What's Wrong with the Modern World?

Fülszöveg

The world order constructed after 1945 is breaking down. Keynesian economics provides no answer to the multiple problems now assailing us - inflation, unemployment, widening disparities between rich and poor countries - with all the attendant tensions and conflicts which these cause. Economic growth is slowing down. The objectives of modern society are under increasingly hostile scrutiny. In the social field, the welfare state has similarly failed to meet the challenges of the 1970s. Social deprivation, disorder and violence are on the increase in all Western countries. But the Marxist alternative is equally inadequate, as the problems facing the Soviet bloc countries demonstrate. Clearly, the world needs a new social and economic ideology to meet the needs of affluent 'post-industrial' society. Such an ideology must be based on a careful analysis of where we have gone wrong during the last ten years. Have we come to expect too much of Keynesianism and modern technology ? How can we... Tovább

Fülszöveg

The world order constructed after 1945 is breaking down. Keynesian economics provides no answer to the multiple problems now assailing us - inflation, unemployment, widening disparities between rich and poor countries - with all the attendant tensions and conflicts which these cause. Economic growth is slowing down. The objectives of modern society are under increasingly hostile scrutiny. In the social field, the welfare state has similarly failed to meet the challenges of the 1970s. Social deprivation, disorder and violence are on the increase in all Western countries. But the Marxist alternative is equally inadequate, as the problems facing the Soviet bloc countries demonstrate. Clearly, the world needs a new social and economic ideology to meet the needs of affluent 'post-industrial' society. Such an ideology must be based on a careful analysis of where we have gone wrong during the last ten years. Have we come to expect too much of Keynesianism and modern technology ? How can we reconcile our social expectations with our economic performance ? What should be the role of the State and of the huge corporate pressure groups like the British TUC and CBI ? Can the corporate state be reconciled with individual freedom ? Michael Shanks provides a succinct and authoritative analysis, in clear layman's language, of the reasons for our present discontents, and points the way ahead to a more rationally-structured society. His analysis is probing and pungent, but his conclusions are constructive and optimistic. Vissza