Economics for Everyone: A Short Guide to the Economics of Capitalism

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Pluto Press, May 20, 2008 - Business & Economics - 350 pages
--A highly readable guide to how the economy really works-- Economics is too important to be left to the economists. This brilliantly concise and readable book provides non-specialist readers with all the information they need to understand how capitalism works (and how it doesn't). Jim Stanford's book is an antidote to the abstract and ideological way that economics is normally taught and reported. Key concepts such as finance, competition and wage labor are explored, and their importance to everyday life is revealed. Stanford answers questions such as "Do workers need capitalists?", "Why does capitalism harm the environment?", and "What really happens on the stock market?" He offers both a realistic assessment of capitalism's strengths, and a robust critique of its many failures. This book will appeal to those working for a fairer world, and students of social sciences who need to engage with economics. The book is illustrated with humorous and educational cartoons by Tony Biddle, and is supported with a comprehensive set of web-based course materials for popular economics courses.

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Contents

Why Study Economics?
1
Preliminaries
15
The Economy and Economics
17
Copyright

31 other sections not shown

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About the author (2008)

Jim Stanford is Economist with Unifor, the union formed in 2013 from the merger of the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) and the Communication Energy and Paperworkers (CEP). Jim received his Ph.D. in Economics from the New School for Social Research in New York. He is the author of Economics for Everyone (Pluto, 2015) which has been translated into 6 languages. He writes an economics column for the Globe and Mail, appears regularly on CBC TV’s ‘Bottom Line’ economics panel, and is the Vice-President of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

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