The Intelligent Radicals Guide To Economic Policy

First published in 1975, this guide to economic policy outlines an economic philosophy for reform for the ‘intelligent radical’ who seeks to address the issues of liberty and equality within society. Among other issues, the book looks at policies to control inflation, to maintain full employment, to set prices and wages, to distribute income and property, and to manage the environment and international trade. Professor Meade expounds in simple language a set of closely interrelated policies designed to enable us to achieve what he describes as ‘ the decent, free, prosperous society which modern science has undoubtedly brought within our grasp.

First published in 1975, this guide to economic policy outlines an economic philosophy for reform for the e~intelligent radicale(tm) who seeks to address the issues of liberty and equality within society. Among other issues, the book looks at policies to control inflation, to maintain full employment, to set prices and wages, to distribute income and property, and to manage the environment and international trade. Professor Meade expounds in simple language a set of closely interrelated policies designed to enable us to achieve what he describes as e~ the decent, free, prosperous society which modern science has undoubtedly brought within our grasp.

This volume contains classic essays on economic policy written by one of its great exponents. The opening essay traces the author's evolving structures of thought about economics and the policy proposals that came from them over this period. Section 2 contains essays which set the background to the policy recommendations. In section 3 the role of investment incentives is analysed. Section 4 is concerned with the influence of accounting conventions on private decision-making and government policy in both capitalist and planned economies. Section 5 contains a number of package deals, all designed to fit within the constraint of the philosophy of governments in power. The last section, general essays, ranges from a scheme for the payment of prisoners to the celebration of the views on policy of great economists, from Colin Clark, through Nicky Kaldor to John Cornwall.

This book examines British socialist political economies and the way in which they have influenced economic thinking within the Labour Party from the Fabianism at the beginning of the century to the Blairism of today.

`In Political Economy and the Labour Party, Noel Thompson gives an informative and stimulating outline of the ideas and theories that have shaped the party’s economic policy since 1900.’ - Times Literary Supplement A new edition of the American Library Association's `Outstanding Academic Book' award winner. This new volume brings this study of the rich tradition of British socialist political economy and its influence on the British Labour Party fully up-to-date. Surveying the Labour tradition from the Fabianism of the Webbs to the `social-ism’ of Tony Blair’s Third Way, this new edition considers the critical engagement of these political economies with capitalism and the policies they articulate. It also discusses the manner in which they influence, or establish the context for, Labour’s economic thinking and policymaking and traces the ideological trajectory British social democratic political economy over the course of the twentieth century. In its concluding chapter this volume assesses the present character of the political economy advanced by the Labour Party and raises the question as to whether it can any longer be considered part of the social democratic tradition. This is an essential new edition of this now standard text for students taking courses on the history of political and economic thought and, more generally, courses on the political and intellectual history of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Britain.

“This country's leading hell-raiser" (The Nation) shares his impassioned counsel to young radicals on how to effect constructive social change and know “the difference between being a realistic radical and being a rhetorical one.” First published in 1971 and written in the midst of radical political developments whose direction Alinsky was one of the first to question, this volume exhibits his style at its best. Like Thomas Paine before him, Alinsky was able to combine, both in his person and his writing, the intensity of political engagement with an absolute insistence on rational political discourse and adherence to the American democratic tradition.