An Economic History of Twentieth-Century Europe

An Economic History of Twentieth-Century Europe
Author: Ivan T. Berend
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 24
Release: 2006-04-20
Genre: History
ISBN: 1139452649

A major history of economic regimes and economic performance throughout the twentieth century. Ivan T. Berend looks at the historic development of the twentieth-century European economy, examining both its failures and its successes in responding to the challenges of this crisis-ridden and troubled but highly successful age. The book surveys the European economy's chronological development, the main factors of economic growth, and the various economic regimes that were invented and introduced in Europe during the twentieth century. Professor Berend shows how the vast disparity between the European regions that had characterized earlier periods gradually began to disappear during the course of the twentieth century as more and more countries reached a more or less similar level of economic development. This accessible book will be required reading for students in European economic history, economics, and modern European history.

The People's Republic of Walmart

The People's Republic of Walmart
Author: Leigh Phillips
Publisher: Verso Books
Total Pages: 257
Release: 2019-03-05
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 178663516X

Are multi-national corporations like Walmart and Amazon laying the groundwork for international socialism? For the left and the right, major multinational companies are held up as the ultimate expressions of free-market capitalism. Their remarkable success appears to vindicate the old idea that modern society is too complex to be subjected to a plan. And yet, as Leigh Phillips and Michal Rozworski argue, much of the economy of the West is centrally planned at present. Not only is planning on vast scales possible, we already have it and it works. The real question is whether planning can be democratic. Can it be transformed to work for us? An engaging, polemical romp through economic theory, computational complexity, and the history of planning, The People’s Republic of Walmart revives the conversation about how society can extend democratic decision-making to all economic matters. With the advances in information technology in recent decades and the emergence of globe-straddling collective enterprises, democratic planning in the interest of all humanity is more important and closer to attainment than ever before.

Problems of the Planned Economy

Problems of the Planned Economy
Author: John Eatwell
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 280
Release: 1990-07-23
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1349208639

This is an excerpt from the 4-volume dictionary of economics, a reference book which aims to define the subject of economics today. 1300 subject entries in the complete work cover the broad themes of economic theory. This extract concentrates on problems encountered in a planned economy.

The Labour Party and the Planned Economy, 1931-1951

The Labour Party and the Planned Economy, 1931-1951
Author: Richard Toye
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
Total Pages: 282
Release: 2003
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0861932625

An exploration of Labour's 1931 pledge to create a planned socialist economy and the reasons for its failure to do so. In the general election of 1931, the Labour Party campaigned on the slogan "Plan or Perish". The party's pledge to create a planned socialist economy was a novelty, and marked the rejection of the gradualist, evolutionary socialism to which Labour had adhered under the leadership of Ramsay MacDonald. Although heavily defeated in that election, Labour stuck to its commitment. The Attlee government came to power in 1945 determined to plan comprehensively. Yet, the aspiration to create a fully planned economy was not met. This book explores the origins and evolution of the promise, in order to explain why it was not fulfilled. RICHARD TOYE lectures in history at Homerton College, Cambridge.

Markets and Power

Markets and Power
Author: Eric A. Schutz
Publisher: M.E. Sharpe
Total Pages: 228
Release: 2001-03-28
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780765640642

In what ways do the actions and economic behavior of today's multinational corporations resemble the functioning and processes of the old command economics of the Soviet Union? By ignoring questions about power relations in markets, mainstream neoclassically-oriented economists conclude that there are no significant power structures operating in market systems to control allocation and distribution. This book argues to the contrary that there are fundamental and systemic power structures - monopoly, access to information or finance, employer power, etc. - at work in market economies, which affects their ability to achieve real "competition" in much the same way as state-controlled, command economies hinder business activities. Thus, for example, the biggest firms at the hubs of financial "networks" wield a kind of "shaping power" upon large numbers of relatively autonomous firms, not only upon those that belong to the networks but also on the many firms outside them that are also affected.

National Economic Planning

National Economic Planning
Author: Don Lavoie
Publisher: Cato Institute
Total Pages: 308
Release: 1985-06-01
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 193718420X

Don Lavoie argues that the radical Left's enthusiasm for planning has been a tragic mistake and that progressive social change requires the abandonment of this traditional view. Lavoie argues that planning—whether Marxism, economic democracy, or industrial policy—can only disrupt social and economic coordination. He challenges both radicals and their critics to begin reformulating our whole notion of progressive economic change without reliance on central planning. National Economic Planning: What is Left? will challenge thinkers and policymakers of every political persuasion.

