Theory of the Individual in Economics: Identity and Value (Advances in Social Economics)

Book Description

The concept of the individual and his/her motivations is a bedrock of philosophy. All strands of thought at heart contain to a particular theory of the individual. Economics, though, is guilty of taking this hugely important concept without questioning how we theorize it. This superb book remedies this oversight.
The new approach put forward by Davies is to pay more attention to what moral philosophy may offer us in the study of personal identity, self consciousness and will. This crosses the traditional boundaries of economics and will shed new light on the distinction between positive and normative analysis in economics. With both heterodox and orthodox economics receiving a thorough analysis from Davies, this book is at once inclusive and revealing.

Customer Reviews:

Okay if written in 1985.......2004-09-17

The image of the individual in economics theory is being rewritten, due to advances in behavioral decision theory, behavioral game theory, experimental economics, and evolutionary game theory. This process has been going on for more than a decade, and results appear frequently in book form, in the economics journals, in psychology journals, and even in such general scientific journals as Nature, Science, New Scientist, and Scientific American. Such major names as Daniel Kanheman, Amos Tversky, Elinor Ostrom, Bruno Frey, Vernon Smith, Kevin McCabe, and Ernst Fehr do not appear in this book. Evolutionary game theory, which has all but displaced classical game theory, is mentioned a couple of times, in passing. Modern developments are completely absent from this book, which is therefore woefully out of date.

This is not very surprising. The author critiques theory rather than producing it, while others are producing new theories that at least outdate the critiques, and perhaps also solve some of the problems indicated by the critic.

What the author does, he does fairly well, although sometimes exceptionally complex arguments are alluded to rather than developed and assessed, as is the case of the presumptions of classical game theory in justifying the Nash equilibrium concept.

All in all, this will assuage the curiosity of newcomers to economics and dabblers, but there is nothing new here.

A Fabulous overview.......2003-09-25

This book is good overall - hut what really makes it stand out is an unbelievably lucid section on so-called "Orthodox" or "Neoclassical" economics. Professor Davis strips the assumptions of this body of thinking bare and then moves on to draw some striking conclusions of his own.

An excellent detour into economics and philosophy.......2003-09-24

A superb read, this book came like a breath of fresh air to me. Using a huge range of knowledge, the author takes the reader on a journey through economics via its most important thoroughfare: the concept of the individual.

One of the best qualities of the book is its precise style of writing - it makes for a book which does not take too long to read, but leaves one thinking of it for a long time afterwards.

Snappy overview of an issue central to economics.......2003-09-24

I must admit that I had not come across John Davis's work before, although I have subsequently discovered that he is Editor of the journal, "Review of Social Economy". This book was brought to my attention by an email from the publishers Routledge.

The book's main virtue is succinctness - too many economics books outstay their welcome and Davis does a good job of covering a core issue in the space of fewer pages than is usual.

For me, Chapter 3, which deals partly with human capital theory, is the book's strongest. Gary Becker's work and continued influence is examined and comes in for a convincing critique.

Marvellous.......2003-09-18

What can I say? Taking a coach trip between Omaha and Nashville might have turned out to have been one of the worst decisions of my life given unfortunate events along the way, but that's another story. The one bright spot was finding the time to read this little gem. I'd bought it from Amazon after a friend suggested that I might like it, and finally got around to reading it on that trip.

The book is simply marvellous - a thorough analysis of the concept of the individual in economics is no mean feat and John Davis has really pulled it off here. Along the way we encounter characters such as Locke, Hume, Keynes, Hayek, Kant and Noam Chomsky!

The book made what would otherwise have been a nightmare journey into something approaching a real pleasure. For this achievement, Professor Davis, I take off my hat!

Average customer rating:
The Theory of the Individual in Economics: Identity and Value.(Book Review): An article from: Journal of Economic Issues
William Waller
Manufacturer: Association for Evolutionary Economics
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital
ASIN: B0009GTQK0
Release Date: 2005-08-01

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Journal of Economic Issues, published by Association for Evolutionary Economics on December 1, 2004. The length of the article is 1024 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: The Theory of the Individual in Economics: Identity and Value.(Book Review)
Author: William Waller
Publication: Journal of Economic Issues (Refereed)
Date: December 1, 2004
Publisher: Association for Evolutionary Economics
Volume: 38 Issue: 4 Page: 1112(3)

Article Type: Book Review

Distributed by Thomson Gale

Book Description

In this concise book based on his Arne Ryde Lectures in 2002, Young suggests a conceptual framework for studying strategic learning and highlights theoretical developments in the area. He discusses the interactive learning problem; reinforcement and regret; equilibrium; conditional no-regret learning; prediction, postdiction, and calibration; fictitious play and its variants; Bayesian learning; and hypothesis testing. Young's framework emphasizes the amount of information required to implement different types of learning rules, criteria for evaluating their performance, and alternative notions of equilibrium to which they converge. He also stresses the limits of what can be achieved: for a given type of game and a given amount of information, there may exist no learning procedure that satisfies certain reasonable criteria of performance and convergence. In short, Young has provided a valuable primer that delineates what we know, what we would like to know, and the limits of what we can know, when we try to learn about a system that is composed of other learners.

