Political Economy

• Muhammad Yunus
• Public Affairs; September 2003
• Paperback; 288 pages
• 978-1-58648-198-8

Muhammad Yunus is that rare thing: a bona fide visionary. His dream is the total eradication of poverty from the world. In 1983, against the advice of banking and government officials, Yunus established Grameen, a bank devoted to providing the poorest of Bangladesh with minuscule loans. Grameen Bank, based on the belief that credit is a basic human right, not the privilege of a fortunate few, now provides over 2.5 billion dollars of micro-loans to more than two million families in rural Bangladesh. Ninety-four percent of Yunus's clients are women, and repayment rates are near 100 percent. Around the world, micro-lending programs inspired by Grameen are blossoming, with more than three hundred programs established in the United States alone.

Banker to the Poor is Muhammad Yunus's memoir of how he decided to change his life in order to help the world's poor. In it he traces the intellectual and spiritual journey that led him to fundamentally rethink the economic relationship between rich and poor, and the challenges he and his colleagues faced in founding Grameen. He also provides wise, hopeful guidance for anyone who would like to join him in "putting homelessness and destitution in a museum so that one day our children will visit it and ask how we could have allowed such a terrible thing to go on for so long." The definitive history of micro-credit direct from the man that conceived of it, Banker to the Poor is necessary and inspirational reading for anyone interested in economics, public policy, philanthropy, social history, and business.

• Ruppel, Shell
• Penguin Press Hardcover; 09/07
• 9781594202155

This book is not currently in stock, but is available to order (1-2 weeks).

An "Atlantic Monthly" correspondent uncovers the true cost--in economic, political, and psychological terms--of the West's penchant for making and buying things as cheaply as possible.

• Jim Stanford
• Fernwood; June 2008
• Paperback; 340 pages
• 978-1-55266-272-4

Economics is too important to be left to economists. This brilliantly concise and readable book provides nonspecialist readers with all the information they need to understand how capitalism works (and how it doesn’t). Jim Stanford’s book is an antidote to the abstract and ideological way that economics is normally taught and reported.

Key concepts such as finance, competition and wage labour are explored, and their importance in everyday life is revealed. Stanford answers questions such as “Do workers need capitalists?” “Why does capitalism harm the environment?” and “What really happens on the stock market?” He offers both a realistic assessment of capitalism’s strengths and a robust critique of its many failures. This book will appeal to those working for a fairer world and students of social sciences who need to engage with economics.

The book is illustrated with humorous and educational cartoons by Tony Biddle and is supported with a comprehensive set of web-based course materials for popular economics courses.
 

• Heath, Joseph
• HarperCollins Publishers Ltd; 09/04
• 9781554683956

A dozen times every day, individuals and organizations use economic claims to support social and political points of view. Those on the left tend to distrust economists, seeing them as friends of the right. There is something to this skepticism, since professional economists are almost all keen supporters of the free market. Yet while factions on the right naturally embrace economists, they also tend to overestimate the effect of their support on free-market policies. The result is widespread confusion. In fact, virtually all commonly held beliefs about economics—whether espoused by political activists, politicians, journalists or taxpayers—are just plain wrong. 

Joseph Heath, co-author of the international bestseller The Rebel Sell, wants to improve our economic literacy and empower us with new ideas. In Filthy Lucre, he draws on everyday examples to skewer the six favourite economic fallacies of the right, before impaling the six favourite fallacies of the left. Heath leaves no sacred cows untipped as he breaks down complex arguments and shows how the monetary world really works. The popularity of such books as Freakonomics and Predictably Irrational demonstrates that people want a better understanding of the financial forces that affect them. Highly readable, flawlessly argued and certain to raise ire along all points of the socio-political spectrum, Filthy Lucre is a must-read for anyone wanting to engage in clear debate on social and political issues.

• Paul A. Baran & Paul M. Sweezy
• Monthly Review Press, 1966
• Paperback, 401 pages
• ISBN: 9780853450733

This landmark text by Paul Baran and Paul Sweezy is a classic of twentieth-century radical thought, a hugely influential book that continues to shape our understanding of modern capitalism.

