Overview

Acclaim for the first edition:'Free Market Economics is virtually a must read for serious economists . . . Highly recommended.' - Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries 'A refreshing theoretical counterattack to the established Keynesian world view that has left the West financially overpromised, disastrously broke, and vulnerable to crank ideas. Professor Kates has brilliantly resurrected Say's law of markets - Keynes's old nemesis - into a new modern framework that forms the foundation of a new sustainable economy.' - Mark Skousen, editor, Forecasts & Strategies and formerly of the Columbia Business School, US 'Steven Kates has written an exciting new book on the basics of economics. He avoids the dry and unrealistic assumptions of most introductions to economics. He puts change, entrepreneurship, uncertainty, decentralized knowledge and spontaneous order at the center of his analysis. The reader will profit from this fresh approach far more than from an ordinary textbook. This is a treatment for the general reader that both respects and engages one's intelligence.' - Mario J. Rizzo, New York University, US 'Steve Kates, an academic with business experience, does away with the unrealistic abstractions that make economics inaccessible to general readers. This book is about real, enterprising people with whom we can identify, and about how ordinary economic life evolves in conditions of uncertainty. We learn why vacuous modelling only misleads us and why economic freedom and secure institutions are essential to achieving the good life.' - Wolfgang Kasper, University of New South Wales, Australia In this thoroughly updated third edition of Free Market Economics, Steven Kates assesses economic principles based on classical economic theory. Rejecting mainstream Keynesian and neoclassical approaches even though they are thoroughly covered in the text, Kates instead looks at economics from the perspective of an entrepreneur making decisions in a world where the future is unknown, innovation is a continuous process and the future is being created before it can be understood. Key Features include: analysis derived from the theories of pre-Keynesian classical economists, as this is the only source available today that explains the classical pre-Keynesian theory of the business cycle a focus on the entrepreneur as the driving force in economic activity rather than on anonymous 'forces' as found in most economic theory today introduces a powerful though simplified model to explain the difference between modern theory of recession and classical theory of the business cycle great emphasis is placed on the consequences of decision making under uncertainty offers an introductory understanding, accessible to the non-specialist reader. The aim of this book is to redirect the attention of economists and policy makers towards the economic theories that prevailed in earlier times. Their problems were little different from ours but their way of understanding the operation of an economy and dealing with those problems was completely different. Free Market Economics, Third Edition will help students and general readers understand classical economic theory, written by someone who believes that this now-discarded approach to economic thought was superior to what is found in most of our textbooks today.

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9781786431400

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Reviews

'Steve Kates is an interesting economist who challenges orthodoxies and the textbooks. He is positioned well outside the mainstream box and encourages his readers to join him in re-thinking the basics of macroeconomics. I am not persuaded that all of Keynes' innovations, such as his principle of effective demand, are misguided, but I am grateful to Professor Kates for making me re-organize my ideas on the subject. He is also right that too much focus on demand causes us to lose sight of the damage that taxes and regulations can do to the supply side of the economy. We need to be reminded that in the end rises in living standards depend on gains in supply-side efficiency, not on Keynesian fiscal fine-tuning. Professor Kates is to be applauded for his spirited defence of the free market economy.' -- Tim Congdon, University of Buckingham, UK 'Steven Kates provides a valuable antidote to the excessive formalism of much modern economic theory. From the beginning market processes are seen as operating in the context of continual change and uncertainty. His analysis is embedded in the history of economic thought and reasserts the importance of contributions to microeconomics and the theory of money stretching back to the classical era. The book is written for the 'general reader' but even for more specialised students it will serve as a stimulus to engage with an important critique of their subject.' -- Martin Ricketts, University of Buckingham, UK

'Steven Kates provides a valuable antidote to the excessive formalism of much modern economic theory. From the beginning market processes are seen as operating in the context of continual change and uncertainty. His analysis is embedded in the history of economic thought and reasserts the importance of contributions to microeconomics and the theory of money stretching back to the classical era. The book is written for the 'general reader' but even for more specialised students it will serve as a stimulus to engage with an important critique of their subject.' -- Martin Ricketts, University of Buckingham, UK.

Author Information

Steven Kates, Senior Fellow, Centre for Labour Market Research, University of Canberra, Australia

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