The Surprising Design of Market Economies
Published on 1. September 2012
Book
Hardback
288 pages
978-0-292-71777-0 (ISBN)
Description
The "free market" has been a hot topic of debate for decades. Proponents tout it as a cure-all for just about everything that ails modern society, while opponents blame it for the very same ills. But the heated rhetoric obscures one very important, indeed fundamental, fact-markets don't just run themselves; we create them. Starting from this surprisingly simple, yet often ignored or misunderstood fact, Alex Marshall takes us on a fascinating tour of the fundamentals that shape markets and, through them, our daily economic lives. He debunks the myth of the "free market," showing how markets could not exist without governments to create the structures through which we assert ownership of property, real and intellectual, and conduct business of all kinds. Marshall also takes a wide-ranging look at many other structures that make markets possible, including physical infrastructure ranging from roads and railroads to water systems and power lines; mental and cultural structures such as common languages and bodies of knowledge; and the international structures that allow goods, services, cash, bytes, and bits to flow freely around the globe.
Sure to stimulate a lively public conversation about the design of markets, this broadly accessible overview of how a market economy is constructed will help us create markets that are fairer, more prosperous, more creative, and more beautiful.
Sure to stimulate a lively public conversation about the design of markets, this broadly accessible overview of how a market economy is constructed will help us create markets that are fairer, more prosperous, more creative, and more beautiful.
Reviews / Votes
"Offers keen insights into urban planning, public works, and even the history of New York's onetime ambivalence toward a professional police force." New York Times "Marshall's thoughtful critique accounts for social dynamics often ignored by modern economists and is grounded in a multitude of fascinating examples, underscoring his thesis that we can, and should, debate the powers allotted to our creations, rather than let them, falsely, set the terms of their own existence." Publishers Weekly "Conventional economics wittingly or unwittingly provides cover for the One Percent, by professing that 'the market' operates benevolently on its own. Alex Marshall gives us an entertaining, thoughtful, and well-written antidote to this dangerous abstraction." Huffington PostMore details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Austin, TX
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
With dust jacket
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 152 mm
Thickness: 25 mm
Weight
567 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-292-71777-0 (9780292717770)
Copyright in bibliographic data is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or its licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
From the way roads and rails shape our cities to the way laws shape our economies, Alex Marshall has long sought and explored the underlying systems that shape our worlds. A journalist, writer, and former Loeb Fellow at Harvard University's Graduate School of Design, he is the author of How Cities Work: Suburbs, Sprawl, and the Roads Not Taken and Beneath the Metropolis: The Secret Lives of Cities. Marshall is a Senior Fellow at the Regional Plan Association in New York. His work has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Metropolis, Planning, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, Slate, Salon, Architecture, Revue Urbanisme, and many other publications.
Content
Introduction. The Designer Disappears: Markets and Their Makers Section One. On the Books: The Markets We Make by Law 1. Coming into Being: In Praise of Markets 2. Me and Mine: Property, the First Market 3. Lex Non Scripta: The Laws We Don't Make, or, the Common Law 4. I Am My Brother's Keeper: Cooperatives 5. Trust: How We Cooperate to Compete 6. Staking Claims on the Mind: Intellectual Property 7. Little Commonwealths: Corporations and the State That Creates Them 8. The Future of Corporations Section Two. Infrastructure: The Markets We Make by Hand 9. From Highways to Health Care: Progress through Infrastructure 10. Making Places 11. The Great Nineteenth-Century Train Robbery 12. A Socialist Paradise: The American Road System 13. Waiting for a Train Station 14. What We Did Before: Path Dependence and Markets 15. Police and Prisons: Freedom, Security, and Democracy 16. Why Don't You Make Me? Government and Force Section Three. Seeding the Fields: The Markets We Make in Our Minds 17. Common Tongue, Common Culture, Common Markets Section Four. The Markets We Build Abroad 18. By Your Bootstraps: Developing Countries and Markets 19. Last Night upon the Stairs: International Law Section Five. Looking Forward: Making Better Markets Conclusion. Making Better Markets Afterword. My Own Story: A Circuitous Journey Acknowledgments Notes Selected Bibliography Index