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The Predator State: How Conservatives Abandoned the Free Market and Why Liberals Should Too | 
| Author: James Galbraith
Publisher: Free Press
Category: Book
List Price: $25.00
Buy Used: $13.25
You Save: $11.75 (47%)
New (43) Used (14) from $13.25
Rating:  20 reviews
Sales Rank: 8244
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1st Free Press Hardcover Ed
Pages: 240
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6 x 1.1
ISBN: 141656683X
Dewey Decimal Number: 330.973
EAN: 9781416566830
ASIN: 141656683X
Publication Date: August 5, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Hardcover, with dust jacket. Slight cover wear. Pages appear unmarked. Ships the next business day, with tracking and delivery confirmation sent to your email.
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Product Description
The cult of the free market has dominated economic policy-talk since the Reagan revolution of nearly thirty years ago. Tax cuts and small government, monetarism, balanced budgets, deregulation, and free trade are the core elements of this dogma, a dogma so successful that even many liberals accept it. But a funny thing happened on the bridge to the twenty-first century. While liberals continue to bow before the free-market altar, conservatives in the style of George W. Bush have abandoned it altogether. That is why principled conservatives -- the Reagan true believers -- long ago abandoned Bush.Enter James K. Galbraith, the iconoclastic economist. In this riveting book, Galbraith first dissects the stale remains of Reaganism and shows how Bush and company had no choice except to dump them into the trash. He then explores the true nature of the Bush regime: a "corporate republic," bringing the methods and mentality of big business to public life; a coalition of lobbies, doing the bidding of clients in the oil, mining, military, pharmaceutical, agribusiness, insurance, and media industries; and a predator state, intent not on reducing government but rather on diverting public cash into private hands. In plain English, the Republican Party has been hijacked by political leaders who long since stopped caring if reality conformed to their message. Galbraith follows with an impertinent question: if conservatives no longer take free markets seriously, why should liberals? Why keep liberal thought in the straitjacket of pay-as-you-go, of assigning inflation control to the Federal Reserve, of attempting to "make markets work"? Why not build a new economic policy based on what is really happening in this country? The real economy is not a free-market economy. It is a complex combination of private and public institutions, including Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, higher education, the housing finance system, and a vast federal research establishment. The real problems and challenges -- inequality, climate change, the infrastructure deficit, the subprime crisis, and the future of the dollar -- are problems that cannot be solved by incantations about the market. They will be solved only with planning, with standards and other policies that transcend and even transform markets. A timely, provocative work whose message will endure beyond this election season, The Predator State will appeal to the broad audience of thoughtful Americans who wish to understand the forces at work in our economy and culture and who seek to live in a nation that is both prosperous and progressive.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 15 more reviews...
 Superb Analysis December 26, 2008
P. Schumacher (atlanta, GA United States)
Galbraith explains how conservatives have PREACHED "free markets" and "no government intervention" but at least since Reagan they have PRACTICED the opposite.
Reagan quickly found that (a) his theology of free-markets didn't work, and (b) the government was a giant ATM for his cronies.
G. W. Bush has taken this Crony Capitalism even farther.
He has diverted the true purpose of government--to serve the entire public, not a tiny slice of the hyper-rich--even farther.
This has left us with the Iraq War, Halliburton, Blackwater, KBR, Katrina, and most recently the housing collapse.
Galbraith goes into immense detail on how all this happened, and what we might do to correct it.
He is a thorough Keynesian, but points out that the conservatives (at least since Keynes) have all been Keynesians in sheep's clothing, deluding their own conservative base with social issues.
The book was written before the housing collapse sent the economy into free-fall, so Galbraith's prescriptions seem tame, although certainly correct.
The book is wonderful throughout, but a few of its most wonderful qualities are:
It is completely historical and reality-based. Galbraith cuts through conservative theology and talks about what actually happened.
It frankly uses theological terms for true free-market believers--people who believe, no matter what reality they face.
It has encyclopedic knowledge of how both U.S. and international markets actually work.
I urge everyone to read this book.
Not for Novices about economics! December 16, 2008
Joyce D. Simchick (Pennsylvania)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
For those who do not understand economics and finance, and I am one of those, this could be difficult to understand. A very detailed description of events leading up to this recession. A real education in how the economy works in the U.S.A.
Economic Reality December 11, 2008
R. Bono (Pennsylvania)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I was impressed by Galbraith's understanding of the structure of the American economy. Over the post WW II years, he proposes, the US economy, in each sector, has been dominated by fewer and fewer corporations. Is it accurate to characterize it is a corporate republic?...a corporate state?...or, when behaving badly...as Predator State, as Galbraith does? Eisenhower warned about the military industrial complex. Has this pattern become the default setting for the US economy...and, has K Street insured its perpetuation? Has this spelled the death knell of classical market economics?
Galbraith's answer is affirmative to all these questions....and the events of the last several months expose this long obfuscated economic reality for all Americans to see.
This book presents a big picture thesis...from it, springs Galbraith's conception of economic equality...and a new social contract, somewhere along the lines of his father's book: "The Good Society".
This is a good book and a good read. Its conclusions are inescapable, and very sobering indeed.
Before they passed, both William F. Buckley and John Kenneth Galbraith agreed that something had gone seriously awry in the American economy and politics. This is an excellent book that those, of either party, should be able to grasp...and perhaps, from its conclusions, begin building some new directions for the nation.
Not a Bad Analysis of the State of the Free Markets December 9, 2008
Sacramento Book Review (Sacramento, CA)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
There has been a rush to analyze the changes that have happened in the economy, the government and the ways that the Bush administration has handled both. Most of the work tends to judge the Bush administration harshly, both from the Left and the Right. Galbraith, son of noted economist John Kenneth Galbraith, falls into the liberal camp, but makes a coherent claim that Bush is not a conservative by any definition (except on moral issues), and the policies he has put into place has turned the United States into a "predator state," or one where corporate and lobbying interests have been allowed to profit from the public sector, at the cost of public benefit. From Medicare initiatives that benefit drug companies to the cronyism that lead to the failures in responding to national disasters like Katrina. Galbraith also takes liberals to task over their focus on trying to "out free market" the conservatives, and that both sides should just acknowledge that our economy is more complicated than simply a capitalistic free market system (see all the assorted bailouts currently ongoing). The Predator State is an engaging book, fitting into a more progressive mold than a liberal one, but is an important book that both conservatives and liberals should both endeavor to understand.
The new economics December 1, 2008
Gladys Barnett (Los Angeles, CA United States)
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
THE PREDATOR STATE
Understanding the financial happenings is so important. We certainly didn't learn any of this in school; highschool anyway.
I heard Kenneth Galbraith interviewed on KCET and placed my order, getting 2 gifts and reading one myself.
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