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Adam Smith : an enlightened life
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ISBN: 9780140287288 9780713993967 0713993960 Year: 2010 Publisher: London : Penguin,


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Adam Smith : a moral philosopher and his political economy.
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ISBN: 9780230277007 Year: 2010 Publisher: Basingstoke Palgrave Macmillan


Book
Beyond the Invisible Hand
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ISBN: 1282821067 9786612821066 1400836271 9781400836277 0691137161 9780691137162 9781282821064 Year: 2010 Publisher: Princeton, NJ

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Abstract

One of the central tenets of mainstream economics is Adam Smith's proposition that, given certain conditions, self-interested behavior by individuals leads them to the social good, almost as if orchestrated by an invisible hand. This deep insight has, over the past two centuries, been taken out of context, contorted, and used as the cornerstone of free-market orthodoxy. In Beyond the Invisible Hand, Kaushik Basu argues that mainstream economics and its conservative popularizers have misrepresented Smith's insight and hampered our understanding of how economies function, why some economies fail and some succeed, and what the nature and role of state intervention might be. Comparing this view of the invisible hand with the vision described by Kafka--in which individuals pursuing their atomistic interests, devoid of moral compunction, end up creating a world that is mean and miserable--Basu argues for collective action and the need to shift our focus from the efficient society to one that is also fair. Using analytic tools from mainstream economics, the book challenges some of the precepts and propositions of mainstream economics. It maintains that, by ignoring the role of culture and custom, traditional economics promotes the view that the current system is the only viable one, thereby serving the interests of those who do well by this system. Beyond the Invisible Hand challenges readers to fundamentally rethink the assumptions underlying modern economic thought and proves that a more equitable society is both possible and sustainable, and hence worth striving for. By scrutinizing Adam Smith's theory, this impassioned critique of contemporary mainstream economics debunks traditional beliefs regarding best economic practices, self-interest, and the social good.


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The making of the classical theory of economic growth
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ISBN: 9786612781971 9780415486200 9780203851845 0203851846 9780415746083 0415486203 0415746086 1136972269 1136972277 1282781979 9781136972225 9781136972263 9781136972270 Year: 2010 Publisher: New York : Routledge,

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This book collects together for the first time Anthony Brewer's work on the origins and development of the theory of economic growth from the late eighteenth century and looking at how it came to dominate economic thinking in the nineteenth century. Brewer argues that many of the earliest proponents of economics growth theory had no concept of it as a continuing theory. This book looks at many of the key players such as Smith, Hume, Ferguson, Steuart, Turgot, West and Rae and is tied together with a rigorous introduction and a new chapter on capital accumulation.

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