The Plans That Failed

The Plans That Failed
Author: André Steiner
Publisher: Berghahn Books
Total Pages: 236
Release: 2013-08-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 178238314X

The establishment of the Communist social model in one part of Germany was a result of international postwar developments, of the Cold War waged by East and West, and of the resultant partition of Germany. As the author argues, the GDR’s ‘new’ society was deliberately conceived as a counter-model to the liberal and marketregulated system. Although the hopes connected with this alternative system turned out to be misplaced and the planned economy may be thoroughly discredited today, it is important to understand the context in which it developed and failed. This study, a bestseller in its German version, offers an in-depth exploration of the GDR economy’s starting conditions and the obstacles to growth it confronted during the consolidation phase. These factors, however, were not decisive in the GDR’s lack of growth compared to that of the Federal Republic. As this study convincingly shows, it was the economic model that led to failure.

Sorting Out the Mixed Economy

Sorting Out the Mixed Economy
Author: Amy C. Offner
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 402
Release: 2021-06-08
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0691205205

The untold story of how welfare and development programs in the United States and Latin America produced the instruments of their own destruction In the years after 1945, a flood of U.S. advisors swept into Latin America with dreams of building a new economic order and lifting the Third World out of poverty. These businessmen, economists, community workers, and architects went south with the gospel of the New Deal on their lips, but Latin American realities soon revealed unexpected possibilities within the New Deal itself. In Colombia, Latin Americans and U.S. advisors ended up decentralizing the state, privatizing public functions, and launching austere social welfare programs. By the 1960s, they had remade the country’s housing projects, river valleys, and universities. They had also generated new lessons for the United States itself. When the Johnson administration launched the War on Poverty, U.S. social movements, business associations, and government agencies all promised to repatriate the lessons of development, and they did so by multiplying the uses of austerity and for-profit contracting within their own welfare state. A decade later, ascendant right-wing movements seeking to dismantle the midcentury state did not need to reach for entirely new ideas: they redeployed policies already at hand. In this groundbreaking book, Amy Offner brings readers to Colombia and back, showing the entanglement of American societies and the contradictory promises of midcentury statebuilding. The untold story of how the road from the New Deal to the Great Society ran through Latin America, Sorting Out the Mixed Economy also offers a surprising new account of the origins of neoliberalism.

Democratic Economic Planning

Democratic Economic Planning
Author: Robin Hahnel
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 317
Release: 2021-05-31
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1000392112

Democratic Economic Planning presents a concrete proposal for how to organize, carry out, and integrate comprehensive annual economic planning, investment planning, and long-run development planning so as to maximize popular participation, distribute the burdens and benefits of economic activity fairly, achieve environmental sustainability, and use scarce productive resources efficiently. The participatory planning procedures proposed provide workers in self-managed councils and consumers in neighbourhood councils with autonomy over their own activities while ensuring that they use scarce productive resources in socially responsible ways without subjecting them to competitive market forces. Certain mathematical and economic skills are required to fully understand and evaluate the planning procedures discussed and evaluated in technical sections in a number of chapters. These sections are necessary to advance the theory of democratic planning, and should be of primary interest to readers who have those skills. However, the book is written so that the main argument can be followed without fully digesting the more technical sections. Democratic Economic Planning is written for dreamers who are disenamored with the economics of competition and greed want to know how a system of equitable cooperation can be organized; and also for sceptics who demand "hard proof" that an economy without markets and private enterprise is possible.

Handbook of Alternative Theories of Economic Development

Handbook of Alternative Theories of Economic Development
Author: Erik S. Reinert
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
Total Pages: 849
Release: 2016-09-28
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1782544682

The Handbook of Alternative Theories of Economic Development explores the theories and approaches which, over a prolonged period of time, have existed as viable alternatives to today’s mainstream and neo-classical tenets. With a total of 40 specially commissioned chapters, written by the foremost authorities in their respective fields, this volume represents a landmark in the field of economic development. It elucidates the richness of the alternative and sometimes misunderstood ideas which, in different historical contexts, have proved to be vital to the improvement of the human condition. The subject matter is approached from several complementary perspectives. From a historical angle, the Handbook charts the mercantilist and cameralist theories that emerged from the Renaissance and developed further during the Enlightenment. From a geographical angle, it includes chapters on African, Chinese, Indian, and Muslim approaches to economic development. Different schools are also explored and discussed including nineteenth century US development theory, Marxist, Schumpeterian, Latin American structuralism, regulation theory and world systems theories of development. In addition, the Handbook has chapters on important events and institutions including The League of Nations, The Havana Charter, and UNCTAD, as well as on particularly influential development economists. Contemporary topics such as the role of finance, feminism, the agrarian issue, and ecology and the environment are also covered in depth. This comprehensive Handbook offers an unrivalled review and analysis of alternative and heterodox theories of economic development. It should be read by all serious scholars, teachers and students of development studies, and indeed anyone interested in alternatives to development orthodoxy.