The Clash of Economic Ideas

by White, Lawrence H.

• ISBN13: 9781107621336
• ISBN10: 110762133X
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2012-04-30
• Publisher: Cambridge Univ Pr

Summary

The Clash of Economic Ideas interweaves the economic history of the last hundred years with the history of economic doctrines to understand how contrasting economic ideas have originated and developed over time to take their present forms. It traces the connections running from historical events to debates among economists, and from the ideas of academic writers to major experiments in economic policy. The treatment offers fresh perspectives on laissez faire, socialism and fascism; the Roaring Twenties, business cycle theories and the Great Depression; Institutionalism and the New Deal; the Keynesian Revolution; and war, nationalization and central planning. After 1945, the work explores the postwar revival of invisible-hand ideas; economic development and growth, with special attention to contrasting policies and thought in Germany and India; the gold standard, the interwar gold-exchange standard, the postwar Bretton Woods system and the Great Inflation; public goods and public choice; free trade versus protectionism; and finally fiscal policy and public debt.

Author Biography

Lawrence H. White is Professor of Economics at George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia.

Table of Contents

List of Figures	p. vii
Acknowledgments	p. ix
Introduction	p. 1
The Turn Away from Laissez-Faire	p. 12
The Bolshevik Revolution and the Socialist Calculation Debate	p. 32
The Roaring Twenties and Austrian Business Cycle Theory	p. 68
The New Deal and Institutionalist Economics	p. 99
The Great Depression and Keynes's General Theory	p. 126
The Second World War and Hayek's Road to Serfdom	p. 155
Postwar British Socialism and the Fabian Society	p. 174
The Mont Pelerin Society and the Rebirth of Smithian Economics	p. 202
The Postwar German "Wonder Economy" and Ordoliberalism	p. 231
Indian Planning and Development Economics	p. 246
Bretton Woods and International Monetary Thought	p. 275
The Great Inflation and Monetarism	p. 306
The Growth of Government: Public Goods and Public Choice	p. 332
Free Trade, Protectionism, and Trade Deficits	p. 360
From Pleasant Deficit Spending to Unpleasant Sovereign Debt Crisis	p. 382
Index	p. 413
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