A Short History Of Socialist Money

A Short History of Socialist Money is a historical and institutional account of the role of money in the planned economies. It is an essential guide for general readers and students interested in monetary economics, the planned economies, comparative economic studies and economic histories.

A look at the changing character of Soviet socialism from the 1917 revolution to the collapse of communism in 1991.

During the Cold War it became a dirty word in the United States, but "socialism" runs like a red thread through the nation's history, an integral part of its political consciousness since the founding of the republic. In this unapologetic corrective to today's collective amnesia, John Nichols calls for the proud return of socialism in American life. He recalls the reforms lauded by Founding Father Tom Paine; the presence of Karl Marx's journalism in American letters; the left leanings of founders of the Republican Party; the socialist politics of Helen Keller; the progressive legacy of figures like Chaplin and Einstein. Now in an updated edition, The "S" Word makes a case for socialist ideas as an indispensable part of American heritage. A new final chapter considers the recent signs of a leftward sea change in American politics in the face of increasing and historic levels of inequality. Today, corporations-like other rich "individuals"-pay fewer taxes than they did in the 1950s, while our infrastructure crumbles and the seas rise. The "S" Wordaddresses a nation that can no longer afford to put capital before people.

What Does Capitalism Mean? The Emergence of a Controversial Concept -- Three Classics : Marx, Weber, and Schumpeter -- Other Voices and a Working Definition -- Merchant Capitalism. China and Arabia -- Europe : Dynamic Latecomer -- Interim Findings around 1500 -- Expansion. Business and Violence : Colonialism and World Trade -- Joint-Stock Company and Finance Capitalism -- Plantation Economy and Slavery -- Agrarian Capitalism, Mining, and Proto-Industrialization -- Capitalism, Culture, and Enlightenment : Adam Smith in Context -- The Capitalist Era. The Contours of Industrialization and Globalization since 1800 -- From Ownership to Managerial Capitalism -- Financialization -- Work in Capitalism -- Market and State -- Analysis and Critique.

"The search for the Promised Land took socialists in diverse directions: revolution, communes and kibbutzim, social democracy, communism, fascism, Third Worldism. But none of these paths led to the prophesied utopia. Nowhere did socialists succeed in creating societies of easy abundance or in midwifing the birth of a "New Man," as their theory promised. Some socialist governments abandoned their grandiose goals and satisfied themselves with making slight modifications to capitalism, while others plowed ahead doggedly, often inducing staggering human catastrophes. Then, after two hundred years of wishful thinking and fitful governance, socialism suddenly imploded in the 1990s in a fin du siecle drama of falling walls, collapsing regimes and frantic revisions of doctrine."--BOOK JACKET.