Ideology and the Evolution of Vital Institutions : Guilds, The Gold Standard, and Modern International Cooperation

In this book, Thompson and Hickson strongly challenge the standard interpretation of the basis of growth and viability of dominant wealthy nations. Briefly, efforts of the economically wealthy and the government leaders to increase their wealth and protect it from aggressors, internal and external, are cast in a new evolutionary light. The challenge is to the idea that societies leading intellectual formulators of political and social policy have been helpful. Their alternative, and persuasive, interpretation is that the rise and survival of wealthier nations has been achieved because of an `effective democracy'. The authors explain why an effective democratic state must avoid `narrow, short-sighted', rational appearing concessions to a sequence of aggressors. In short, the Thompson-Hickson interpretation of the rise of wealthy dominant nations does not rely on advice of superior intellectual advisors, but instead rests on the pragmatic, almost ad hoc, actions of democratic legislators. Front Matter....Pages i-xix Overview....Pages 1-49 The Efficiency Problem, the Distribution Problem, and a Possible Solution....Pages 51-96 A New Interpretation of Guilds, Tariffs, and Laissez Faire....Pages 97-188 On the Gold Standard: Why Depressions Have Been a Necessary Evil, or How the Economics of Keynes Dethroned Europe....Pages 189-199 On Modern International Cooperation: Exchange Controls, Hyperinflation, and Costly Social Revolution as Efficient National Responses to Externally Imposed Trade Liberalization....Pages 201-258 Summary, Policy Implications, and a Final Test....Pages 259-379 Back Matter....Pages 381-406