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| Author | George Franklin Gilder |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Subject | philosophy of wealth and poverty |
| Genre | nonfiction |
| Publisher | Basic Books |
Publication date | 1 May 1981 |
| Pages | 306 (first edition) |
| ISBN | 978-0-465-09105-8 |
| OCLC | 6709177 |
Wealth and Poverty is a best-selling 1981 non-fiction book by investor and author George Gilder. A second edition was published in 2012.
After completing Visible Man in the late 1970s Gilder began writing "The Pursuit of Poverty." In early 1981, Basic Books published (1 May 1981) [lower-alpha 1] the result as Wealth and Poverty. [1] [2] [3] [4] The book was an analysis of the roots of economic growth. Reviewing it within a month of the inauguration of the Reagan administration, the New York Times reviewer called it "A Guide to Capitalism" and wrote that it offered "a creed for capitalism worthy of intelligent people." [5] The book was a New York Times bestseller [6] and has sold over a million copies. [7]
In Wealth and Poverty, Gilder extended the sociological and anthropological analysis of his early books in which he had advocated for the socialization of men into service to women through work and marriage. He wove those sociological themes into the economic policy prescriptions of supply-side economics. The breakup of the nuclear family and demand-side economics led to poverty. Family and supply-side policies led to wealth.
In reviewing the problems of the immediate past (the inflation, recession, and urban problems of the 1970s) and proposing his supply-side solutions, Gilder argued for not only the practical but also the moral superiority of supply-side capitalism over the alternatives. "Capitalism begins with giving," he asserted, but New Deal liberalism created moral hazard. It was work, family, and faith that created wealth out of poverty: "It is this supply-side moral vision that underlies all the economic arguments of Wealth and Poverty." [8]
In 1994, Gilder asserted that America has no poverty problem, the real problem is the "moral decay" of the "so-called poor," and their real need is "Christian teaching from the churches." He called the poor in America "the so-called poor," who have been "ruined by the overflow of American prosperity," and he asserted that they have more purchasing power than the middle class in Japan in the 1990s:
What the poor really need is morals.... The official poor in America have higher incomes and purchasing power than the middle class in the United States in 1955 or the middle class in Japan today. The so-called "poor" are ruined by the overflow of American prosperity. What they need is Christian teaching from the churches.... The poverty line in a rich country like the United States is a meaningless standard. We have no poverty problem strictly speaking, we have a desperate problem of family breakdown and moral decay. [9]
Wealth and Poverty advanced a practical and moral case[ citation needed ] for supply-side economics and capitalism during the early months of the Reagan administration.
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A market economy is an economic system in which the decisions regarding investment, production and distribution to the consumers are guided by the price signals created by the forces of supply and demand. The major characteristic of a market economy is the existence of factor markets that play a dominant role in the allocation of capital and the factors of production.
This aims to be a complete article list of economics topics:
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The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism is a book written by Max Weber, a German sociologist, economist, and politician. Begun as a series of essays, the original German text was composed in 1904 and 1905, and was translated into English for the first time by American sociologist Talcott Parsons in 1930. It is considered a founding text in economic sociology and a milestone contribution to sociological thought in general.
Trickle-down economics is a term used in critical references to economic policies to say they disproportionately favor the upper end of the economic spectrum, i.e., wealthy investors and large corporations. In recent history, the term has been used broadly by critics of supply-side economics. Major US examples of what critics have called "trickle-down economics" include the Reagan tax cuts, the Bush tax cuts, and the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. Major UK examples include Liz Truss's mini-budget tax cuts of 2022. As of 2023, a number of studies have failed to demonstrate a link between reducing tax burdens on the upper end and economic growth.
The Protestant work ethic, also known as the Calvinist work ethic or the Puritan work ethic, is a work ethic concept in scholarly sociology, economics, and historiography. It emphasizes that diligence, discipline, and frugality are a result of a person's subscription to the values espoused by the Protestant faith, particularly Calvinism.
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George Franklin Gilder is an American investor, author, economist, and co-founder of the Discovery Institute. His 1981 book, Wealth and Poverty, advanced a case for supply-side economics and capitalism during the early months of the Reagan administration. He is the chairman of George Gilder Fund Management, LLC.
Moral economy refers to economic activities viewed through a moral, not just a material, lens. The definition of moral economy is constantly revisited depending on its usage in differing social, economic, ecological, and geographic situations and times. The concept was developed in 1971 by the British Marxist social historian and political activist E. P. Thompson in his essay, "The Moral Economy of the English Crowd in the Eighteenth Century", to describe and analyze a specific class struggle in a specific era, from the perspective of the poorest citizens—the "crowd".
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An economic ideology is a set of views forming the basis of an ideology on how the economy should run. It differentiates itself from economic theory in being normative rather than just explanatory in its approach, whereas the aim of economic theories is to create accurate explanatory models to describe how an economy currently functions. However, the two are closely interrelated, as underlying economic ideology influences the methodology and theory employed in analysis. The diverse ideology and methodology of the 74 Nobel laureates in economics speaks to such interrelation.
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There have been a variety of Christian views on poverty and wealth. At one end of the spectrum is a view which casts wealth and materialism as an evil to be avoided and even combated. At the other end is a view which casts prosperity and well-being as a blessing from God.
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