![]() | A Perilous Progress: Economists and Public Purpose in Twentieth-Century America Subjects: United States -- Economic policy -- 20th century; Economists -- United States -- History -- 20th century; Economics -- United States -- History -- 20th century; Council of Economic Advisers (U.S.) -- History; The economics profession in twentieth-century America began as a humble quest to understand the "wealth of nations." It grew into a profession of immense public prestige--and now suffers a strangely withered public purpose. Michael Bernstein portrays a profession that has ended up repudiating the state that nurtured it, ignoring distributive justice, and disproportionately privileging private desires in the study of economic life. