The Making of Economic Society or California

The Making of Economic Society

Author: Robert Heilbroner

With its roots in history and eyes on the future, this book traces the development of our economic society from the Middle Ages to the present, offering a balanced perspective of why our economy is the way it is and where it may be headed. It explores the catalytic role past economic trends and dynamics–particularly capitalism–have played in creating the present challenges we face, and offers suggestions on how we may deal with them most effectively in the future.

Chapter topics include the economic problem, the premarket economy, the emergence of market society, the industrial revolution, the great depression, the rise of the public sector, modern capitalism emerges in Europe, the golden age of capitalism, the rise and fall of socialism, the globalization of economic life, and why some nations remain poor.

For individuals interested in the economic history of the U.S.

Booknews

Tracing the emergence of economic society from its origins, this book begins by describing the problems of production and distribution and ends with a look at continued problems and their possible resolutions. The chapters between focus on the premarket economy, the emergence of the market, the industrial revolution, the great depression, the rise of the public sector, the development of modern European capitalism, the golden age of capitalism, the rise and fall of socialism, and globalization. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

New interesting book: Financial Investigation and Forensic Accounting or The Power of Events

California: America's High-Stakes Experiment

Author: Peter Schrag

Peter Schrag takes on the big issues--immigration, globalization, and the impact of California's politics on its quality of life--in this dynamic account of the Golden State's struggle to recapture the American dream. In the past half-century, California has been both model and anti-model for the nation and often the world, first in its high level of government and public services--schools, universities, highways--more lately for its dysfunctional government, deteriorating services, and sometimes regressive public policies. Schrag's incisive analysis of the state's political, demographic, and fiscal realities vividly demonstrates that it has been struggling with a range of problems for a generation. The author deftly shows that California's ability to forge its culturally and ethnically diverse population into a successful democracy will be of crucial importance not only to America, but to the world. He also explains how many current "solutions" exacerbate the very problems they're supposed to solve and analyzes a variety of possible state and federal policy alternatives to restore accountable government and a vital democracy to the nation's largest state and world's fifth largest economy.

Among the issues that Schrag tackles:
* The impact of Latino and Asian immigration and the emergence of California as the first large majority minority state
* The globalization of California's economy and culture
* The growing reliance of voters on the initiative, referendum, and recall processes
* The increasing instability of elected government
* California as cultural avant-garde, from hippies to gay marriage

Publishers Weekly

Once blessed with a superb educational system, well-funded infrastructure and competent, vigorous state government, California now wrestles with lousy schools, decrepit public services and government gridlock. This incisive study traces the decline to a state constitution that requires unobtainable legislative super-majorities to pass taxes, spending increases and budgets; to America's nationwide antitax ideology, which was jump-started by California's infamous Proposition 13; and to term limits that have made the legislature a collection of neophytes. With the legislative process paralyzed, the author observes, lawmaking has devolved to ad hoc ballot initiatives-a hoary populist nostrum now exploited by monied special interests-with which voters impose burdensome spending mandates on the state while rejecting the taxes needed to fund them. The result is a chaotic but perpetually stymied "`hybrid democracy'" dominated by glitzy ad campaigns and Schwarzeneggerian political theater. Journalist Schrag (former editorial page editor for the Sacramento Bee and author of Paradise Lost: California's Experience, America's Future) provides a fascinating guide through the labyrinth of California state politics and probes the intractable social conflict underlying its dysfunctions: the unwillingness of a disproportionately white, Anglo, middle-class electorate to pay for public services for an increasingly brown, immigrant, working-class population. Lucid, evenhanded and thoughtful, Schrag offers one of the best analyses yet of the California train wreck and its troubling implications for America's future. (Apr.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.