Binary Economics presents a new paradigm which founds a practical new economics and a unifying new politics that enable people to understand and realize their essential rights and responsibilities in a market economy. This paradigm recognizes that capital has a potent productive and distributive relationship to growth, and by democratically extending the efficient means to acquire capital to all people using the earnings of capital on market principles, binary economics offers many important benefits beyond those provided by conventional economics. The authors present this concept as new hope for solving seemingly intractable problems of economic efficiency, distribution, and justice not solved by conventional economic theories and practices, while enabling people to understand and realize their essential rights and responsibilities in a market economy. The binary paradigm allows cooperation with governments to make modest reforms to existing capital markets so that all people can acquire capital using the earnings of capital and offering the market foundation for many important benefits, including substantial, sustainable growth; more equal opportunity and social justice; increased earning power for the poor, working and middle class people; a greener environment; individual autonomy; strong families and communities; strengthened democracy; and voluntary control of population levels.

A Financial Times Book of the Year “The strongest documentation I have seen for the many ways in which inequality is harmful to economic growth.” —Jason Furman “A timely and very useful guide...Boushey assimilates a great deal of recent economic research and argues that it amounts to a paradigm shift.” —New Yorker Do we have to choose between equality and prosperity? Decisions made over the past fifty years have created underlying fragilities in our society that make our economy less effective in good times and less resilient to shocks, such as today’s coronavirus pandemic. Many think tackling inequality would require such heavy-handed interference that it would stifle economic growth. But a careful look at the data suggests nothing could be further from the truth—and that reducing inequality is in fact key to delivering future prosperity. Presenting cutting-edge economics with verve, Heather Boushey shows how rising inequality is a drain on talent, ideas, and innovation, leading to a concentration of capital and a damaging under-investment in schools, infrastructure, and other public goods. We know inequality is fueling social unrest. Boushey shows persuasively that it is also a serious drag on growth. “In this outstanding book, Heather Boushey...shows that, beyond a point, inequality damages the economy by limiting the quantity and quality of human capital and skills, blocking access to opportunity, underfunding public services, facilitating predatory rent-seeking, weakening aggregate demand, and increasing reliance on unsustainable credit.” —Martin Wolf, Financial Times “Think rising levels of inequality are just an inevitable outcome of our market-driven economy? Then you should read Boushey’s well-argued, well-documented explanation of why you’re wrong.” —David Rotman, MIT Technology Review

In 1956, a U.S. lawyer-economist, Louis O. Kelso, created the employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) to enable the employees of a closely held newspaper chain to buy out its retiring owners. Two years later, Kelso and his co-author, the philosopher Mortimer J. Adler, explained the macro-economic theory on which the ESOP is based in this best-selling book, The Capitalist Manifesto. “When you read this book, you must be prepared for a shock—particularly if you are among the millions of Americans who feel complacent about the material well-being that now prevails in this country. THE CAPITALIST MANIFESTO will compel you to examine, reconsider and question many dangerous economic factors and political tendencies you have accepted as inevitable—and will show you how you can do something about them. “THE CAPITALIST MANIFESTO sets the alarm for all American citizens—not simply one group or class. It is for stockholders, workers, labor leaders, corporation executives, investment bankers, taxpayers, small businessmen and industrialists, statesmen, legislators, judges and educators. Its purpose is to arouse us to the real and present dangers we now face, from inflation and from the progressive socialization of our economy. What is the difference between a well-heeled existence in a welfare state and the good life in a free society? THE CAPITALIST MANIFESTO will tell you what that difference is, and why you must be a man of property in order to be a free man. It will explain the meaning of your ever-expanding opportunities for leisure. It will tell you that the goal of an industrial society should not be full employment in the production of wealth, but full enjoyment of the wealth produced. It will tell you how you, as an individual, can best use wealth to further the happiness and well-being of yourself and your fellow men.” “A revolutionary force in human affairs offering still unplumbed promise for the future....”—Time Magazine

Energy drives the economy, economics informs policy, and policy affects social outcomes. Since the oil crises of the 1970s, pundits have debated the validity of this sequence, but most economists and politicians still ignore it. Thus, they delude the public about the underlying influence of energy costs and constraints on economic policies that address such pressing contemporary issues as income inequality, growth, debt, and climate change. To understand why, Carey King explores the scientific and rhetorical basis of the competing narratives both within and between energy technology and economics. Energy and economic discourse seems to mirror Newton’s 3rd Law of Motion: For every narrative there is an equal and opposite counter-narrative. The competing energy narratives pit "drill, baby, drill!" against renewable technologies such as wind and solar. Both claim to provide secure, reliable, clean, and affordable energy to support economic growth with the most benefit to society, but how? To answer this question, we need to understand the competing economic narratives, techno-optimism and techno-realism. Techno-optimism claims that innovation overcomes any physical resource constraints and enables the social outcomes and economic growth we desire. Techno-realism, in contrast, states that no matter what energy technologies we use, feedbacks from physical growth on a finite planet constrain economic growth and create an uneven distribution of social impacts. In The Economic Superorganism, you will discover stories, data, science, and philosophy to guide you through the arguments from competing narratives on energy, growth, and policy. You will be able to distinguish the technically possible from the socially viable, and understand how our future depends on this distinction.

This two-volume concise treatise on the history of economic thought is accessibly written for readers interested in business, law, and public policy

This book contains the most sustained and serious attack on mainstream, neoclassical economics in more than forty years. Nelson and Winter focus their critique on the basic question of how firms and industries change overtime. They marshal significant objections to the fundamental neoclassical assumptions of profit maximization and market equilibrium, which they find ineffective in the analysis of technological innovation and the dynamics of competition among firms. To replace these assumptions, they borrow from biology the concept of natural selection to construct a precise and detailed evolutionary theory of business behavior. They grant that films are motivated by profit and engage in search for ways of improving profits, but they do not consider them to be profit maximizing. Likewise, they emphasize the tendency for the more profitable firms to drive the less profitable ones out of business, but they do not focus their analysis on hypothetical states of industry equilibrium. The results of their new paradigm and analytical framework are impressive. Not only have they been able to develop more coherent and powerful models of competitive firm dynamics under conditions of growth and technological change, but their approach is compatible with findings in psychology and other social sciences. Finally, their work has important implications for welfare economics and for government policy toward industry.