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Since the financial meltdown of 2008, economists, journalists, and politicians have uniformly insisted that to restore the American Dream and renew economic growth, we need to save more and spend less.
In his provocative new book, historian James Livingston—author of the classic Origins of the Federal Reserve System—breaks from the consensus to argue that underconsumption caused the current crisis and will prolong it. By viewing the Great Recession through the prism of the Great Depression, Livingston proves that private investment is not the engine of growth we assume it to be. Tax cuts for business are therefore a recipe for disaster. If our goal is to reproduce the economic growth of the postwar era, we need a redistribution of income that reduces corporate profits, raises wages, and promotes consumer spending.
Introduction: Waiting for Galileo ix
Part 1 Our Very Own Perestroika
1 Understanding Backward: The Past as Imprisonment 3
2 How to Explain a Crisis: The Revenge of the Populists 8
3 Their Great Depression and Ours 40
4 Living Forward: Economic History as Moral Philosophy, Social Theory, and Political Science 63
Part 2 The Morality of Spending
5 The Politics of "More": From Gompers to Du Bois 77
6 Exporting the Black Aesthetic: From Du Bois to Havel 99
7 The Wand of Increase: Advertising Desire 115
8 News from Nowhere: Advertising Utopia 135
9 It Beats Working: Why Consumer Culture Is Good for Your Soul and Our Planet 162
Coda: Bataille Made Me Do It 197
Appendix: Capital in the American Economy: Kuznets Revisited 211
Acknowledgments 231
Bibliography 233
Index 243
Talk about taking the contrarian view! In his book, history professor James Livingston revels in debunking what he considers misguided examples of common sense. Frugality is the path to prosperity, right? Wrong, Livingston argues; thrift is a surefire way to anemic growth and a concentration of wealth. And isn’t advertising an anti-intellectual tool of greed and conformity? Nope; ads are powerful forces for morality and freedom, he says. Livingston is so incessantly ornery in this essay that the reader is tempted to wonder if he really believes all his arguments. Yet he manages to produce a thought-provoking, though sometimes dense, read that raises a number of worthy questions about conventional wisdom. getAbstract recommends this analysis to readers who enjoy a skeptical perspective on economic theory.
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Posted January 16, 2012
Absolutely fantastic!
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Overview
Since the financial meltdown of 2008, economists, journalists, and politicians have uniformly insisted that to restore the American Dream and renew economic growth, we need to save more and spend less.
In his provocative new book, historian James Livingston—author of the classic Origins of the Federal Reserve System—breaks from the consensus to argue that underconsumption caused the current crisis and will prolong it. By viewing the Great Recession through the prism of the Great...