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The core of this book are the chapters on the social costs of markets and neoclassical economics, the social benefits of environmental controls, development planning, and the governance of science and technology. These chapters convincingly argue for socio-ecological safety standards that yield social benefits and sustainable development. In this, Kapp refutes conventional solutions, such as bargaining, taxation, and tort law as ineffective, inefficient, inconsistent, and too market-obedient. This book demonstrates the fruitfulness of the heterodox theory on social costs. The latter is a coherent alternative to neoclassical economics and an effective remedy for urgent socio-economic and ecological problems.
List of contents
1. Introduction 2. "The Planned Economy and International Trade" 3. Social Costs and Social Returns - A Critical Analysis of the Social Performance of the Unplanned Market Economy 4. Social Costs of Free Enterprise 5. Social Returns: A Critical Analysis of the Social Performance of the Unplanned Market Economy 6. Towards a New Science of Political Economy 7. Social Costs and Social Benefits - A Contribution to Normative Economics 8. Discussion Between Professor Shibata and Professor Kapp by The Economist 9. Towards a Normative Approach to Developmental and Environmental Planning and Decision-Making 10. Should the Development Process Itself be Seen as Representing a Kind of Economic System in Newly Developing Economies Today? 11. Environmental Control and the Market Mechanism 12. Energy and Environment: Inadequacy of Present Science and Technology Policies 13. The Future of Economics
About the author
K. William Kapp (1910-1976) was a German-American economist, one of the founders of Ecological Economics, a leading contributor to the institutional economics movement, and author of "The Social Costs of Business Enterprise."
Sebastian Berger is a Senior Lecturer of Economics at the University of the West of England, winner of the 2009 Helen Potter Award (Association for Social Economics), and trustee of the Kapp Foundation.
