Description
Book SynopsisThis engaging and intelligent book argues that the unbridled impact of deregulated market forces will lead to social polarization and ultimately to the destruction of capitalist society as we know it today. After providing a lucid and accessible overview of the development of capitalism, Professor Brenner explains how human greed was confined within legal boundaries and shows how ingenuity rather than brute force ultimately became the source of wealth. He explores the interaction between ideas, behaviour and economic change and points out comparisons between scientific ideas and the phases of economic development. He warns that, by an inner logic, deregulated capitalism must necessarily lead to increased inequality and to the waning of those elements in bourgeois culture which are necessary for the proper functioning of a technologically advanced industrial economy.
Written in a lively and non-technical style, the book will appeal not only to economists but also to other social scientists and historians concerned with the history and development of modern capitalist society.
Trade Review’Brenner’s book is an interesting statement of the institutionalist/instrumentalist view that scientific separatism is intellectually untenable and practically destructive.’Table of ContentsThe origins of modern economic progress; estates and classes - the changing universe; state and society in the age of mercantilism; saving the goose that was to lay the golden eggs; "Rational Restlessness" - new paradigms in science and society; the age of capital accumulation and investment; the birthpains of competitive society; "All things pregnant with their contrary"; the Labour movement between reform and revolution; the improvement of living conditions; the triumph of Fascism and failure of the "Proletarian Counterculture"; Keynes and the era of regulated capitalism; regulated capitalism - the age of prosperity; "The Devil Watches All Opportunities"; services and the expanding public sector; the gentle demise of meaningful democracy and competition.
