[PDF] Economic Myths And Magic eBook

Author : Norman C. Miller
Publisher : Edward Elgar Publishing
Page : 153 pages
File Size : 38,48 MB
Release : 2023-01-20
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 1803925639

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This insightful and comprehensive book uses theoretical and empirical studies to debunk contemporary illusions about the functionality of economies and examines the phenomena of economic magic and economic black magic. Norman C. Miller considers 11 economic myths, three of which are the theory that excessive imports reduce employment as firms are forced to downsize or shut down, that a more equal distribution of income kills incentives and reduces economic growth rates and the myth that a higher minimum wage always generates a net decrease in employment.

Author : Erik Davis
Publisher : North Atlantic Books
Page : 457 pages
File Size : 44,67 MB
Release : 2015-03-17
Category : Computers
ISBN : 1583949305

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TechGnosis is a cult classic of media studies that straddles the line between academic discourse and popular culture; it appeals to both those secular and spiritual, to fans of cyberpunk and hacker literature and culture as much as new-thought adherents and spiritual seekers How does our fascination with technology intersect with the religious imagination? In TechGnosis—a cult classic now updated and reissued with a new afterword—Erik Davis argues that while the realms of the digital and the spiritual may seem worlds apart, esoteric and religious impulses have in fact always permeated (and sometimes inspired) technological communication. Davis uncovers startling connections between such seemingly disparate topics as electricity and alchemy; online roleplaying games and religious and occult practices; virtual reality and gnostic mythology; programming languages and Kabbalah. The final chapters address the apocalyptic dreams that haunt technology, providing vital historical context as well as new ways to think about a future defined by the mutant intermingling of mind and machine, nightmare and fantasy.

Author : Jason Ananda Josephson Storm
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
Page : 428 pages
File Size : 36,16 MB
Release : 2017-05-16
Category : History
ISBN : 022640336X

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A great many theorists have argued that the defining feature of modernity is that people no longer believe in spirits, myths, or magic. Jason Ā. Josephson-Storm argues that as broad cultural history goes, this narrative is wrong, as attempts to suppress magic have failed more often than they have succeeded. Even the human sciences have been more enchanted than is commonly supposed. But that raises the question: How did a magical, spiritualist, mesmerized Europe ever convince itself that it was disenchanted? Josephson-Storm traces the history of the myth of disenchantment in the births of philosophy, anthropology, sociology, folklore, psychoanalysis, and religious studies. Ironically, the myth of mythless modernity formed at the very time that Britain, France, and Germany were in the midst of occult and spiritualist revivals. Indeed, Josephson-Storm argues, these disciplines’ founding figures were not only aware of, but profoundly enmeshed in, the occult milieu; and it was specifically in response to this burgeoning culture of spirits and magic that they produced notions of a disenchanted world. By providing a novel history of the human sciences and their connection to esotericism, The Myth of Disenchantment dispatches with most widely held accounts of modernity and its break from the premodern past.

Author : Morris Silver
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Page : 304 pages
File Size : 25,72 MB
Release : 1991
Category : History
ISBN :

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Ancient mythology and its striking themes have always fascinated scholars and the general populace alike. Mythological interpretations have proven valuable to historians and theologians for centuries, and more recently, structuralist and Freudian interpretations have dominated the field. Ancient Economy In Mythology is the first to explore the economic component in mythology. Original articles by scholars from diverse fields--ancient languages and history, philosophy, anthropology, and economics--uncover and utilize evidence in myths to throw light on ancient economies and reveal the role played by myths in shaping and justifying economic policies in ancient societies. The book's articles fall into four major economic themes: Primary Production and Distribution in Myth; Dynamics and Statics of Socioeconomic Roles in Myth; Resource Extraction and Royal Myths; and International Trade in Myth. These fresh and sometimes controversial papers will be of interest to ancient historians, economic historians, anthropologists, religious and Biblical scholars, Assyriologists, Classicists, Indo-Europeanists, and the general educated public.

Author : Bernard E. Harcourt
Publisher : Harvard University Press
Page : 337 pages
File Size : 48,36 MB
Release : 2011-05-01
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 0674059360

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It is widely believed today that the free market is the best mechanism ever invented to efficiently allocate resources in society. Just as fundamental as faith in the free market is the belief that government has a legitimate and competent role in policing and the punishment arena. This curious incendiary combination of free market efficiency and the Big Brother state has become seemingly obvious, but it hinges on the illusion of a supposedly natural order in the economic realm. The Illusion of Free Markets argues that our faith in “free markets” has severely distorted American politics and punishment practices. Bernard Harcourt traces the birth of the idea of natural order to eighteenth-century economic thought and reveals its gradual evolution through the Chicago School of economics and ultimately into today’s myth of the free market. The modern category of “liberty” emerged in reaction to an earlier, integrated vision of punishment and public economy, known in the eighteenth century as “police.” This development shaped the dominant belief today that competitive markets are inherently efficient and should be sharply demarcated from a government-run penal sphere. This modern vision rests on a simple but devastating illusion. Superimposing the political categories of “freedom” or “discipline” on forms of market organization has the unfortunate effect of obscuring rather than enlightening. It obscures by making both the free market and the prison system seem natural and necessary. In the process, it facilitated the birth of the penitentiary system in the nineteenth century and its ultimate culmination into mass incarceration today.