Health care is absorbing an increasing share of resources in all countries. It is the task of public policy to ensure that the nation secures good quality attention at an affordable price. This book, distinguishing clearly between health status and health care, examines the ways in which governments can keep down morbidity and mortality while also ensuring that treatments are medically justifiable, economically cost-effective and socially equitable. Ignorance, uncertainty, asymmetrical information, professional monopolies, insurance and poverty all mean that the market by itself is not enough. Pragmatic intervention is also required to ensure that well-being and social justice are delivered in combination with value for money. Health Care and Public Policy is a comprehensive and intelligible cross-disciplinary account of the objectives of health care policy (medical, social, economic) and of the policy-tools that government can employ (cost benefit analysis, entry barriers, competition) in order to ensure that scarce resources are not wasted nor needy social groups deprived of basic and affordable care. Health policy is hotly debated in all countries. This cross-national book is timely and relevant. It will be of special interest to academics and students who want to deepen their understanding of health economics, social policy and administration, public policy and government, political economy and the logic of institutions.
This lucid and comprehensive book explores the ways in which the State, the market and the citizen can collaborate to satisfy people’s health care needs. It argues that health care is not a commodity like any other. It asks if its unique properties mean that there is a role for social regulation and political management. Apples and oranges can be left to the buyers and the sellers. Health care may require an input from the consensus, the experts, the insurers, the politicians and the bureaucrats as well. David Reisman makes a fresh contribution to the debate. He argues that the three policy issues that are of primary importance are choice, equality and cost. He explores the balance between the patient, the practitioner and public opinion; the disparities in outcome indicators and access to medical care; and the escalation in prices and quantities at the expense of other areas of social life. Reisman concludes that, despite its significance for the individual and the nation, there is no single definition of health or health care. The maximand is a mix. Yet decisions have to be made. This thought-provoking and insightful book will be of use to students and scholars of public policy, social policy and health economics. It will also be of interest to medical practitioners who want to situate hard choices about health and illness in a broad multidisciplinary context.
Economics is business and politics is power. In this insightful book, David Reisman explores the interaction between authority and exchange in a global village where individual nation states – once the pinnacle of political organization – increasingly depend on each other for their material well-being.
An inspirational, accessible, and actionable guide for empowering and inspiring you to take concrete steps towards living more sustainably. “An excellent how-to guide [and] a great read for everyone from the socially conscious family to the most ardent climate activist.”—Former Vice President Al Gore Imagine It! is a handbook for those who want to begin or advance a journey toward living in better balance with our planet. It inspires, supports, and offers easy ways to replace old, planet-hurting habits with new healthy ones. In Imagine It!, the documentary filmmakers behind Writing on the Wall, Fed Up, The Biggest Little Farm, The Social Dilemma, and the Academy Award–winning An Inconvenient Truth highlight the need to change some of our food, clothing, and transportation habits and meaningfully lower our use of plastic, paper, water, and harmful chemicals. They call the changes in these areas lifestyle shifts, and there is a chapter devoted to each one of them in the book. Each begins with a short story on the shift being explored, and then provides clear steps for replacing old habits with new ones to create lasting change. Laurie David and Heather Reisman are no strangers to exposing hard truths and helping audiences understand their part in bringing about change. They know a cleaner, healthier world is ours for the taking—and to start, we just have to Imagine It!
In his updated second edition, David Reisman examines the ideological and material underpinnings of the global mixed economy. Drawing upon current research in economics and international relations, Global Political Economy is an impartial and comprehensive analysis of the world order in an age of reappraisal and doubt.
This book reviews James Meade's prolific contribution to economics and its lasting impact. Few economists have written so much and on so many different topics. Meade was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1977 (jointly with Bertil Ohlin) for his contribution to international economics, but could just as easily have been awarded this for his contribution to the economics and politics of the managed economy. His commitment to the middle ground, neither free market nor command, runs through the whole of his published work, from Planning and the Price Mechanism in the shadow of post-war rationing to The Intelligent Radical’s Guide to Economic Policy and Full Employment Regained? when inflation combined with stagnation reopened the debate between the monetarists and the Keynesians. Meade was active in politics, most prominently in the debates in the 1960s about the European Economic Community and in the 1980s on the formation of Britain’s Social Democratic Party. As a person, he can best be described as a cultured Englishman, quiet and open, much in the mould of Coase, Mirrlees or Hicks. This book draws upon the whole of Meade’s published work. It incorporates insights from unpublished papers and surviving correspondence kept at the London School of Economics and Political Science as well as interviews with family members and associates. The book will be of interest to economists but also to the students of politics and philosophy that Meade himself would have wanted to reach.
