Energy and the Rise and Fall of Political Economy

Book flyer
MS Word
International
MS Word

(Click to Enlarge)

This book is not currently available for purchase Online. Please call 1-800-225-5800 to backorder.

Bernard C. Beaudreau

Book Code: GM1059

ISBN: 0-313-31059-9

ISBN-13: 978-0-313-31059-1

DOI:

240 pages, figures, tables

Greenwood Press

Publication: 8/30/1999

List Price: $131.95 (UK Sterling Price: £75.00)

Availability: Out of stock

Media Type: Hardcover

Trim Size: 6 1/8 x 9 1/4

Subjects:

Series Title: Contributions in Economics and Economic History

Series Number: 213

Reviews:

There can be no doubt that this book makes an extremely important point - energy in its various forms has made a fundamentally important contribution to the economic growth of the world that political economy attempts to trace.
—The Journal of Energy and Development

Description: The First and Second Industrial Revolutions were about energy: steam power revolutionized 19th-century Great Britain and electric power revolutionized 20th-century America. Yet political economy, the science of wealth born of the First Industrial Revolution, is devoid of energy, focusing instead on machinery or capital. According to basic mechanics, tools per se are not productive, as they are not source of energy. This book uses basic mechanics and thermodynamics to reexamine the rise of political economy as the science of wealth in the 19th and 20th centuries. The study shows that the failure of generations of political economists to formally incorporate energy into their models of production and distribution has led to the unfortunate state in which economics currently finds itself. With the inclusion of energy, important insights result. For instance, the Solow Residual in both 19th-century Great Britain and 20th-century America disappears. Unlike previous critiques of political economy, this analysis is constructive in nature, using past shortcomings and oversights as a springboard to a more consistent model of economic activity, especially production. The book is the first of its kind to use basic physics and thermodynamics as a guide to the First and Second Industrial Revolutions, and more importantly, to show how political economists from Smith to Fisher have attempted to understand these two energy-based Industrial Revolutions.

Table of Contents:

Introduction
Analytical Framework
Steam Power and Political Economy
Electric Power and Early 20th Century Political Economy
Boom and Bust: Energy Deepening in the Post-WWII Era
Growth Without Growth: The Post-Energy Crisis Period
A Treatise on Energy and Price Theory
Bibliography
Index

LC Card Number: 99-25005

LCC Class: HC54

Dewey Class: 333


All rights reserved. Copyright © 1999-2008 Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. 88 Post Road West, Westport CT 06881, (203) 226-3571