Bernard Maris was killed in Paris on January 7, 2015, during the terrorist attack against the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. He remains one of the most original intellectuals of contemporary France, but despite being a uniquely original heterodox thinker, his international reputation has been compromised by the fact that his writings are inaccessible to non-French speakers. This book remedies that. By providing an overview of Bernard Maris’ life and intellectual trajectory as well as an English translation of an anthology of his most relevant writings, this volume provides the international audience – for the first time ever – the chance to know and understand the contribution of this major heterodox economist. An outstanding and atypical figure in economic thought and a virulent critic of mainstream dominant economics, he was also an all-round actor and thinker of his time. Through rigorous reasoning, he questioned the notion of well-being, which, he argued, is too often conflated with having more. Enslavement by work, or the endless destructive accumulation of natural wealth, is also inherent to the capitalist system. Probably his most original contribution is his epistemological reflection on the very nature of economics and his appraisal of this discipline as a form of rhetoric. This book will be of great interest to readers in heterodox economics, economic methodology, epistemology, and French literature and culture more broadly.

Do things such as performance indicators, valuation formulas, consumer tests, stock prices or financial contracts represent an external reality? Or do they rather constitute, in a performative fashion, what they refer to? The Provoked Economy tackles this question from a pragmatist angle, considering economic reality as a ceaselessly provoked reality. It takes the reader through a series of diverse empirical sites – from public administrations to stock exchanges, from investment banks to marketing facilities and business schools – in order to explore what can be seen from such a demanding standpoint. It demonstrates that descriptions of economic objects do actually produce economic objects and that the simulacrum of an economic act is indeed a form of realization. It also shows that provoking economic reality means facing practical tests in which what ought to be economic or not is subject to elaboration and controversy. This book opens paths for empirical investigation in the social sciences, but also for the philosophical renewal of the critique of economic reality. It will be useful for students and scholars in social theory, sociology, anthropology, philosophy and economics.

The origin of this work is to be found in the cyclostyled course on 'The optimal allocation of resources in the firm and in the Nation' taught by Mr Boiteux at the Centre d'Etudes des Programmes Economiques (C. E. P. E. ), Paris from 1957 to 1960. Of course, several successive later rewritings and a great many additions have profoundly altered the initial version: starting from a remarkably clear and concise exposition of eco nomic theory, we have ended with a book that is several hundred pages long. It is not at all certain that Mr Boiteux would recognise this intellec tual sponsorship. Nor is it certain that the gain in information justifies such an increase in size. However that may be, the initial plan has survived. Without Mr Boiteux this book would never have been undertaken: it is a pleasant duty for us respectfully to acknowledge our debt to him here. Microeconomic analysis, that is to say that analysis which results from the study of the behaviour and activities of individual decision-units, was for a long time the main concern of the neo-classicists. Quite recently the introduction of macroeconomic theory, dealing with aggregate quan tities, seemed to relegate it to second place. But this is not where it belongs: we tend to agree with Mr Raymond Barre that there are "two different scales of analysis that complement rather than contrast with one another".

In the two decades before the mid-1970s, macroeconomic policies in Western Europe were frequently accompanied by policies of direct wage restraint in the pursuit of acceptable levels of employment, inflation, and international competitiveness. The same period witnessed a proliferation of social welfare programs, elements of which were sometimes commingled with demand management and pay policies in trilateral bargaining processes involving gov ernments, unions, and employers. In the wake of such subsequent develop ments as the oil price shocks, sharply intensified international competition, and slowing of growth rates in productivity, however, governments resorted more frequently to deflationist macroeconomic policies and also to policies aimed directly at increasing IIflexibility" in wage determination and the de ployment of labor by the firm. It is a major theme of this very interesting book that these labor market policies have not been demonstrably (or at least sufficiently) effective in com bating the high rates of unemployment which have been prevalent in most of the countries of Western Europe since the late 1970s. This theme emerges from the chapters on labor market developments and policies in six countries of Western Europe, the United States, and Hungary (a welcome addition to this type of scholarship), as well as another set of chapters'devoted to specific policy areas. In effect, Samuel Rosenberg and his colleagues-an interna tional team of nineteen economists and sociologists-are repeating in con crete terms a sermon preached by Keynes over a half century ago.

This book defines the characteristics of a new discipline that is both legal and scientific: user-friendly legal science.Focusing on how legal tools and practices can be used to achieve objectives in different contexts, it offers an alternative to doctrinal research, law-and-something disciplines, and the traditional interdisciplinary approach.The book not only defines the new discipline’s research approach, point of view, theory-building, and research methods, it also shows how it relates to other scientific disciplines and how existing doctrinal legal disciplines can be upgraded into scientific disciplines.

The second in a series of three volumes presenting a selection of the best studies prepared for the Romanow Commission, this volume focuses on the problem of change in health care and health systems. Combining the talents of experienced health policy experts with innovative researchers, the resulting studies provide unique perspectives on the difficult issues under scrutiny, including complexity in health systems, management of human resources, organizational control and regulation, and public engagement. Commissioned and prepared with applicability as the foremost criteria, all of the studies presented in this volume offer solutions in managing obstacles to change. Each study also includes an appraisal of the most recent literature in the field.