| Bib ID |
3599321 |
| Format |
Book, Online, Online - Google Books |
| Author |
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| Online Versions |
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Related Online
Resources |
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| Edition |
1st ed.
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| Description |
New York : Alfred A. Knopf, c2005
x, 570 p. ; 25 cm.
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| ISBN |
0679448918 (hc : alk. paper) 9780679448914
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| Summary |
""Are we right," Benjamin M. Friedman asks, "to care so much about economic growth as we clearly do?" To answer, Friedman reaches beyond economics. He examines the political and social histories of the large Western democracies - particularly of the United States since the Civil War - distinguishing times of generally rising living standards from those of pervasive stagnation to illustrate how rising incomes render a society more open and democratic. He shows, too, how our attitudes toward economic growth and its consequences have roots in the thinking of prior centuries, especially the Enlightenment, and also include significant strands of religious influence." "Friedman also delineates the role of economic growth in determining which developing nations extend the broadest freedoms to their citizenry. He makes clear that growth, rather than just the level of living standards, is key to effecting political and social liberalization in the third world. But he also warns that the democratic values of countries even as wealthy as our own are at risk whenever incomes stagnate for extended periods. Merely being rich is no protection against a society's retreat into rigidity and intolerance once enough of its citizens lose the sense that they are getting ahead." "Finally, Friedman shows us why, if America is to strengthen democratic institutions around the world as a bulwark against terrorism and social unrest, we must aggressively pursue growth at home and promote worldwide economic expansion beyond what purely market-driven forces would create. And for the United States, he offers concrete suggestions for policy steps to achieve those objectives."--BOOK JACKET.
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| Full contents |
- Machine derived contents note: Preface
- Part I ? Ideas, Their Origins, and Their Implications
- 1. What Growth Is, What Growth Does
- 2. Perspectives from the Enlightenment and Its Roots
- 3. Crosscurrents: The Age of Improvement and Beyond
- 4. Rising Incomes, Individual Attitudes, and the Politics of Social Change
- Part II ? Democracy in America
- 5. From Horatio Alger to William Jennings Bryan
- 6. From TR to FDR
- 7. Great Depression, Great Exception
- Machine derived contents note: Preface
- Part I ? Ideas, Their Origins, and Their Implications
- 1. What Growth Is, What Growth Does
- 2. Perspectives from the Enlightenment and Its Roots
- 3. Crosscurrents: The Age of Improvement and Beyond
- 4. Rising Incomes, Individual Attitudes, and the Politics of Social Change
- Part II ? Democracy in America
- 5. From Horatio Alger to William Jennings Bryan
- 6. From TR to FDR
- 7. Great Depression, Great Exception
- 8. America in the Postwar Era
- Part III ? Other Times, Other Places: The European Democracies
- 9. Britain
- 10. France
- 11. Germany
- Part IV ? Development, Equality, Globalization, and the Environment
- 12. Economics and Politics in the Developing World
- 13. Virtuous Circles, Vicious Circles
- 14. Growth and Equality
- 15. Growth and the Environment
- Part V ? Looking Forward
- 16. Economic Policy and Economic Growth in America
- Notes
- Acknowledgments
- Index.
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| Notes |
Includes index.
Includes bibliographical references.
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| Subjects |
Economic development - Moral and ethical aspects. | Income distribution. | Political participation. | Democracy. | Economic development | Economic conditions | Ethics | Democracy | Income | Social change | Social conditions | Sustainable development
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