Selling the Free Market: The Rhetoric of Economic Correctness - Hardcover

Aune, James Arnt

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1572305983 ISBN 13: 9781572305984

Publisher: The Guilford Press, 2000

Synopsis

While accusations of "political correctness" are frequently raised against liberals, there has been surprisingly little discussion of how conservatives foment the use of their own "economically correct" language. In this engaging book, James Arnt Aune examines how the rhetoric of the free market has become the everyday language of American political debate. Outlining the key ideas of free-market economics, Aune shows how they have permeated political decisions around such issues as labor unions, farm subsidies, and the minimum wage. He also illuminates the paradoxes and irrationalities of these ideas, using rhetorical theory as an analytical tool. The book reveals the inherent contradictions between economic libertarianism, nationalist principles, and social conservatism in the positions of such influential right-wing politicians as Ronald Reagan, Newt Gingrich, and Patrick Buchanan. It also provides lively and critical readings of important free-market and libertarian writings by Ayn Rand, Robert Nozick, Murray Rothbard, and Charles Murray. Vividly demonstrating the destructive impact of "economic correctness" on the lives of working people and families, this book ably refutes both the language and the logic of the market revolution.

Winner--National Communication Association's Diamond Anniversary Book Award
 

About this title

About the Author

James Arnt Aune is Associate Professor of Speech Communication at The Pennsylvania State University. He received his doctorate from Northwestern University in 1980. He has taught at Tulane University, the University of Virginia, the University of St. Thomas, and Texas A&M University. Professor Aune is also the author of Rhetoric and Marxism.

Reviews

Aune, an academic, sets out to "explain the way in which technical economic rhetoric has been allowed to trump the moral and cultural meanings of community, nature, work, and the market." The author, identifying himself as an old-fashioned socialist, investigates the strategies used to promote the emergence of the global free market since 1989 and explains what he considers the destructive impact that free-market economics has on the American character and community, citing labor organizing and family farms. His conclusions include the notion that communication cannot be reduced to the exchange of information without radically limiting the possibilities for humans to flourish, not just economically but also socially, culturally, and in every other way--and all free marketers end up with elements of irrationality in their systems. He also contends that the convergence of the ideologies of information and of the market has been facilitated by the globalization of capitalism, the collapse of socialism, and the rise of the Internet. Mary Whaley
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction: How the Right Triumphed

Part I. Rhetoric, Economics, and Problems of Method
1. The Rhetoric-Economics Connection: Rhetorical Strategies of Economic Analysis
2. Economic Rhetoric and the Realist Style (or, There Ain't No Such Thing as a Free Lunch)

Part II. What Libertarians Want
3. Checking Ayn Rand's Premises, Or, The Revenge of the Nerds
4. Anarchy, State, and Utopia: A Rhetorical Reading
5. What Libertarians Want, According to Murray Rothbard and Charles Murray

Part III. The Struggle over Reagan's Free-Market Legacy
6. From Reagan to Buchanan: National Glory and Globalization
7. Newt Gingrich, Cyberpunk, and Globalization
Conclusion: The Market and Human Happiness
An Appendix for Academics: On Deirdre McCloskey's Rhetoric of Economics
References
Index

Edition details

• Publisher: The Guilford Press
• Publication date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1572305983
• ISBN 13: 9781572305984
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 217