapters and adds new ones that directly address the causes of the collapse and the reasons why standard solutions have been useless. This book is an absolute must read for anyone wondering what caused this catastrophe and how we can truly put it behind us.' - Prof. John T. Harvey, author of 'Currencies, Capital Flows, and Crises: A Post Keynesian Analysis of Exchange Rate Determination'

'Redemption is this book's greatest gift to a world that grew dependent on the thinly disguised forms of mathematised superstition which, over the past thirty years, managed to dominate economic theory and policy. Keen's book is a tour de force that grants its reader the chance of immunity from these, still dominant, economic superstitions.' - Yanis Varoufakis, Professor of Economics, Athens University

'Professor Keen has written a book that will shake the economics community to its core, and for good reason. It could not have been written at a better time.' - Andrew Leeming, author of The Super Analysts

'Much more than simply explaining the causes of the crisis, Keen takes us through a thorough dissection of mainstream neoclassical economics, and the result does not leave the discipline looking in good shape.' - Tanweer Ali, Empire State College, State University of New York, in Heterodox Economics Newsletter

Table of Contents

Preface to the first edition
1. Predicting the 'unpredictable2
2. No more Mr. Nice guy
Part 1: Foundations
The logical flaws in the key concepts of conventional economics
3. The calculations of hedonism
4. Size does matter
5. The price of everything
6. To each according to his contribution
Part 2: Complexities
Issues that should form part of an education in economics, but which are omitted from standard courses
7. The holy war over capital
8. There is madness in their method
9. Let’s do the Time Warp again
10. Why they didn’t see it coming
11. The price is not right
12. Misunderstanding the Great Depression and the Great Recession
Part 3: Alternatives
Different ways to think about economics
13. Why I did see ‘It’ coming
14. A Monetary Model of Capitalism
15. Why stock markets crash
16. Don’t shoot me, I’m only the piano
17. Nothing to lose but their minds
18. There are alternatives
References

About the Author:

Steve Keen is Associate Professor of Economics & Finance at the University of Western Sydney. Steve predicted the financial crisis as long ago as December 2005, and warned that back in 1995 that a period of apparent stability could merely be 'the calm before the storm'. His leading role as one of the tiny minority of economists to both foresee the crisis and warn of it was recognised by his peers when he received the Revere Award from the Real World Economics Review for being the economist who most cogently warned of the crisis, and whose work is most likely to prevent future crises.

Geoffrey Ingham : The Nature of Money

http://www.polity.co.uk/book.asp?ref=9780745609966

Geoffrey Ingham is Reader in Sociology and Political Economy; and Fellow of Christ’s College.

In this important new book, Geoffrey Ingham draws on neglected traditions in the social sciences to develop a theory of the `social relation' of money.

• Genuinely multidisciplinary approach, based on a thorough knowledge of theories of money in the social sciences 
• An original development of the neglected heterodox theories of money
• New histories of the origins and development of forms of money and their social relations of production in different monetary systems 
• A radical interpretation of capitalism as a particular type of monetary system and the first sociological outline of the institutional structure of the social production of capitalist money 
• A radical critique of recent writing on global e-money, the so-called `end of money', and new monetary spaces such as the euro.

Christian Tutin : Une histoire des théories monétaires par les textes

http://www.laprocure.com/histoire-theories-monetaires-textes/9782081228788.html

Quel rôle la monnaie joue-t-elle dans l'apparition des crises économiques ? Quelle est son influence sur le volume du commerce et le niveau de l'emploi ? La croissance entraîne-t-elle nécessairement l'inflation ? Peut-on contrôler la masse monétaire ? Depuis le XVIIe siècle, philosophes, économistes et théoriciens de la monnaie n'ont cessé de reprendre ces interrogations, de John Locke à Friedrich Hayek, en passant par John Law, Adam Smith, Karl Marx, Knut Wicksell, John Maynard Keynes ou Milton Friedman.

Ce livre propose une anthologie des principaux textes qui ont marqué l'histoire des théories monétaires, dont certains encore inédits en français. Des mercantilistes aux néolibéraux contemporains, c'est en particulier le thème de la « neutralité » de la monnaie, toujours démentie par la réalité des crises, qui sert ici de fil rouge. Une question controversée, qui reste au coeur des débats actuels et des décisions de politique économique de notre temps.