Book Description

This is a new edition with an Afterword by Don Wallis and a Publisher's Note about the history of the book.

Customer Reviews:

a story of simple life with the land.......1999-02-20

This is a wonderful book about life outside of normal hustle and bustle of modern life. Harlan and his wife, Anna, lived in Payne Hollow, and spent their time living from the land and with the land. They built their home, tended their garden, fished the river, and lived their lives there. It is in some ways a beautiful love story that reminded me of what it would be like to be a castaway on a desert island. But in this case, one is castaway in the hills of Kentucky, on the Ohio river.

The book is really a journal of their lives there, and when reading it, one feels how simple yet full lives their lives were. From Harlan's rising early in the winter mornings to tend the goats, to the early passages about working by lantern light on simple tasks, to the way he wrote about the seasonal rhythms, I was taken with their story. I found that it was a tender book to read, and I found that the way they lived was so much more than the suburbanites. Harsher, perhaps, but more. The book has some sketches by Harlan, and some woodcuts. A great story.

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Payne Hollow: Life on the Fringe of Society
Harlan Hubbard
Manufacturer: The Eakins Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000O7PKTK

Book Description

Forces of nature and human intervention lead to innumerable local, regional and sometimes global changes in plant community patterns. Regardless of the causes and the intensity of change, ecosystems are often naturally able to recover most of their attributes through natural succession. In this thoughtful and provocative new book, Fakhri Bazzaz integrates and synthesizes information on how disturbance changes the environment, how species function, coexist, and share or compete for resources in populations and communities, and how species replace each other over successional time. It illustrates how a diverse array of plant species have been used to examine fundamental questions in plant ecology by integrating physiological, population and community ecology. Graduate students and research workers in plant ecology, global change, conservation and restoration will find the perspective and analysis offered by this book an exciting contribution to the development of our understanding of plant successional change.

Book Description

Asis book traces the growth of customs and excise, and their integral role in shaping the framework of industrial England; including state power, technical advance, and the evolution of a consumer society. Central to this structure was the development of two economies - one legal and one illicit. If there was a unique English pathway of industrialization, it was less a distinct entrepreneurial and techno-centric culture, than one predominantly defined within an institutional framework spearheaded by the excise and a wall of tariffs. This process reached its peak by the end of the 1770s. The structure then quickly started to crumble under the weight of the fiscal-military state, and Pitt's calculated policy of concentrating industrial policy around cotton, potteries, and iron - at the expense of other taxed industries. The breakthrough of the new political economy was the erosion of the illicit economy; the smugglers' free trade now became the state's most powerful weapon in the war against non-legal trade. If at the beginning of the period covered by this book state administration was predominantly deregulated and industry regulated, by the close the reverse was the case.

Book Description

'The Caterer and Hotelkeeper Guide to the Internet' is a hands-on guide to establishing your business on the Internet.

As the Internet becomes an essential part of everyday life, it is becoming more obvious that hoteliers today must make a mark with their own sites, or miss out. David Grant, co-author of this text, runs his own hotel and website constultancy in Cornwall. He set up a site to promote his hotel in 1997 and from his and other experiences estimates that it can add at least £10,000 a year to the average hotel's turnover - a considerable return on investment!

'The Caterer and Hotelkeeper Guide to the Internet' requires no in-depth or technical computer knowledge, and will guide you through all the basics about the Internet, looking at:

* getting your site constructed: doing it yourself, or via an agency
* what makes a good or bad site: essential design concepts
* how to get your site found
* how to take bookings online
* what it will cost you

what can the Internet do for your business? How to add more to your turnover!
creating your own site, or getting someone to do the work for you
what makes a successful site - essential design concepts

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Bankruptcy, arrangements, and reorganizations, (Commercial law and practice practice handbook series)
Samuel J. M Donnelly
Manufacturer: Practising Law Institute
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

Bankruptcy | Business | Law | Subjects | Books
Private Law | Law | Subjects | Books
ASIN: B0006CV1T6

