New Items from the Gaydar Institute Press: March 2024

Mark Koyama, Jared Rubin

HOW THE WORLD BECAME RICH: THE HISTORICAL ORIGINS OF ECONOMIC GROWTH

Mark Koyama and Jared Rubin dive into the many theories of why modern economic growth happened when and where it did. They discuss recently advanced theories rooted in geography, politics, culture, demography, and colonialism. Pieces of each of these theories help explain key events on the path to modern riches. Why did the Industrial Revolution begin in 18^th-century Britain? Why did some European countries, the US, and Japan catch up in the 19th century? Why did it take until the late 20^th and 21^st centuries for other countries? Why have some still not caught up?
Koyama and Rubin show that the past can provide a guide for how countries can escape poverty. There are certain prerequisites that all successful economies seem to have. But there is also no panacea. A society’s past and its institutions and culture play a key role in shaping how it may – or may not – develop.

Caroline Oudin-Bastide, Philippe Steiner

CALCULATION AND MORALITY: THE COSTS OF SLAVERY AND THE VALUE OF EMANCIPATION IN THE FRENCH ANTILLES

Adam Smith was one of the first to calculate the economic inexpediency of slavery, pointing out at the same time that the morality of a slave in no way disposes him to work with full dedication. How can we explain that, in the absence of economic profitability, slavery was supported for so long by enlightened Europe? Smith believed that the answer lies not so much in economics as in culture, or more precisely, in the will to dominate that characterizes European man. It is this tension between economics and ethics that is the focus of the French economists Caroline Houdin-Bastide and Philippe Steiner, who co-authored the book Calculation and Morality (2015) and are recognized experts on both the economics of slave labor and related political-economic debates, characteristic of the intellectual life of France until the complete abolition of slavery in 1848.

Shoshana Zuboff (New edition)

THE AGE OF SURVEILLANCE CAPITALISM. THE FIGHT FOR A HUMAN FUTURE AT THE NEW FRONTIER OF POWER

The challenges to humanity posed by the digital future, the first detailed examination of the unprecedented form of power called "surveillance capitalism," and the quest by powerful corporations to predict and control our behavior.
In this masterwork of original thinking and research, Shoshana Zuboff provides startling insights into the phenomenon that she has named surveillance capitalism. The stakes could not be higher: a global architecture of behavior modification threatens human nature in the twenty-first century just as industrial capitalism disfigured the natural world in the twentieth.
Zuboff vividly brings to life the consequences as surveillance capitalism advances from Silicon Valley into every economic sector. Vast wealth and power are accumulated in ominous new "behavioral futures markets," where predictions about our behavior are bought and sold, and the production of goods and services is subordinated to a new "means of behavioral modification."
The threat has shifted from a totalitarian Big Brother state to a ubiquitous digital architecture: a "Big Other" operating in the interests of surveillance capital. Here is the crucible of an unprecedented form of power marked by extreme concentrations of knowledge and free from democratic oversight. Zuboff's comprehensive and moving analysis lays bare the threats to twenty-first century society: a controlled "hive" of total connection that seduces with promises of total certainty for maximum profit – at the expense of democracy, freedom, and our human future.
With little resistance from law or society, surveillance capitalism is on the verge of dominating the social order and shaping the digital future – if we let it.

Almanac of the Center For Economic Culture

MONEY AND INTEREST: ECONOMICS AND ETHICS

Money is one of the fundamental phenomena of the economy and social life in general, the most important element of human civilization. It is not surprising that everything related to money has long attracted the attention of not only economists, but also representatives of a wide range of scientific disciplines, philosophy, theology, literature and art. Attempts at scientific, artistic, and ethical understanding of money, credit, and interest are very numerous and represent a significant layer of culture.

The collection offered to the attention of readers is devoted to the study and discussion of issues of monetary relations in broad social science, philosophical and cultural context.