The ECB cannot go broke – get over it

CNBC’s Head of News, one Patrick Allen produced this article (May 10, 2012) – European Central Bank Leveraged Like Lehman – which several readers E-mailed to me suggesting that there was a problem that had to be addressed and would prevent the ECB funding member state deficit increases in pursuit of growth. The only problem I am afraid to say is the “author” doesn’t know much about the subject that he is writing about. This, sadly, in a general problem out there in commentary land. The article was in fact reporting the views of one Satyajit Das who gets a lot of airtime on national radio in Australia and elsewhere but perpetuates many of the mainstream myths about the way the monetary system operates and its limits and propensities. Das mixes factual statements (which I agree with) with causalities and reasoning (which I do not agree with). The journalists then build their stories based on an uncritical precising of so-called experts like Das and the myths then spread. Let us be absolutely clear. There is no meaningful comparison between the ECB and Lehman or any central bank and any private bank. Further, the ECB cannot go broke.

The CNBC article quotes extensively from Das article from April 20, 2012 – Europe’s debt crisis is back – in fact, it never left – where Das informed the Australian readership that:

Economist Walter Bagehot advised that in a crisis, central banks should lend freely but at a penalty rate and secured by good collateral.
The ECB does not appear to have quite understood Bagehot’s commandment. The rate is below market rates, amounting to a subsidy to banks. The ECB and eurozone central banks have loosened standards, agreeing to lend against all matter of collateral.
In effect, the ECB is now functioning as a financial institution, assuming significant credit and interest rate risks on its loans.
If the European Financial Stability Fund (EFSF) was a Collateralised Debt Obligation, the ECB increasingly resembles a highly leveraged bank.

Of-course, Walter Bagehot was an early editor of The Economist magazine which had been started by this father-in-law. He wrote the now-famous book – Lombard Street in 1873, which explored banking and finance in an international setting.
Continue Reading : http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=19402

Understanding Modern Money : The Key to Full Employment and Price Stability

http://www.e-elgar.co.uk/bookentry_main.lasso?currency=UK&id=1668

This book is also available as an ebook 978 1 78100 891 1 from : www.books.google.com/ebooks

Description
‘This is the best kind of book – one that coaxes you to see the world in a new light. Old assumptions and prejudices melt away and you find yourself thinking differently (and more hopefully) about vitally important but troublesome issues of economic and social policy.’
– Philip Harvey, Rutgers University of Law, US

‘ In this innovative new work, Randy Wray has convinced at least one reader that full employment and price stability are fully compatible goals in today's world....Pivoting on his fresh rereading of the history and nature of money, Wray generates insight after insight, and will change forever the way in which we think about key macroeconomic variables and relationships.’
– John Adams, Northeastern University, US

In this innovative and very practical book, Randall Wray argues that full employment and price stability are not the incompatible goals that current economic theory and policy assume. Indeed, he advances a policy that would generate true, full employment while simultaneously ensuring an even greater degree of price stability than has been achieved in the 1990s.

Contents
Contents: Preface 1. Introduction 2. Money and Taxes 3. An Introduction to a History of Money 4. Government Spending, Deficits and Money 5. Monetary Policy 6. Employment Policy and the Value of the Currency 7. The Logic of the Taxes-Drive-Money View 8. Conclusions

John C. Médaille: Toward a Truly Free Market

 A Distributist Perspective on the Role of Government, Taxes, Health Care, Deficits, and More

For three decades free-market leaders have tried to reverse longstanding Keynesian economic policies, but have only produced larger government, greater debt, and more centralized economic power. So how can we achieve a truly free-market system, especially at this historical moment when capitalism seems to be in crisis?
The answer, says John C. Médaille, is to stop pretending that economics is something on the order of the physical sciences; it must be a humane science, taking into account crucial social contexts. Toward a Truly Free Market argues that any attempt to divorce economic equilibrium from economic equity will lead to an unbalanced economy—one that falls either to ruin or to ruinous government attempts to redress the balance.
In Toward a Truly Free Market, Médaille not only points out the problems, but also offers viable solutions, showing how we can:

• Slash the federal budget by half
• Reduce the tax code from nine million words to a couple of pages
• Drastically curb the government’s sprawling bureaucracy
• Manage natural resources safely, while cutting the budget in half
• End the bailouts
• Really reform the health care system
• And much more

In Toward a Truly Free Market, Médaille makes a refreshingly clear case for the economic theory—and practice—known as distributism. Unlike many of his fellow distributists, who argue primarily from moral terms, Médaille enters the economic debate on purely economic terms.