 | The Rhetoric of the Right: Language Change and the Spread of the Market Subjects: Behavioral Sciences; Economics Finance Business & Industry; Language & Literature; Politics & International Relations; Behavioral Neuroscience; Economics Finance and Accounting; Business Management and Marketing; Language & Linguistics; International Political Economy; Politics & the Media; Psychological Science; Economic Psychology; Economic Theory & Philosophy; Political Economy; History of Economic Thought; Linguistics; This study seeks to demonstrate the subtle ways in which changes in the language associated with economic issues are reflective of a gradual but quantifiable conservative ideological shift. In this rigorous analysis, David George uses as his data a century of word usage within The New York Times, starting in 1900. It is not always obvious how the changes identified necessarily reflect a stronger prejudice toward laissez-faire free market capitalism, and so much of the book seeks to demonstrate the subtle ways in which the changing language indeed carries with it a political message. This analysis is made through exploration of five major areas of focus: "economics rhetoric" scholarship and the growing "behavioral economics" school of thought;nbsp;the discourse ofnbsp;government and taxation; the changing meaning of "competition," and "competitive"; changing attitudes toward labor; and the celebration of growth relativenbsp;to thenbsp;decline in attention to economic justice and social equality. David George is Professor of Economics at La Salle University, USA. |
