Social Economics

Enough of the imbalance that is causing the degradation of our environment, the demise of our democracies, and the denigration of ourselves. Enough of the pendulum politics of left and right and paralysis in the political center. We require an unprecedented form of radical renewal. In this book Henry Mintzberg offers a new understanding of the root of our current crisis and a strategy for restoring the balance so vital to the survival of our progeny and our planet.

For more than 20 years, Naomi Klein has been the foremost chronicler of the economic war waged on both people and planet - and the champion of a sweeping environmental agenda with stability and justice at its center. In lucid dispatches from the frontlines - from the ghostly Great Barrier Reef, to the annual smoke-choked skies of the Pacific Northwest, to post-hurricane Puerto Rico, to a Vatican attempting an unprecedented "ecological conversion".

Renowned social psychologists Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson take a compelling look into how the brain is wired for self-justification. When we make mistakes, we must calm the cognitive dissonance that jars our feelings of self-worth. And so we create fictions that absolve us of responsibility, restoring our belief that we are smart, moral, and right - a belief that often keeps us on a course that is dumb, immoral, and wrong. Backed by years of research and delivered in energetic prose, Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me) offers a fascinating explanation of self-deception.

At 28, Stephanie Land's dreams of attending a university and becoming a writer quickly dissolved when a summer fling turned into an unplanned pregnancy. Before long, she found herself a single mother, scraping by as a housekeeper to make ends meet. Maid is an emotionally raw, masterful account of Stephanie's years spent in service to upper-middle-class America as a "nameless ghost" who quietly shared in her clients' triumphs, tragedies, and deepest secrets.

Discrimination and Disparities challenges believers in such one-factor explanations of economic outcome differences as discrimination, exploitation, or genetics. It is listenable enough for people with no prior knowledge of economics. Yet the empirical evidence with which it backs up its analysis spans the globe and challenges beliefs across the ideological spectrum.

The Left has seized on our economic troubles as an excuse to “blame the rich guy” and paint a picture of capitalism and the free market as selfish, greedy, and cruel. Exactly the opposite is true, says Father Robert Sirico in his thought-provoking book Defending the Free Market: The Moral Case for a Free Economy. Father Sirico argues that a free economy actually promotes charity, selflessness, and kindness. In Defending the Free Market, he shows why free-market capitalism is not only the best way to ensure individual success and national prosperity but also the surest route to a moral and socially just society.

This sweeping book is a systematic treatment of the historic transformation of the West from limited monarchy to unlimited democracy. Revisionist in nature, it reaches the conclusion that monarchy, with all its failings, is a lesser evil than mass democracy but outlines deficiencies in both as systems of guarding liberty.

Ryan Hass charts a path forward in America's relationship and rivalry with China rooted in the relative advantages America already possesses. Hass argues that while competition will remain the defining trait of the relationship, both countries will continue to be impacted - for good or ill - by their capacity to coordinate on common challenges that neither can solve on its own, such as pandemic disease, global economic recession, climate change, and nuclear nonproliferation.

Governments have always struggled to tax in ways that are effective and tolerably fair. Sometimes they fail grotesquely, as when, in 1898, the British ignited a rebellion in Sierra Leone by imposing a tax on huts - and, in repressing it, ended up burning the very huts they intended to tax. Sometimes they succeed astonishingly, as when, in 18th-century Britain, a cut in the tax on tea massively increased revenue. Two leading authorities on taxation provide a fascinating and informative tour through these and many other episodes in tax history, both preposterous and dramatic....

Antibiotics are powerful drugs that can prevent and treat infections, but they are becoming less effective as a result of drug resistance. Resistance develops because the bacteria that antibiotics target can evolve ways to defend themselves against these drugs. When antibiotics fail, there is very little else to prevent an infection from spreading. Unnecessary use of antibiotics in both humans and animals accelerates the evolution of drug-resistant bacteria, with potentially catastrophic personal and global consequences.