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Arrangements and reorganizations under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code (UMCLE)
C. Robert Morris
Manufacturer: University of Minnesota Law School
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

Bankruptcy | Business | Law | Subjects | Books
ASIN: B0006XU8Q2

Average customer rating:
Bankruptcy forms and practice;: Including the complete forms and practice for corporate reorganization, arrangements, real property arrangements, wage-earners' ... With Bankruptcy act and general orders
Asa Shaffer Herzog
Manufacturer: C. Boardman Co
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

Public Finance | Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
Bankruptcy | Business | Law | Subjects | Books
ASIN: B0007DXBXI

Average customer rating:
Bankruptcy forms and practice;: Including the complete forms and practice for corporate reorganizations, arrangements, real property arrangements, wage-earners' plans
Abraham I Menin
Manufacturer: C. Boardman Co
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

Public Finance | Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
Bankruptcy | Business | Law | Subjects | Books
ASIN: B0007E43Z2

Average customer rating:
Herzog's bankruptcy forms and practice: Including the complete forms and practice for corporate reorganizations, arrangements, real property arrangements, ... : with bankruptcy act and general orders
Asa Shaffer Herzog
Manufacturer: C. Boardman Co
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

Bankruptcy | Business | Law | Subjects | Books
ASIN: B00072X2V0

Average customer rating:
The law of debtor relief: Bankruptcy and non-bankruptcy devices : arrangements, assignments, compositions, extensions, equity receiverships, corporate reorganizations
Charles Elihu Nadler
Manufacturer: Harrison Co
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

Public Finance | Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
Debt & Deficits | Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
Bankruptcy | Business | Law | Subjects | Books
ASIN: B0007E469U

Average customer rating:
Moore's bankruptcy manual: Corporate reorganization arrangements under the Chandler Act, together with General orders in bankruptcy, annotated, and Official ... for the conduct of a bankruptcy proceeding
James William Moore
Manufacturer: M. Bender & co
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

Bankruptcy | Business | Law | Subjects | Books
Corporate Law | Business | Law | Subjects | Books
General | Law | Subjects | Books
Debt & Deficits | Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
Court Rules | Procedures & Litigation | Law | Professional & Technical | Subjects | Books
ASIN: B00085PHH8

Download Description

Customer Relationship Management software integrates front office "customer-facing" applications to provide an organization with a better, more complete view of customers and prospects. Siebel, Nortel Networks (through its acquisition of Clarify), and Oracle stand out as complete CRM solution providers. This report compares these three CRM solutions and offers recommendations that will help an organization choose the right CRM offering to fit its environment and needs.

Book Description

Global Economy, Global Justice explores a vital question that is suppressed in most economics texts: "what makes for a good economic outcome?" Neoclassical theory embraces the normative perspective of "welfarism" to assess economic outcomes. This volume demonstrates the fatal flaws of this perspective--flaws that stem from objectionable assumptions about human nature, society and science. Exposing these failures, the book obliterates the ethical foundations of global neoliberalism.
George DeMartino probes heterodox economic traditions and philosophy in search of an ethically viable alternative to welfarism. Drawing on the work of Amartya Sen, DeMartino proposes the egalitarian principle of the "global harmonization of capabilities" to guide economics. This principle provides a basis for resisting oppression the world over while nevertheless demanding respect for cultural diversity. DeMartino puts this principle to work adjudicating contemporary debates over global policy regimes, and completes thebook with a set of deeply egalitarian global policies for the year 2025. Global Economy, Global Justice's engaging prose will appeal to those seeking to understand the intersection between economics and political philosophy. Its focus on the normative foundations of contemporary policy disputes makes it unique in the literature on globalization.

Customer Reviews:

Great for students looking for alternatives to neoliberalism.......2005-02-19

The book begins with a thorough critique of the underlying assumptions that predicate neoclassical prescriptions. For anyone familiar with Dr. Ramstad's ECN 305 class at the University of Rhode Island, there is nothing new here.

However, DeMartino does make some sophisticated conceptual contributions here that are not easily come across in such an easy to read format.
1. We get a good discussion of the whole multicultural trade debate (a debate that really is not much more sophisticated than an oft-mentioned Star Trek gimic, the Prime Directive): between the, 'leave developing countries alone doctrine' and the 'intervention is good because of development doctrine.' DeMartino helps to break down the whole notion of growth by building on some concepts developed by Amartya Sen, which is essentially an ethic by which we can measure the effects of trade and so determine whether they are 'good' or 'bad.' This is, again, nothing especially new, but it is done in a novel way, and if this is the first time you come across these ideas, they stick to you pretty well. And for me, the debate was pretty much over at this point. Similar studies that provide alternatives to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for other variants that measure social development are worth seeking out.

