What Matters?: Economics for a Renewed Commonwealth - Softcover

Berry, Wendell

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9781582436067: What Matters?: Economics for a Renewed Commonwealth

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1582436061 ISBN 13: 9781582436067

Publisher: Counterpoint LLC, 2010

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Paperback. Pub Date: 2010 Pages: 256 Publisher: Counterpoint Over the years Wendell Berry has sought to understand and confront the financial structure of Modern Society and the impact of developing late capitalism on American culture. There is perhaps no more demanding or important critique available to contemporary citizens than Berry's writings - just as there is no vocabulary more given to obfuscation than that of economics as practiced by professionals and academics. Berry has called upon us to return to the basics. He has traced how the clarity of our economic approach has eroded over time. as the financial asylum was overtaken by the inmates. and citizens were turned from consumers - entertained and distracted - to victims. threatened by a future of despair and disillusion.For this collection. Berry offers essays from over the last 25 years. alongside new essays about...

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Written in Wendell Berry's trademark graceful, back-to-the-basics style, Berry's latest collection of essays addresses the pressing problem of contemporary financial structures. There is no vocabulary more given to obfuscation than that of the academics and professionals working with economics. Berry's clear, accessible prose is a much-needed antidote - in a collection of essays written over the course of 25 years, he argues that clarity has all but disappeared in the world of economics, leading to the current economic fiasco.

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Praise for What Matters?

"The reasoned and insistent exhortations of a man with a cause who, rather than mellowing with age and wisdom, continues to grow in forcefulness and vision." Booklist

Praise for Sex, Economy, Freedom & Community

"Read it with pencil in hand, make notes, and hope that somehow our country and the world will soon come to see the truth that is told here." The New York Times Book Review

Berry once again carves out a unique position in American social debate: not liberal (he hates big government), not conservative (he hates big corporations), not libertarian (he would balance individual rights with those of the commonwealth), but always sharp-tongued and aglow with common sense.” Kirkus Reviews

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PublisherCounterpoint LLC
Publication date2010
ISBN 10 1582436061
ISBN 13 9781582436067
BindingPaperback
Number of pages256
Rating
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What Matters? : Economics for a Renewed Commonwealth

Berry, Wendell; Daly, Herman (FRW)

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What Matters?: Economics for a Renewed Commonwealth

Berry, Wendell

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What Matters?: Economics for a Renewed Commonwealth

Wendell Berry

Published by Counterpoint May 2010 (2010)

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Book Description Paper Back. Condition: New. Wendell Berry is not a formally trained economist, though he is a great many other things: poet, essayist, social critic and novelist. In our estimation, Mr. Berry habitually 'sheds light on ultimate questions in an excellent way' (that's from the About Us page on our website) not only in his writing but through his way of living--as a farmer, philosopher, teacher, activist, devoted family man and steadfast community member. And lest you think this blurb is little more than a paean to a man seeking no such thing, we hold that what makes the man makes him particularly suited to propose a sensible, though not uncomplicated, solution. 'My economic point of view,' writes Berry in the first essay, 'Money Versus Goods,' 'is from ground-level. It is a point of view sometimes described as 'agrarian.' That means that in ordering the economy of a household or community or nation, I would put nature first, the economies of land use second, the manufacturing economy third, and the consumer economy fourth.' He goes on to say that America, on the whole, has replaced economy with finance to a catastrophic degree by confusing wants with needs. 'Spending is not an economic virtue.Saving is. Not-wasting is.' Berry decries usury and its destabilization of the relationship between money and goods. He goes on to criticize America's overemphasis on education (it's been 'oversold, overbuilt, over-electrified, and overpriced'), laying out a sixteen point agenda to promote a long-term, sustainable agricultural policy for both ecological health and true stimulation of our human economy, for 'there is no good reason.to wish for the 'recovery' and continuation of the economy we have had.' And that's just the first essay. The remaining fourteen include 'Faustian Economics' (a recognition of limitation amidst the myth of limitless consumption), a 50-Year Farm Bill proposing 'diversification, detoxification, perennialization, and resettlement of our agricultural landscapes,' and an argument for orienting the 'humanities' not around the careers of their practitioners but on the diversities of local cultures and landscapes within a beloved country. In 'Economy and Pleasure,' Berry ruminates on the imperfection and frailty of an economy based almost entirely on the rule of competition, holding up the ideals of community ('neighborly love, marital fidelity, local loyalty, integrity and continuity of family life, respect of the old, and instruction of the young') as a vital, sustainable way of life. About half of these essays are reprints from Berry's earlier books Another Turn of the Crank, Citizenship Papers, Home Economics, and What Are People For? Possibly the most eloquent is 'The Work of Local Culture,' a meditation comparing the making of earth in a battered galvanized bucket to a similar kind of accumulation--the thoughtful and active creation of local culture. Berry consistently, insistently emphasizes the vital relationship between the land and the human community: 'If the local culture cannot preserve and improve the local soil, then, as both reason and history inform us, the local community will decay and perish, and the work of soil building will be resumed by nature.'. Seller Inventory # 20110309185584

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