Economics and the Good Life

by de Jouvenel,Bertrand

• ISBN13: 9780765804280
• ISBN10: 076580428X
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 1999-01-31
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Bertrand de Jouvenel (1903-1987) was known in the United States primarily as a political scientist. His best-known works -- On Power, Sovereignty, and The Pure Theory of Politics -- all made distinctive contributions to our understanding of the modern state, and to the creation of a political science capable of civilizing that state. His work in the field of economics, though, is relatively unknown in the United States, but like many writers in the contemporary field of political economy, de Jouvenel is not interested in expanding the claims of economy at the expense of polity. On the contrary, his thinking is governed by the oldest and most fundamental of political concerns, the definition of the good life.The good life is not a product of the marketplace, but of deliberate and collective decision that is, a task for thoughtful citizens and statesmen, and not simply the sum of millions of separate and amoral "consumer preferences". De Jouvenel is well known for his opposition to the distendedstate, but,he was no anarchist. His eloquent warnings to keep the state in its proper sphere were accompanied by a richly sophisticated discussion of what that proper sphere is -- an aspect of his work that comes through very clearly in this volume.

Table of Contents

Preface	vii
Editors' Introduction	1	(16)
Prologue	17	(4)
Part One: The Elements of Political Economy	21	(136)
1. The Idea of Welfare	21	(16)
2. Efficiency and Amenity	37	(16)
3. The Political Economy of Gratuity	53	(12)
4. Order versus Organization	65	(12)
5. Toward a Political Theory of Education	77	(20)
6. A Better Life in an Affluent Society	97	(22)
7. Technology as a Means	119	(18)
8. The Treatment of Capitalism by Continental Intellectuals	137	(20)
Part Two: Problems of Postwar Reconstruction	157	(66)
9. France: No Vacancies	157	(8)
10. The Political Consequences of the Rise of Science	165	(14)
11. Money in the Market	179	(18)
12. Reflections on Colonialism	197	(16)
13. On the Character of the Soviet Economy	213	(10)
Part Three: The Political Economy of Natural Resources	223	(82)
14. A Place to Live In	223	(12)
15. From Political Economy to Political Ecology	235	(12)
16. The Stewardship of the Earth	247	(16)
17. An Economic View of Marine Problems	263	(32)
18. Back to Basics: The Concrete Economy	295	(10)
Index	305