Title
It didn't have to be this way : why boom and bust is unnecessary--and how the Austrian school of economics breaks the cycle / Harry C. Veryser.
ISBN
9781935191070
1935191071
Published
Wilmington, Delaware : ISI Books, [2012]
Language
English
Description
vii, 318 pages ; 24 cm.
Call Number
HB98 .V47 2012
Dewey Decimal Classification
330.15/7
Summary
Mainstream economics has no adequate answers for these pressing questions. To understand how we got here, and how we can ensure prosperity, we must turn to an alternative to the dominant approach: the Austrian School of economics. Veiyser tells the fascinating (but frightening) story of how our modern economic condition developed. The most recent recession, far from being an isolated incident, was part of a larger cycle that has been the scourge of the West for a century--a cycle rooted in government manipulation of markets and currency. The lesson is clear: the devastation of the recent economic crisis--and of stagflation in the 1970s, and of the Great Depression in the 1930s--could have been avoided. It didn't have to be this way. Economics is not a mysterious science, Veryser shows. As the Austrian School teaches, it is simply the study of human action. Mainstream economics has failed because it has forgotten this fundamental truth. Economists have tried to put economics on a par with hard sciences like physics, reducing everything to numbers. But their complex mathematical models and cherished theories have only contributed to economic collapse. As the debate rages over the role of government in the economy, Harry Veryser presents the proper alternative to government interventionist approaches that have proved so ineffective. Too long unappreciated, the Austrian School of economics reveals the crucial conditions for a successful economy and points the way to a free, prosperous, and humane society--Book Jacket.
Bibliography, etc. Note
Includes bibliographical references (pages [279]-294) and index.
Series
Culture of enterprise series.
Introduction: It didn't have to be this way
pt. 1. Warnings ignored
ch. 1. A science of human action
ch. 2. Looking at today and dreading tomorrow
ch. 3. A short history of the Austrian school
pt. 2. How we got here
ch. 4. The age of classical liberalism
ch. 5. Chaos: the legacies of World War I
ch. 6. The age of Bretton Woods
ch. 7. Nixon's folly
ch. 8. Reagon's folly
pt. 3. A reconstruction of economics
ch. 9. The division of labor
ch. 10. The prerequisities of prosperity
ch. 11. The nature of human action
ch. 12. Inflation and deflation
ch. 13. Faustian bargain: the trade cycle
Conclusion: The Austrian movement.
