The Prosperity of Vice: A Worried View of Economics (MIT Press)
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.82 (932 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 026201730X |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 240 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2017-08-07 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
I was sorry when it ended - which is a rare state of mind at the end of an economic tract."--Howard Davies, Times Higher Education. "Daniel Cohen has done it again. You will learn. Be ready for an amazing intellectual and historical journey, from the Neolithic period to the subprime crisis. You will agree with some arguments, disagree with others. You will be enormously challenged. But, most of all, you will enjoy the ride."--Olivier Blanchard, Economic Counsellor and Research Department Director, International Monetary Fund, and Class of 1941 Professor, MIT"This is a fascinating book that deserves a wide readership
A member of the Council of Economic Analysis of the French Prime Minister, he is the author of The Wealth of the World and the Poverty of Nations, Our Modern Times: The Nature of Capitalism in the Information Age, Globalization and Its Enemies, and Three Lectures on Post-Industrial Society, all published by the MIT Press.. Daniel Cohen is Professor of Economics at the École Normale Supérieure and the Université de Paris-I
It is still possible, he argues, that the cyber-world will create a new awareness of global solidarity. What happened yesterday in the West is today being repeated on a global scale. Contrary to what believers in the "clash of civilizations" maintain, the great risk of the twenty-first century is not a confrontation between cultures but a repetition of history. Industrial society is replacing rural society: millions of peasants in China, India, and elsewhere are leaving the countryside and going to the city. Peace in Europe came only after the barbaric wars of the twentieth century, not as the outcome of economic growth. But the consequences of addiction to growth are dire in an era of globalization. New powers are emerging and rivalries are exacerbated as competition increases for control of raw materials. If a billion Chinese consume a billion cars, the future of the planet is threatened. In The Prosperity of Vice, the influential French economist Daniel Cohen shows that violence, rather than peace, has been the historical accompaniment to prosperity. But, Cohen points out, there is another kind of globalization: the immaterial globalization enabled by the Internet. It even may help us accomplish a formidable cognitive task, as immense as that realized during the Industrial Revolution--one that would allow us learn to live within the limits of a solitary planet.. What will happen this time for toda
Too Wide-Ranging to be Worthwhile Samuel J. Sharp This is a difficult book to review because although the author is very intelligent and the book is well-written, so many topics are touched upon that the book lacks any profound conclusions or takeaway points. The jacket claims that Cohen "shows that violence, rather than peace, has been the historical accompaniment to prosperity" but this conclusion is not convincingly proved and is hardly the main focus of the book. Chapter 10 is titled "War and Peace" but is only 10 pages and essentially concedes that World War II has ended any pattern of economic prosperity leading to wars.The first two parts of the book focus on the historical rise of. Full of knowledge and clear messages Hitoshi Masuya The fair and profound discussions of history, economics and sociology are impressive. The author's standpoint, denouncement of progress in the Western style, is interesting to me not only because he is one of the West but also because it resembles that of some Japanese critics in the end of 19th century (when the country changed its way from the East to the West). The last chapter, discussions on the post modern world and the negative conclusion to it, may be less logical than the previous chapters. But, the book is concise, the statement is consistent, so I can recommend.