From The Fallacy of Economics to Climate Change

Over the past two centuries, the total human population has grown more than seven-fold, from approximately one billion in 1800 to nearly eight billion. Each year, tens of millions of hectares of forest are cleared and hundreds of billions of tons of precious natural resources are extracted to meet the aggregate demands of the human world. At the same time, the standard of living for the average person has improved markedly in terms of subsistence, health, and education, even in some of the world's poorest regions. It is undeniable that capitalism has been, and continues to be, a tremendous engine of development for the modern world. However, we may have overlooked some basic truths and ignored the inevitable in trying to make sense of this unprecedented historical change. The economic concepts we blithely accept as fact may rest on a far more precarious foundation. If we are to confront the immense challenges of our future, we must first question the mechanisms that shaped our present. In this book, cherished principles such as demand and supply, the roles of money, the causes of banking crises, and the effects of budget deficits are probed and prodded, demonstrating what is lost when we focus solely on monetary value or economic data. Titanic figures such as John Maynard Keynes and Milton Friedman, whose views are often enshrined to be holy in the field of their expertise, are shown to have perhaps fallen victim to the same fundamental fallacies about the power of money and the dangers of inflation. Can we count on the "invisible hand," global conferences held in the name of the environment, or legislation to be passed by the government to steer us away from devouring what's endowed on the planet? Global warming is a sign signaling that time is running out for people to make a difference, while the spread of deadly viruses among humans is a warning for a species that is insatiable as well as ignorant.

Author: Z. X. Chen

Publisher: Independently Published

Publication Date: Apr 22, 2020

Number of Pages: 96 pages

Binding: Paperback or Softback

ISBN-10: NA

ISBN-13: 9798639449741