One dimensional man

The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century Thomas L. Friedman Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005 Thomas Friedman is a widely-acclaimed journalist, foreign affairs columnist for the New York Times, and author of four best-selling books that include From Beirut to Jerusalem (1989). His eminence as a journalist is clearly demonstrated in the way he prepared for The World is Flat. He traveled throughout the world, interviewing in depth the political and business leaders who have the most direct, hands-on knowledge of the truly incredible developments occurring in the business structures and technology of globalization. Only a journalist who moves freely at the highest levels could interview the likes of Sir John Rose, the chief executive of Rolls-Royce; Nobuyuki Idei, the chairman of Sony; Richard Koo, the chief economist for the Nomura Research Institute; Bill Gates of Microsoft; Wee Theng Tan, the president of Intel China; David Baltimore, president of Caltech; Howard Schultz, founder and chairman of Starbucks; Nandan Nilekani, CEO of Infosys in Bangalore - and many others, each of whom gave him the inside story of how, specifically, the barriers of time and space separating economies, workforces, sources of capital, and technical abilities are crumbling. The result of this unfolding story, already far along but with much farther to go, according to Friedman, is that "the world is flat." With some notable exceptions in sub-Saharan Africa and the Islamic swathe, everything is connected with everything else on a horizontal basis, with distance and erstwhile time-lags no longer mattering. Friedman describes in detail the galloping globalization that has unfolded in even so limited a time as the past five years. Under the impetus of a worldwide network of interconnectivity, the world economy is much-changed from what it was at the turn of the century a mere half-decade ago. Friedman quotes the CEO of India's Infosys: "What happened over the last [few] years is that there was a massive investment in technology, especially in the bubble era, when hundreds of millions of dollars were invested in putting broadband connectivity around the world, undersea cables," while (Friedman paraphrases him) "computers became cheaper and dispersed all over the world, and there was an explosion of software - e-mail, search engines like Google, and proprietary software that can chop up any piece of work and send one part to Boston, one part to Bangalore, and one part to Beijing...." Microprocessors today have 410 million transistors compared to the 2800 they had in 1971. And now, "wireless is what will allow you to take everything that has been digitized, made virtual and personal, and do it from anywhere." The effect on productivity is revolutionary: "It now takes Boeing eleven days to build a 737, down from twenty-eight days just a few years ago. Boeing will build the next generation of planes in three days, because all the parts are computer-designed for assembly." The most strikingly informative aspect of this book, however, is not about technology. Most especially, Friedman explores the rapidly evolving global business systems, each constantly regenerating itself to keep ahead of the others. These are systems that span the continents seeking the lowest-cost providers of everything from expert scientific and engineering work to the lowliest grunt work. Friedman points out that India produces 70,000 accounting graduates each year - and that they are willing to start at $100 a month. It is no wonder that Boeing employs 800 Russian scientists and engineers for passenger-plane design when "a U.S. aeronautical engineer costs $120 per design hour, a Russian costs about one-third of that." Friedman describes a call center in India where outbound callers sell "everything from credit cards to phone minutes," while operators taking inbound calls do "everything from tracing lost luggage for U.S. and European airline passengers to solving computer problems for confused American consumers. …

The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century

Business Cycles: A Theoretical, Historical, and Statistical Analysis of the Capitalist Process.

(1975). The Limits of Organization. Journal of Economic Issues: Vol. 9, No. 3, pp. 543-544.

The Limits of Organization

The History of Economic Analysis

Zombie economics: how dead ideas still walk among us, by John Quiggin, Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press, 2010, viii + 238 pp., $24.95 (hardback), ISBN 978-0-691-14582-2

Zombie economics: how dead ideas still walk among us

The political economy of Marx

The analysis considered in Part II focused upon the functioning and transformation of advanced capitalism. Each theory sought to provide an explanation of the ‘long boom’, understand the contradictions which would ultimately undermine it, and thereby account for the passivity of the working classes in the West, as well as locating the basis for any future radicalisation. In all cases the economic structures of backward areas and their relationship to those of developed countries figured hardly at all. Only Baran and Sweezy thought them to be significant, and even in Monopoly Capital they were of secondary importance. The forces of stability and change in the heartlands of capitalism were seen to operate primarily through the reproduction and growth of the major capitalist economies.

Capitalism and Underdevelopment

The book begins by focusing on Cambridge Growth, Distribution and Capital theory and early post Keynesian thought in the US. The failure of post Keynesian theory to supplant the neo-classical paradigm in the 1970s is also discussed, along with an overview of post Keynesian thinking in other countries. The book then deals with the search for coherence between various strands of post Keynesian thought and other schools of economic thought. The author concludes by assessing the progress made by post Keynesian economics since 1936 and considers several possible alternative futures for the post Keynesians. Historians of economic thought as well as post Keynesian and other heterodox economists should warmly welcome this book.

A History of Post Keynesian Economics Since 1936

The first volume of this critical history covers the social, political, and theoretical forces behind the development of Marxian economics from Marx's death in 1883 until 1929, the year marking the onset of Stalin's "revolution from above," which subsequently transformed the Soviet Union into a modern superpower. During these years, Marxists in both Russia and Germany found their economic ideas inextricably linked with practical political problems, and treated theory as a guide to action. This book systematically examines the important theoretical literature of the period, including insightful works by political functionaries outside academia--journalists, party organizers, underground activists, and teachers in the labor movement--presented here as the primary forgers of Marxian economic thought.Beginning with Engels's writings, this book analyzes the work of leading Marxist economists in the Second International, then concludes with a review of the intellectual movements within the Marxian political economy during the 1920s. A second volume treating the period from 1929 to the present will follow.Originally published in 1989.The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

John E. King

Papers

Zombie economics: how dead ideas still walk among us

The political economy of Marx

Capitalism and Underdevelopment

A History of Post Keynesian Economics Since 1936

A History of Marxian Economics