Finally, the authors outline the reforms necessary to create monetary, financial and banking systems free of the episodic inflation, devaluation, debt crises, and exchange rate volatility that have plagued the twentieth century.

National currencies appear to be threatened from all sides. European Union member countries are due to abandon their national currencies in favour of a supranational currency by the year 2000. Elsewhere, the use of foreign currencies within national economic spaces is on the increase, as shown by the growth of eurocurrency activity, and currency su

Essential to Mises's concept of a classical liberal economy is the absence of interference by the state. In World War I, Germany and its allies were overpowered by the Allied Powers in population, economic production, and military might, and its defeat was inevitable. Mises believed that Germany should not seek revenge for the peace of Versailles; rather it should adopt liberal ideas and a free-market economy by expanding the international division of labor, which would help all parties. "For us and for humanity," Mises wrote, "there is only one salvation: return to rationalistic liberalism." Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973) was the leading spokesman of the Austrian School of economics throughout most of the twentieth century. Bettina Bien Greaves is a former resident scholar and trustee of the Foundation for Economic Education and was a senior staff member at FEE from 1951 to 1999. Please note: This title is available as an ebook for purchase on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and iTunes.

The politics of international debt have received increasing attention in recent years. However, discussion of the politics of money has focused on Latin American and 'third' world countries. So far there has been little treatment of the politics of scarce money and of money as a political category in relation to 'advanced' countries. The central theme of the book is the limitations and constraints on state action which arise from the relation between the (nation) state and the global flow of money.

The book also examines the effects of early legal systems.

The crisis of the neoliberal order has resuscitated a political idea widely believed to be consigned to the dustbin of history. Brexit, the election of Donald Trump, and the neo-nationalist, anti-globalisation and anti-establishment backlash engulfing the West all involve a yearning for a relic of the past: national sovereignty.In response to these challenging times, economist William Mitchell and political theorist Thomas Fazi reconceptualise the nation state as a vehicle for progressive change. They show how despite the ravages of neoliberalism, the state still contains resources for democratic control of a nation's economy and finances. The populist turn provides an opening to develop an ambitious but feasible left political strategy.Reclaiming the State offers an urgent, provocative and prescient political analysis of our current predicament, and lays out a comprehensive strategy for revitalising progressive economics in the 21st century.

Monetary and banking problems in the world today arise not so much from the failure of specific policies as from more deep-seated problems in institutional structures. Individuals clearly make mistakes and legislatures make bad laws, but the institutions from which decisions and laws emanate determine the effectiveness of social operations and the value of social decisions. Unless we change the present institutional structure, we are not likely to get stable solutions to today's most serious problems—ongoing and often erratic inflation and serious banking instability. Money and the Nation State examines the history of modern monetary and banking arrangements, some of the major monetary and banking problems, and options for meaningful reform. The common theme of all the essays is that current arrangements result less from the accomplishments of great men than man-made institutions that society has inherited—central banks and "the legal and regulatory frameworks that accompany them. The contributors emphasize the impact of political interference on the workings of monetary and financial institutions. Not surprisingly, they find many problems arise because politically generated structures are inappropriate to the real needs of the individuals and groups they are meant to serve. Money and the Nation State provides an essential framework for those willing to return to first principles in thinking about the role of monetary institutions in economic life. Economists, financial theorists, and the interested citizen will find it stimulating reading.

The history of globalization is anything but a no-frills affair that moves smoothly along a clear-cut, unidirectional path of development, eventually leading to seamless global integration. Accordingly, scholarship in the social sciences has increasingly argued against equating the history of globalization processes and transcultural entanglements with the master narrative of the gradual homogenization of the world. Examining the shifting patterns of global connections has, therefore, become the main challenge for all those who seek to understand the past, the present and the future of modern societies. And this challenge includes finding a place for the nation state. The studies presented here argue that looking at the nation state from the perspective of global entanglements opens the door for its interpretation as a dynamic and multi-layered structure that takes part in globalization processes and plays various and at times even contradictory roles at the same time.

Brilliant and engagingly written, Why Nations Fail answers the question that has stumped the experts for centuries: Why are some nations rich and others poor, divided by wealth and poverty, health and sickness, food and famine? Is it culture, the weather, geography? Perhaps ignorance of what the right policies are? Simply, no. None of these factors is either definitive or destiny. Otherwise, how to explain why Botswana has become one of the fastest growing countries in the world, while other African nations, such as Zimbabwe, the Congo, and Sierra Leone, are mired in poverty and violence? Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson conclusively show that it is man-made political and economic institutions that underlie economic success (or lack of it). Korea, to take just one of their fascinating examples, is a remarkably homogeneous nation, yet the people of North Korea are among the poorest on earth while their brothers and sisters in South Korea are among the richest. The south forged a society that created incentives, rewarded innovation, and allowed everyone to participate in economic opportunities. The economic success thus spurred was sustained because the government became accountable and responsive to citizens and the great mass of people. Sadly, the people of the north have endured decades of famine, political repression, and very different economic institutions—with no end in sight. The differences between the Koreas is due to the politics that created these completely different institutional trajectories. Based on fifteen years of original research Acemoglu and Robinson marshall extraordinary historical evidence from the Roman Empire, the Mayan city-states, medieval Venice, the Soviet Union, Latin America, England, Europe, the United States, and Africa to build a new theory of political economy with great relevance for the big questions of today, including: - China has built an authoritarian growth machine. Will it continue to grow at such high speed and overwhelm the West? - Are America’s best days behind it? Are we moving from a virtuous circle in which efforts by elites to aggrandize power are resisted to a vicious one that enriches and empowers a small minority? - What is the most effective way to help move billions of people from the rut of poverty to prosperity? More philanthropy from the wealthy nations of the West? Or learning the hard-won lessons of Acemoglu and Robinson’s breakthrough ideas on the interplay between inclusive political and economic institutions? Why Nations Fail will change the way you look at—and understand—the world.