2. The last major contribution that stuck with me - I read this book 4 years ago - is a newly conceptualized trade regime that was actually co-developed with Stephen Cullenberg. Some of the details are a little fuzzy now, but here's what I remember. First, DeMartino concedes that there are benefits to competitiveness. However, he is unwilling to simply then conclude that all competition is good for everyone, or that competition is not a malleable concept. In a section entitled, 'taking the x out of competition,' he then goes on to show that some competition can be destructive, others constructive, and that some variables within a competitive framework can effectively be removed so that only the constructive elements remain. This discussion becomes a little complicated at this point, as he begins to develop a variable that measures social provions / capability to provide such provisions. In short, these variants can be used to adminster a tax and tariff system that reward and punish countries for participating in these destructive trade practices. This system, then, would take the 'x' (destructive trade incentives) out of competition.

I know this review is coming across muddled - I'll have to review the text again. Regardless, if you are a reader interested in (1) understanding the neoliberal argument and its value-laden prescriptions, (2) formulating a critique of these values and prescriptions, (3) looking for alternatives to the dominant ideology - then you should not pass on this book.

After reading it, in almost every imaginable encounter, the so-called debate surrounding these issues has been pretty much resolved in favor of DeMartino's ideas.

Two Caveats:
1) This is not an empirical document. This is a theoretical critique and conceptual contribution. For something more mathematical, you'll need to go see some of the Analytic Marxists. Robert Brenner has a new book coming out in June that is supposed to be excellent.

2) How should I say this...this book is not cynical. While reading, you should keep in mind that the destructive forms of competition that DeMartino seeks to remove are quite possibly (and most likely) the exact forms of competition that capital enjoys. A trade regime that actually worsens labor standards or destroys environmental regulatory bodies is in the interest of a firm looking for a high turnover labor force or a firm that has outsourced its harmful production facilities. So, we have ot be careful to not be barred down in conceptual battles when in fact the battles to come will be fought against capital. Still, until then, we'll need allies and those allies are won on the field of values.

GLOBAL ECONOMY, GLOBAL JUSTICE: THEORETICAL OBJECTIONS AND POLICY ALTERNATIVES TO NEOLIBERALISM.(Review) (book review): An article from: Journal of Economic Issues

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GLOBAL ECONOMY, GLOBAL JUSTICE: THEORETICAL OBJECTIONS AND POLICY ALTERNATIVES TO NEOLIBERALISM.(Review) (book review): An article from: Journal of Economic Issues
Mayo C. Toruno
Manufacturer: Association for Evolutionary Economics
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital
ASIN: B0008HXPNO
Release Date: 2005-07-28

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Journal of Economic Issues, published by Association for Evolutionary Economics on March 1, 2001. The length of the article is 1150 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: GLOBAL ECONOMY, GLOBAL JUSTICE: THEORETICAL OBJECTIONS AND POLICY ALTERNATIVES TO NEOLIBERALISM.(Review) (book review)
Author: Mayo C. Toruno
Publication: Journal of Economic Issues (Refereed)
Date: March 1, 2001
Publisher: Association for Evolutionary Economics
Volume: 35 Issue: 1 Page: 214

Article Type: Book Review

Distributed by Thomson Gale

Book Description

This recently revised and expanded statistical collection provides the most detailed collection of data on Africa available in one volume. It presents data from over 50 African countries, arranged in more than 250 separate tables or matrices for more than 300 indicators of development. Some 40
graphs assist in interpreting the data.
The indicators will be grouped into individual chapters, covering such topics as background data, national accounts, prices and exchange rates, money and banking, the external sector, external debt and related flows, government finance, agriculture, public and energy production, communications,
transport, labor force and employment, public enterprises, aid flows, social indicators, environmental indicators, and household welfare indicators. Each chapter includes a brief introduction on the nature of the data and their limitations followed by technical notes that define the indicators and
identify specific sources.

Customer Reviews:

This series of books are a ripoff.......2005-02-11

These crooks just put together speeches and stuff - no law except maybe a useless constitution.

Virgin Islands, British: A Spy Guide (World Business Law Handbook Library)

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Virgin Islands, British: A Spy Guide (World Business Law Handbook Library)

Manufacturer: Intl Business Pubns USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0739786385

Book Description

Everything a successful "spy" must know on the country. Strategic and practical information on government, national security, army, foreign relations, economy, technology, mineral resources, as well as culture, history, traditions, government and business contacts and more...

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