• Margaret Atwood
• Anansi; 2008
• Paperback; 280 pages
• 978-0-88784-810-0

Margaret Atwood delivers a surprising look at the topic of debt - a timely subject during our current period of economic upheaval, caused by the collapse of a system of interlocking debts. In her wide ranging, entertaining, and imaginative approach to the subject, Atwood proposes that debt is like air - something we take for granted until things go wrong. And then, while gasping for breath, we become very interested in it.

Payback is not a book about practical debt management or high finance, although it does touch upon these subjects. Rather, it is an investigation into the idea of debt as an ancient and central motif in religion, literature, and the structure of human societies. By investigating how debt has informed our thinking from preliterate times to the present day through the stories we tell each other, through our concepts of "balance," "revenge," and "sin," and in the way we form our social relationships, Atwood shows that the idea of what we owe one another - in other words, "debt" - is built into the human imagination and is one of its most dynamic metaphors.

• David Ransom & Vanessa Baird (eds.)
• World Changing (New Internationalist), 2009
• Paperback, 239 pages
• ISBN: 9781906523237

This book is not currently in stock, but is available to order (2-4 weeks).

No one could have predictedor planned the revolution that we're in. For it is a revolution, not just a temporary aberration or passing hurricane. Capitalism as we know it is falling about our ears, and the world will never be the same again.

Perverse as it may sound, this is a tremendous opportunity for the human race. It's a chance to alter our relations to each other and to the planet. People-First Economics looks at what the crash means and could mean for us all. It's about economics;and about a lot more. It's about radical changes that are social, moral, ecological, and philosophical, changes that are already beginning to happen.

In a series of plain-speaking contributions, David Ransom brings together exciting and radical activists and thinkers, such as Naomi Klein, Walden Bello, and Susan George, to set the agenda for "economic democratization." Launching New Internationalist's World Changing imprint, People-First Economics covers everything from the green revolution and feminist economics to what we can learn from history and a ten-step economic detox. In doing so, it provides the opportunity to rethink what really matters in life.

• Steven D. Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner
• Harper Collins, 2009
• Hardcover, 270 pages
• ISBN: 9781554686087

New York Times bestselling authors Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner return with more iconoclastic insight and observations in this long-awaited follow-up to their blockbuster Freakonomics.

In 2005, Freakonomics exploded in the culture, forever changing our understanding of how the world works, how we really make decisions—even how we name our children. This revolutionary book spent two years on the New York Times bestseller list, sold more than 3 million hardcover copies, single-handedly spawned a new genre of books, and led to a column in the New York Times Magazine and a blog on the New York Times website. Now, University of Chicago economist Steven D. Levitt and award-winning writer Stephen J. Dubner return with this all-new book that is bigger, more provocative, and sure to challenge the way we think all over again. Freakonomics was one of the bestselling books of all time, selling more than three million copies and dominating the New York Times list for two straight years. SuperFreakonomics is based on all-new, revolutionary research and original studies by Steven Levitt. This provocative material has never been seen before. The authors’ New York Times blog is one of the Top 10 blogs in the world, according to TIME Magazine.

• Rosa Luxemburg
• Routledge Classics, 2003
• Paperback, 453 pages
• ISBN: 9780415304450

"A book which remains one of the masterpieces of socialist literature." Taking Marx as her starting point, Luxemburg offers an independent and fiercely critical explanation of the economic and political consequences of capitalism in the context of the turbulent times in which she lived, reinterpreting events in the United States, Europe, China, Russia and the British Empire. Many today believe there is no alternative to global capitalism. This book is a timely and forceful statement of an opposing view.

• Raj Patel
• Picador USA; 2010
• Paperback; 250 pages
• 9780312429249

Economics is about choices, but who gets to make them? Patel shows how free market fundamentalism has distorted how consumers value their world.