Money In The Twenty First Century

What are the grand dynamics that drive the accumulation and distribution of capital? Questions about the long-term evolution of inequality, the concentration of wealth, and the prospects for economic growth lie at the heart of political economy. But satisfactory answers have been hard to find for lack of adequate data and clear guiding theories. In this work the author analyzes a unique collection of data from twenty countries, ranging as far back as the eighteenth century, to uncover key economic and social patterns. His findings transform debate and set the agenda for the next generation of thought about wealth and inequality. He shows that modern economic growth and the diffusion of knowledge have allowed us to avoid inequalities on the apocalyptic scale predicted by Karl Marx. But we have not modified the deep structures of capital and inequality as much as we thought in the optimistic decades following World War II. The main driver of inequality--the tendency of returns on capital to exceed the rate of economic growth--today threatens to generate extreme inequalities that stir discontent and undermine democratic values if political action is not taken. But economic trends are not acts of God. Political action has curbed dangerous inequalities in the past, the author says, and may do so again. This original work reorients our understanding of economic history and confronts us with sobering lessons for today.

An economist examines three modern forces that have redefined what "money" means, who controls it, and what the future of finance might look like. Money is increasingly cheap, digital, and mobile. In Money in the Twenty-First Century, economist Richard Holden examines the virtues and risks of low interest rates, mobile money, and cryptocurrencies, and explains how these three elemental forces will continue to play out—in our wallets, on the blockchain, and throughout major economies—in the decades to come. Holden weaves in the stories of three people who have exerted massive influence over the future of modern money: US treasury secretary Janet Yellen, Ethereum cofounder Vitalik Buterin, and Raghuram Rajan, former governor of the Reserve Bank of India and chief economist at the International Monetary Fund. Moving from micro to macro, Holden investigates the infrastructure that permits digital transactions, the currencies that underpin them, the race for control of those currencies, shifts in policy and the international monetary system, and the impact on our politics of money in the digital age. Ultimately, Money in the Twenty-First Century asks if governments can keep these three tectonic powers of low interest rates, mobile money, and decentralized finance under control.

Making constant recourse to well-known material from Shakespeare's plays, this text demonstrates that terms of money and value permeate our minds and lives even in our most mundane moments.

An economist examines three modern forces that have redefined what "money" means, who controls it, and what the future of finance might look like. Money is increasingly cheap, digital, and mobile. In Money in the Twenty-First Century, economist Richard Holden examines the virtues and risks of low interest rates, mobile money, and cryptocurrencies, and explains how these three elemental forces will continue to play out—in our wallets, on the blockchain, and throughout major economies—in the decades to come. Holden weaves in the stories of three people who have exerted massive influence over the future of modern money: US treasury secretary Janet Yellen, Ethereum cofounder Vitalik Buterin, and Raghuram Rajan, former governor of the Reserve Bank of India and chief economist at the International Monetary Fund. Moving from micro to macro, Holden investigates the infrastructure that permits digital transactions, the currencies that underpin them, the race for control of those currencies, shifts in policy and the international monetary system, and the impact on our politics of money in the digital age. Ultimately, Money in the Twenty-First Century asks if governments can keep these three tectonic powers of low interest rates, mobile money, and decentralized finance under control.

“Criticism of capitalism“ – is it really politically fair and theoretically sound to address important politico-economic issues of our time by use of a terminology that still stems from the times of the Cold War? Money is the other topic. “Toward gold throng all, To gold cling all, Yes, all!” In times of money, which is intrinsically worthless and may therefore be provided in arbitrary amounts by a society, is it really adequate that we still (like Goethe did for gold) regard these petty paper slips as the scarcest resource of them all? In this book, Kaiser provides the reader with surprisingly new insights into the fascinating phenomena of capital and money.

This timely book shows readers that their creative work--whether a photo, a painting, music, data, or a new game--is like money in the bank, and controlling its content means big profits.

Winner of the first Paul A. Baran-Paul M. Sweezy Memorial Award for an original monograph concerned with the political economy of imperialism, John Smith's Imperialism in the Twenty-First Century is a seminal examination of the relationship between the core capitalist countries and the rest of the world in the age of neoliberal globalization.Deploying a sophisticated Marxist methodology, Smith begins by tracing the production of certain iconic commodities-the T-shirt, the cup of coffee, and the iPhone-and demonstrates how these generate enormous outflows of money from the countries of the Global South to transnational corporations headquartered in the core capitalist nations of the Global North. From there, Smith draws on his empirical findings to powerfully theorize the current shape of imperialism. He argues that the core capitalist countries need no longer rely on military force and colonialism (although these still occur) but increasingly are able to extract profits from workers in the Global South through market mechanisms and, by aggressively favoring places with lower wages, the phenomenon of labor arbitrage. Meticulously researched and forcefully argued, Imperialism in the Twenty-First Century is a major contribution to the theorization and critique of global capitalism.

An introduction to Thomas Piketty’s monumental work US Nobel Prize–winner Paul Krugman described Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century as “perhaps the most important book of the last decade.” It has sparked major international debates, dominated bestseller lists and generated a level of enthusiasm—as well as intense criticism—in a way no other economic or sociological work has in a long time. Piketty has been described as a new Karl Marx and placed in the same league as the economist John Maynard Keynes. The “rock star economist’s” underlying thesis is that inequality under capitalism has reached dramatic levels in the last few decades and continues to grow—and that this is not by chance. A small elite is making itself richer and richer and acquiring everincreasing levels of power. Given the sensational reception of Piketty’s not-so-easily digested 800-page study, the question as to where the hype around the book comes from deserves to be asked. What does it get right? And what should we make of it—both of the book itself and of the criticism it has received? This introduction lays out the argument of Piketty’s monumental work in a compact and understandable format, while also investigating the controversies Piketty has stirred up. In addition, the two authors demonstrate the limits, contradictions and errors of the so-called Piketty revolution.