TY - BOOK ID - 78343290 TI - Economic development, social order, and world politics PY - 1996 SN - 0585172420 9780585172422 155587620X 9781555876203 PB - Boulder L. Rienner Publishers DB - UniCat KW - Economic development. KW - Economic policy. KW - Social policy. KW - International economic relations. KW - World politics KW - Economic policy, Foreign KW - Economic relations, Foreign KW - Economics, International KW - Foreign economic policy KW - Foreign economic relations KW - Interdependence of nations KW - International economic policy KW - International economics KW - New international economic order KW - Economic policy KW - International relations KW - Economic sanctions KW - National planning KW - State planning KW - Family policy KW - Social history KW - Economic nationalism KW - Economic planning KW - Economics KW - Planning KW - National security KW - Social policy KW - Development, Economic KW - Economic growth KW - Growth, Economic KW - Statics and dynamics (Social sciences) KW - Development economics KW - Resource curse KW - World politics - 1989 KW - -Economic development. UR - https://www.unicat.be/uniCat?func=search&query=sysid:78343290 AB - Based on methodological individualism and a public-choice approach to social theory—and sure to stimulate considerable debate—this book analyzes the interdependence of economic development, social order, and interstate conflict. Weede contrasts the rise of the West over the past 500 years with the stagnation in the great Asian civilizations, arguing that political constraints on Western rulers allowed the conditions of prosperity, i.e., law and liberty, to develop. Now, however, the West suffers a slow erosion of individual liberty and enterprise caused by an expansion of collective decisionmaking, rent seeking, and the welfare state, while the dynamic, growing East Asian societies increasingly hold individuals responsible for the consequences of their actions. Capitalism, Weede avows, is a prerequisite of democracy; and free trade promotes the global diffusion of capitalism and, ultimately, of democracy and democratic peace. Nevertheless, special interest groups within Western society enforce misguided policies—policies that simultaneously undermine democracy, Western economic primacy, and a "peace by trade" strategy that would be promising if only the West were capable of executing it. ER -