New Ideas From Dead Economists

The great economists of the past provide us with essential tools to understand the present. If we are still wrestling with the ethical dilemmas of capitalism, it would be absurd to ignore the insights of Marx and John Stuart Mill. Adam Smith can illuminate the Japanese economic miracle (and the recent cracks in the fagade), just as Malthus anticipates our anxieties about population explosion and ecological disaster. And Keynes, his monetarist opponents and the 'public choice' school offer three stimulating and different perspectives on the most crucial question of all: can governments deliver prosperity to their citizens? Todd G. Buchholz offers lively accounts of their lives, ideas - and continuing relevance to today's crucial debates about free trade, welfare reform, internationalisation and the relief of poverty. For this new edition, he has included a section on financial economists. There could be no better introduction to economic theory in action.