Once exports and imports meant agriculture and industry. Today, in the global economy and the electronic age, trade is also expanding into the service sector. This timely book closely examines trade in health. Professor David Reisman offers a comprehen
In Being and Nothingness Sartre picks up diverging threads in the phenomenological tradition, weaves them together with ideas from Gestalt and behaviourist psychology, and asks: What is consciousness? What is its relationship to the body, to the external world, and to other minds? Sartre believes that the mind and its states are by-products of introspection, created in the act that purports to discover them. How does this happen? And how are we able to perceive ourselves as persons - physical objects with mental states? Sartre's Phenomenology reconstructs Sartre's answers to these crucial questions. On Sartre's view, consciousness originally apprehends itself in terms of what it is consciousness of, that is, as an activity of apprehending the world. David Reisman traces the path from this minimal form of self-consciousness to the perception of oneself as a full-blown person. Similar considerations apply to the perception of others. Reisman describes Sartre's account of the transition from one's original apprehension of another consciousness to the perception of other persons. An understanding of the various levels of self-apprehension and of the apprehension of others allows Reisman to penetrate the key ideas in Being and Nothingness, and to compare Sartre to analytic philosophers on fundamental questions in the philosophy of mind.
Reading Foreign Objects is like visiting a Museum of Everyday Life that's been broken down into its quantum state and reassembled as a surrealist masterpiece! David Reisman's dream art is autobiography at its most auto-luminescent."- Rick Veitch, author/artist of Rabid Eye: the Dream Art of Rick Veitch.
This book examines the economic, social and political thought of two highly influential cross-disciplinary contributors to the debate in the United Kingdom about welfare economics, social welfare, nationalisation and public policy. Active between the 1880s and the 1930s, their many books, papers, lectures and speeches shaped the discourse on heterodox economics, social democracy and the managed economy. The Webbs sat on Royal Commissions, permeated local and central government, and were instrumental in the creation of the London School of Economics. This book discusses and assesses their contribution to the broad topics of inequality, poverty, unemployment, freedom, capitalism, socialism, constitutional reform, social evolution and the historical school. Issues such as these remain at the forefront of contemporary discussions not just in Britain but throughout the world.
This insightful book sheds light on three competing ideological windows on the world: conservatism, liberalism and socialism. David Reisman explores the importance of these perspectives not only to generating public policy, but also in our capacity to explain the very nature of reality.
James Buchanan (1919-2013), economist and philosopher, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1986 for his original theory of political democracy as market exchange. Buchanan believed economics should be concerned with liberty, individualism and equity.
Thomas Robert Malthus (1766-1834) was a leading figure in the British classical school of economics, best-known for extending the insights of Adam Smith at a time of revolutionary improvements in agriculture and industry. This book explores the way in which he accounted for the tendency to overpopulation, the exhaustion of arable land and the deficiency of effective demand. Malthus relied on historical and empirical evidence in the spirit of Bacon and Hume, but also backed up his data with a priori hypotheses that link him to his contemporary, David Ricardo. Malthus was strongly in favour of free trade, the minimal State, the gold standard and the abolition of poverty relief. Always a pragmatist, however, he was just as much in favour of public education, contra-cyclical public works and a safety net of tariffs and bounties to encourage national self-sufficiency with regard to food. He was both an economist and a clergyman and saw the two roles as interconnected. Malthus believed that a benevolent Deity had created vice and misery in order to shake human beings out of their natural indolence that would otherwise have condemned them to still greater distress. This title provides a clear and comprehensive examination of Malthus’s economic and social thought. It will be of interest to students and scholars alike.
