What Everybody Really Wants to Know About Money
Foreword by Helena Norberg-Hodge
Money makes the world go round - in ever-diminishing circles. Global warming, structural
adjustment, the destruction of ecological habitats, Third World debt, escalating ethnic and religious
conflicts, the widening poverty gap within and between countries - all seem inevitable. There
appears to be no alternative to environmental destruction and social injustice because there is no
money for anything else. This book:
reviews the powerful body of economics ideas originating in guild socialism in the 1920s and
1930s.
demonstrates how free market capitalism has evolved through the progressive dispossession of
the common people of the means to feed and sustain themselves within their local communities.
gives an economic focus to political ambitions for regionalisation and decentralisation.
explains fundamental flaws in global free market capitalism which others have observed but
failed to correct.
shows why markets fail to achieve equilibrium; why the importance of the land is always
under-estimated; why labour has been degraded into wage-slavery; and how economists fail to
recognise that money, far from being a simple facilitator of exchange, has become the over-riding
driving force in the economy - with disastrous results.
describes the fallacies on which conventional economics is based, among them the assumptions
that human beings are motivated only by self-interest, and that the only rewards they seek are
monetary.
The book concludes with a summary of the principles for the creation of a 'home economics',
which people - artists, writers, workers, the unemployed, organic farmers, parents,
environmentalists, politicians and even economists - could introduce without delay in their own
locality.
With a chapter by Alan Freeman on the World Trade Organisation and the globalisation of world
trade, together with intellectual property rights and the privatisation of public and traditional
knowledge.
About the author:
Frances Hutchinson is an economic historian at Bradford University, and the
leading authority on the social credit movement and the ideas of C.H.Douglas. Her previous books
include Environmental Business Management:Sustainable Development in the New Millennium
(with Andrew Hutchinson), McGraw Hill (1997), and The Political Economy of Social Credit and
Guild Socialism (with Brian Burkitt), Routledge (1997). Alan Freeman teaches at the University
of Greenwich, and is co-editor of Marx and Non-Equilibrium Economics, Edward Elgar (1996).
(U.K.) £12 paperback + £2.24pp 1 897766 33 5 Published by Jon Carpenter, 1998 THE TRUTH ABOUT ECONOMICS - FOR THE NON-ECONOMIST
"Thoughtful, inspiring and perfectly accessible to the layperson."
New Internationalist
"An excellent summary." James Robertson, Turning Point
"It should help demystify money and awaken us all to the opportunities that lie beyond the false philosophy of economism." Hazel Henderson, author of Paradigms in Progress and Building a Win-Win World.
"A fascinating journey that helps us explore our historical relationship to land, food, hunting, labour, status-gathering, spiritual culture and money." Guy Dauncey, author of After the Crash.
Jon Carpenter Publishing, 2 Spendlove Centre, Charlbury, Oxforshire,
OX7 3PQ
Tel/Fax: 01608 811969. E-Mail: joncarpenterpublishing@compuserve.com
(U.S.) $24.95 inc PP. Paul and Company. Tel: (978) 369 3049 E-Mail: paulinc@tiac.net
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