The Discretionary Economy: A Normative Theory of Political Economy

Tool, Marc R.

ISBN 10: 0876202180 / ISBN 13: 9780876202180

Published by Goodyear Publishing Company, Santa Monica, CA, USA, 1979

About this Item

The cover is a bit worn, torn and creased on the edges and spine, as well as lightly foxed. The first page has a name in pen. 350 pages. Books listed here are not stored at the shop. Please contact us if you want to pick up a book from Newtown. Size: Size E: 8"-9" Tall (203-228mm).

Seller Inventory # 147975

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Discretionary Economy: A Normative Theory of Political Economy
• Publisher: Goodyear Publishing Company, Santa Monica, CA, USA
• Publication Date: 1979
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0876202180
• ISBN 13: 9780876202180
• Binding: Paper Back
• Condition: Good
• Seller catalogs:
  • Politics & Social Sciences - World

About this title

Synopsis

The Discretionary Economy argues that we do in fact control our own political and economic destinies. As a community, we have discretion over policies that determine whether an economic process adequately provides for the necessities of life. We also determine who participates in normative public judgments and whether decisions distinguish between what is and what ought to be. Tool argues that we must continuously organize the institutional structures through which economic and political functions in the social process are carried on. We must exercise discretion by creating and modifying institutions that coordinate our behavior.

To exercise discretion effectively requires that we employ distinctively American economic, political, and philosophical theory. In this volume, the pivotal twentieth-century contributors to this encompassing theory of political economy are Thorstein Veblen, John Dewey, Clarence Ayres, and R. Fagg Foster. This volume presents, in detail, their analytical and philosophical perspective on social change. A major purpose of this volume is to compare and contrast the American tradition with the traditions of capitalism, Marxism, and fascism, demonstrating that the former can resolve compelling economic and political problems and the latter two cannot.

This book explains how to identify and analyze social, economic, and political problems confronted in all communities, and how to go about framing and implementing structural adjustments in the political economy. It will be of interest to students in non-traditional courses in political economy including institutional economics, contemporary social problems, economics and social policy, methodology, andcontemporary economic thought.

About the Author

Marc R. Tool is professor emeritus of economics at California State University, Sacramento. He has taught institutional economics and comparative systems, at four universities. He edited the Journal of Economic Institutions from 1981 to 1991. He is the author, editor, or co-editor of over fifteen volumes, including Pricing, Valuation and Systems: Essays in Neoinstitutional Economics; Essays in Social Value Theory: A Neoinstitutionalist Contribution; and The Discretionary Economy: A Normative Theory of Political Economy.

Marc R. Tool is professor emeritus of economics at California State University, Sacramento. He has taught institutional economics and comparative systems, at four universities. He edited the Journal of Economic Institutions from 1981 to 1991. He is the author, editor, or co-editor of over fifteen volumes, including Pricing, Valuation and Systems: Essays in Neoinstitutional Economics; Essays in Social Value Theory: A Neoinstitutionalist Contribution; and The Discretionary Economy: A Normative Theory of Political Economy.