From thriving Motor City to the largest municipal bankruptcy in American history, Detroit has become the nation's cautionary tale. But what led to the fateful day of the filing, and how did the city survive this crisis? Journalist Nathan Bomey delivers the inside story of Detroit's decline and the people who fought to save it against impossible odds: Governor Rick Snyder, a self-proclaimed nerd; emergency manager Kevyn Orr, a lawyer with singular dedication; Judge Steven Rhodes, the city's conscience; and retirees who fought to ensure that Detroit kept its promises.

Eighteen years after the genocide that made Rwanda international news, yet left it all but abandoned by the West, the country has achieved a miraculous turnaround. Rising out of the complete devastation of a failed state, Rwanda has emerged on the world stage yet again - this time with a unique model for governance and economic development under the leadership of its strong and decisive president, Paul Kagame. Here, Patricia Crisafulli and Andrea Redmond look at Kagame’s leadership.

Why do well-intentioned plans for improving the human condition go tragically awry? Author James C. Scott analyzes failed cases of large-scale authoritarian plans in a variety of fields. Centrally managed social plans misfire, Scott argues, when they impose schematic visions that do violence to complex interdependencies that are not - and cannot - be fully understood. Further, the success of designs for social organization depends upon the recognition that local, practical knowledge is as important as formal, epistemic knowledge.

There has always been some gap between rich and poor in this country, but in the last few decades what it means to be rich has changed dramatically. Alarmingly, the greatest income gap is not between the 1 percent and the 99 percent, but within the wealthiest 1 percent of our nation-as the merely wealthy are left behind by the rapidly expanding fortunes of the new global super-rich. Forget the 1 percent; Plutocrats proves that it is the wealthiest 0.1 percent who are outpacing the rest of us at break-neck speed.

Exceeding expectations rather than simply satisfying them is the cornerstone of the Disney approach to customer service. Now, in honor of the 10th anniversary of the original Be Our Guest, the Disney Institute, which specializes in helping professionals see new possibilities through concepts not found in the typical workplace, is revealing even more of the business behind the magic of quality service.

In Evicted, Princeton sociologist and MacArthur “Genius” Matthew Desmond follows eight families in Milwaukee as they each struggle to keep a roof over their heads. Hailed as “wrenching and revelatory” (The Nation), “vivid and unsettling” (New York Review of Books), Evicted transforms our understanding of poverty and economic exploitation while providing fresh ideas for solving one of twenty-first-century America’s most devastating problems. Its unforgettable scenes of hope and loss remind us of the centrality of home, without which nothing else is possible.

Over the course of a decade spent reporting on the ground in China as a financial journalist, Dinny McMahon gradually came to the conclusion that the widely held belief in China’s inevitable economic ascent is dangerously wrong. Debt, entrenched vested interests, a frenzy of speculation, and an aging population are all pushing China toward an economic reckoning. China’s Great Wall of Debt unravels an incredibly complex and opaque economy, one whose fortunes - for better or worse - will shape the globe like never before.

Debtors have been mocked, scolded, and lied to for decades. We have been told that it is perfectly normal to go into debt to get medical care, to go to school, or even to pay for our own incarceration. We’ve been told there is no way to change an economy that pushes the majority into debt while a small minority hoard wealth and power. The coronavirus pandemic has revealed that mass indebtedness and extreme inequality are a political choice. In the early days of the crisis, elected officials drew up plans to spend trillions of dollars. The only question was: who would benefit?

In 2008, the American economy collapsed, taking with it millions of Americans' jobs, homes, and life savings. The impending financial crisis was devastating, and many are still feeling its effects today. Though the crisis was debilitating, the US government has yet to implement policies that would prevent a repeat of the Great Recession. Nothing Is Too Big to Fail holds a microscope to the very policies and corruption that led to this major economic recession.

During the pandemic, government deficits skyrocketed to record highs while central banks primed the printing presses—and the time has come to pay for it. The ramifications of international COVID-19 spending could potentially last for decades, and inevitably one of the first consequences will be that central banks will lose control of interest rates, and subsequently, growth and inflation targets. The genie will be out of the bottle.