Fascination with the economics of Thorstein Veblen is today no less than it was fifty years ago. Many books have been written about his life and ideas. But David Reisman breaks new ground by providing one of the best and most comprehensive explainations of Veblen's thought. Written in a strikingly fresh and lucid style, this work is one of the landmarks of the literature on this great and enduringly relevant economist.' Geoffrey M. Hodgson, University of Hertfordshire, UK 'Considering the inability of conventional economics to comprehend the socio-economic convulsions over the past few years in so many countries, it is surely time to try something else. David Reisman's The Social Economics of Thorstein Veblen thus appears at a most opportune moment. This original analytical study is the best introduction into Veblen's work that I know of, and will, I trust, encourage a renewal of interest in possibly the most unjustly neglected of economists. Reisman's primary contention that there is despite obstacles to comprehension created by Veblen's personal idiosyncrasies and unconventional literary style a Veblen structure of thought, or general system, is fully confirmed by the evidence presented in his book. In this demonstration lies its great merit.' Samuel Hollander, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel 'Veblen is a notoriously difficult economist to read and understand. He was, however, unequivocal in his scorn for neoclassical economics, whose demise he took pleasure in predicting. In light of the limp excuses offered by the economics profession for its failure to anticipate the current global financial crisis, Reisman's incisive analysis of Veblen's writings suggests that were Veblen alive today, he would be revelling in schadenfreude. This timely book will make uncomfortable reading for neoclassical economists.' Douglas Mair, Heriot-Watt University, UK 'Reisman offers a brilliant distillation of Veblen's jaundiced purview of the social, psychological and pecuniary motivations that have driven man the social animal in his economic life down the ages, from noble savage to predatory barbarian in his ancient, modern, and potential guises. Avoiding hagiography, this book exposes Veblen's exaggerations as well as his compelling institutional insights into the evolution of capitalism and socialism. Reisman's own intellectual sweep in explaining and criticising Veblen demonstrate political economy at its best.' Roger Sandilands, University of Strathclyde, UK Thorstein Veblen was a multidisciplinary social scientist whose original insights continue to inspire debate. Rather than focusing on allocation, markets and scarcity, his perspective on economics was rather one of Darwinian evolution and perpetual development, unfolding conventions and interpersonal constraints. This interdisciplinary and comprehensive book determines that Veblen's disparate theories of conspicuous consumption, imperial Germany, the giant corporation and the speculation-led cycle all add up to a consistent and coherent world-view. Veblen was a fascinating author who deserves to be read for himself. This penetrating new interpretation demonstrates that he also identified a serious threat to property and peace in the form of irresponsible finance and frustrated workmanship. He believed corporate capitalism was at risk from its internal contradictions. This lucid book assesses the logic behind Veblen's stark and apocalyptic vision. The Social Economics of Thorstein Veblen examines all of Veblen's books and articles, revealing that they are closely integrated to form an organic whole. It will prove valuable for scholars and students interested in sociological theory, politics and political economy, history and institutional economics.
Richard Titmuss, Professor at the London School of Economics, adviser to governments, prolific author, was instrumental in shaping the new disciplines of Social Policy and Administration. He made a valuable contribution to social philosophy through his attempt to integrate welfare into its broad social context. In this revised edition of his well-known book, Professor Reisman relies on the whole of Titmuss's work, unpublished as well as published, to explain and evaluate the theories of this provocative but often difficult author.
Plato was the first of the great thinkers to integrate the economy into a wide-ranging synthesis of ethical absolutes and human interaction. In this original and stimulating book, David Reisman assesses his influential contribution to the political economy of production, consumption, distribution and exchange.
The texts in this collection of 10 volumes demonstrate both the diversity and continuity in British theories of democratic socialism. The selection encompasses the Ricardian socialists, the Christian socialists, and the Fabian socialists. Volume 1 includes ‘Labour Rewarded and ‘Labour Defended’.
In this unique and pathbreaking book, David Reisman examines the relatively new phenomenon of health travel. He presents a multidisciplinary account of the way in which lower costs, shorter waiting times, different services, and the chance to combine recreational tourism with a check-up or an operation all come together to make medical travel a new industry with the potential to create jobs and wealth, while at the same time giving sick people high-quality care at an affordable price. The book illustrates that it is no longer the case that medical attention must be consumed at home. Patients are travelling to Mexico, India and Thailand for a heart bypass. They are going to Hungary, Poland and Malaysia for dentistry. Doctors are migrating to Britain, the USA and Canada for new challenges. Hospitals are opening subsidiaries in Dubai, the Philippines and Costa Rica to see overseas patients on the spot. Integrating academic perspectives from medicine, tourism, health economics, development studies and public policy, the author concludes that the benefits both to the importing and the exporting nations are considerable, but that there are also some costs. He suggests that the new industry should be regulated and supported in order that it can do its best both for the local population and for the sick people who travel abroad for treatment. This fascinating and highly original book will be of great interest to academics and researchers in areas such as health economics, tourism, social policy, development studies, Asian studies and public policy. It will also prove invaluable to practitioners actively involved in planning and delivering medical attention in the global economic order.
The texts in this collection of 10 volumes demonstrate both the diversity and continuity in British theories of democratic socialism. The selection encompasses the Ricardian socialists, the Christian socialists, and the Fabian socialists. Volume 6 includes ‘A Grammar of Politics’ by Harold Laski.
