An illusion is undergirding market societies. It is the illusion of free choice. We are taught that in the free market system human choice reigns supreme. It doesn't. In The Illusion of Choice, Andrew Bard Schmookler shows how the market system unfolds according to a logic of its own, shaping e...

Ausführliche Beschreibung

Bibliographische Detailangaben

1. Verfasser:	Schmookler, Andrew B. (VerfasserIn)
Format:	Buch
Sprache:	English
Veröffentlicht:	Albany, NY State Univ. of New York Press 1993
Schriftenreihe:	SUNY series in environmental public policy
Schlagworte:	Consumptie Markteconomie Sociaal-economische situatie Sociale aspecten Gesellschaft Wirtschaft Consumers > United States Consumption (Economics) > United States Social change Social values Marktwirtschaft USA United States > Economic conditions > 1981-2001 United States > Social conditions > 1980-
Zusammenfassung:	An illusion is undergirding market societies. It is the illusion of free choice. We are taught that in the free market system human choice reigns supreme. It doesn't. In The Illusion of Choice, Andrew Bard Schmookler shows how the market system unfolds according to a logic of its own, shaping everything within its domain - the landscape, social institutions, even human values - to serve its own inherent purposes. This understanding helps illuminate much of what has been most troubling to generations of Americans struggling to create a more humane society. Building on his prize-winning book on social evolution, The Parable of the Tribes, Schmookler provides us here with the conceptual tools to become less the instruments of our powerful systems and more the masters of our destiny. The market attends well to some dimensions of human life and does not even see others It is sensitive to those values pertaining to what can be bought and sold but is blind to others - such as the integrity of the natural world and the quality of human relationships - that cannot be turned into commodities. It is impervious to the costs of tearing apart the larger wholes - families, communities, the biosphere - that are vital to the quality of our lives. While these shortcomings are known to mainstream economics, their vital importance has not been recognized because economics takes too static a perspective. Systematic errors wreak damage over time. The Illusion of Choice, by putting our economic lives in a social evolutionary perspective, illuminates the defects of the market ideology that defends the uncontrolled play of market forces. On the basis of that analysis, this work also provides the outlines of a program by which we can make the market system a better instrument of the full range of human values It calls for better use of tastes and subsidies to reflect the real costs and benefits of market activities. It calls for more genuine involvement of stockholders in the fundamental policies of corporations. And it calls for global agreements among nations, so that the competition of the international market does not compel nations to adopt a lowest common denominator of economic policies. Here is a powerful critique of the market that draws upon mainstream economics to show how we all have a stake in making change. Here is a program for humanizing the market, not by overthrowing it but by correcting its biases, not by revolution but by strengthening the democratic process. Perhaps we can at last add the most important choice to the abundance of choices the market provides us: the choice of developing into the kind of society we really want to be
Beschreibung:	XII, 349 S.
ISBN:	0791412652