George Brockway's The End Of Economic Man renders a good swift kick in the seat of the pants to apologists for 
corporate capitalism. Economic man, who is the model for most schools of economics,
is greed incarnate. As a result, the schools celebrate things - the wealth of nations, the gross national product, the bottom line, an impersonal equilibrium. In each case, the doctrine is, as Carlyle said, a dismal science.
The End Of Economic Man explores the principles of an economics based on the free activity of responsible men and women. It is a special activity in that it concerns money. (Woody Allen was right when
he said that economics is about money and why it is good.) The consequences are startling and stimulating, as these samples suggest:
-
Without money, the employment relationship is at best sharecropping and
at worst slavery.
-
A bull market is an economic disaster. The market can rise only by sucking
in more and more money, which is thereby denied to the producing economy.
-
Credit amounts to nothing unless you use it. Credit becomes money by becoming
debt.
-
Property is what you can do with it. It is not a datum but an idea.
-
Labor is not the source of value, it is the source of right.
-
The law of supply and demand works backwards. Price is the independent
variable on which supply and demand depend.
-
Capital gains are realized only when an investment is withdrawn and ceases.
1995, 5 x 8, 320 pp, indexed, soft cover.
THE END OF ECONOMIC MAN: $11.95
(ORDER NUMBER 94215)