The texts in this collection of 10 volumes demonstrate both the diversity and continuity in British theories of democratic socialism. The selection encompasses the Ricardian socialists, the Christian socialists, and the Fabian socialists. Volume 5 includes ‘Old Worlds for New; A Study of the Post-Industrial State’ by Arthur J. Penty.
Democracy and Exchange is about the twin pillars of the consultative order. The subject is perennially topical and interesting, both in rich countries and in less-developed countries that are developing their own institutional mix. It also provides an in-depth analysis and comparison of the political economy of five seminal theorists: Adam Smith, Richard Titmuss, T.H. Marshall, J.K. Galbraith and Joseph Schumpeter.
The texts in this collection of 10 volumes demonstrate both the diversity and continuity in British theories of democratic socialism. The selection encompasses the Ricardian socialists, the Christian socialists, and the Fabian socialists. Volume 7 includes ‘Principles of Economic Planning’ by G.D.H.Cole.
The texts in this collection of 10 volumes demonstrate both the diversity and continuity in British theories of democratic socialism. The selection encompasses the Ricardian socialists, the Christian socialists, and the Fabian socialists. Volume 4 includes the Fabian Essays, edited by Bernard Shaw.
Aristotle’s Economics is a thoughtful and comprehensive account of Aristotle's intellectual system. Drawing upon all of his surviving writings, this book deftly illustrates how Aristotle considered economics to be just one of many topics which made up the social and political whole.
Schumpeter was an interdisciplinary political ecnomist who made institutional transformation the centrepiece of his theory of supply and demand. This comprehensive monograph reconstructs and assesses Schumpeter's contribution to the restless economics of entrepeneurship, disequilibrium and search.
The texts in this collection of 10 volumes demonstrate both the diversity and continuity in British theories of democratic socialism. The selection encompasses the Ricardian socialists, the Christian socialists, and the Fabian socialists. Volume 9 includes the 'New Fabian Essays' edited by Richard Crossman.
In the age of globalisation, goods, services, labour and capital are crossing international borders on a scale never before known. They are creating a nationless market. Governed by both the invisible hand of business and interest and the visible hand of authority and direction, a world market can be a free-for-all, but it can also be constrained by the national interest of countries that differ greatly in their social institutions and material circumstances. This book provides a lucid and comprehensive account of contemporary international political economy. Beginning with the ideological underpinnings, it examines the globalisation of trade in goods and services and labour and capital. It relates the free economic market to social consensus and political regulation, both within sovereign countries and at the supra-national level.
The institutional economy is the economy of rules and laws, conventions and precedents. It is prices but also practices, change but also constancy, individual but also interdependence. David Reisman argues that conformity and repetition as well as new initiatives and mould-breaking departures constitute the essence of supply and demand.
A survey of the political economy of James Buchanan seeking to explain his theories in detail and evaluate them in depth, covering topics such as the constitution and its failure, democracy, operational rules for the constitution and economics.
Smith, Burke, Marx, Durkheim, Polanyi and Hayek--all sought to situate market exchange and property-based acquisitiveness in the broader context of human interaction and social values. This book explores that framework of interdependence and ethics that embeds the capitalist market economy in an ongoing whole of which the calculative present-day is but a part. It argues that the stability of conservatism anchors the dynamism of entrepreneurship in a matrix of patterns and habits without which orderly free enterprise would be at risk of degenerating into the Hobbesian war of each against all.
First published in 1986, 1987 and 1990, this three volume reissue covers the life and times of leading economic theorist, Alfred Marshall - one of the founders of neoclassical economics. David Reisman's incisive and comprehensive study divides Marshall's work into three key areas: economics, progress and politics, and moral principles. The author deals with everything from Marshall's magnum opus Principles of Economics through to his contribution to the progressive evolution in Victorian politics; and finally the way in which his background ...
First published in 1976, this book provides an interdiciplinary study fo the thoughts of Adam Smith, showing it particular how the link between economic basis and social superstructure was central to his work. The work is split into six sections, dividing Smith's views along the following lines: 'methology', 'conduct and character', 'consumer behaviour', 'the upper classes', 'the lower classes', and finally 'the State'.
Some goods and services are normally left to the market mechanism. Health care is often described as an exception to the rule. Society wants care to be allocated equitably; it wants the financial burden to be kept within bounds; it wants treatments to be both medically effective and economically efficient. These shared concerns lead to a demand for State intervention which this book seeks impartially to appraise and evaluate.
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