Ideology and the Evolution of Vital Institutions :
[Book]
Guilds, the Gold Standard, and Modern International Cooperation
by Earl A. Thompson, Charles R. Hickson.
Boston, MA
Springer US
2001
(xix, 406 pages)
1 Overview --;I An Example: Significant Bilateral Exchange --;II Generalizing the Example: A Theory of Social Organization --;III How Optimality Criteria Depend upon the Political Environment --;IV Rationalizing Citizen-Efficiency and Distributional Advice --;V The Need for a Rapid Adjustment Process --;VI Achieving Rapid Adjustment: Vitalness and Effective Democracy --;VII The Economic Benefits of Effective Democracy: Efficiency Tests --;VIII The Impermanence of Dominance --;IX A Brief Readers' Guide for Specialists --;X The Evolutionary Argument: A More Detailed Readers' Guide --;XI Extension to Biology: An Evolutionary Principle --;XII A Summary of the Policy Framework --;2 The Efficiency Problem, the Distribution Problem, and a Possible Solution --;I The Efficiency Problem --;II The Distributional Problem --;III A Constitutional Solution --;3 A New Interpretation of Guilds, Tariffs, and Laissez Faire --;Abstract and Introduction --;I An Efficiency-Based Theory of Democratic Political Associations --;II Efficient Guild Policies --;III The Economic Policies Generated by Protectionist Lobbies --;IV Policy Conclusion: On the Beating of Live Horses --;4 On the Gold Standard: Why Depressions have been a Necessary Evil, or How the Economics of Keynes Dethroned Europe --;Introduction: Emergency Finance and the Gold Standard --;I Mainstream Macroeconomics and the Gold Standard --;II Business Cycles and the Gold Standard --;III The Broad Price Trends Observed under the Gold Standard --;IV Emergency Finance after the Gold Standard --;5 On Modern International Cooperation: Exchange Controls, Hyperinflation, and Costly Social Revolution as Efficient National Responses to Externally Imposed Trade Liberalization --;Abstract and Introduction --;I The Primary Western Policy Imposition and the Responses of the Dependent Nations --;II Peacetime Hyperinflation as a Rational Response to Dominant-Country Reactions to Permissible Exchange Controls --;III A Model of Rational Hyperinflation --;IV Statistical Analysis --;V Graphical Summary --;VI Conclusions --;6 Summary, Policy Implications, and a Final Test --;I Vital Institutions and Civilizational Upturns --;II Civilizational Downturns and How to Avoid Them --;III Avoiding the Pending Distributional Disaster --;IV Does Economics Have Another Lesson for Biology? --;V Life in the Fast Lane --;VI An Intellectual Effect of the Proposed Policy --;References for the Text and A-Appendices.
In this book, Thompson and Hickson strongly challenge the standard interpretation of the basis of growth and viability of dominant wealthy nations.