Introduction

Abstract

This book sets out to provide convincing responses to a number of questions to which generally accepted answers do not exist. The key ones are about issues central to economics. What causes economies to grow? Why has the record of success among economies which have industrialised been so patchy? Why, having established themselves with a reasonable growth rate, have so many permitted it to slow down, allowing others to overtake them? Why do so many economies suffer from such high rates of unemployment? Are the numbers out of work in some way inevitable and unavoidable, or is lack of jobs the product of policy choices which could realistically have been different? What is the trade-off between inflation and other major economic policy goals? Is it true that the only way to sustainable and reasonably high rates of economic growth is to establish a régime of subdued price increases and low interest rates?

‘The decisive problem of economics is not how the price of goods is established. Nor is it how the resulting income is distributed. The important question is how the level of output and employment is determined.’

John Kenneth Galbraith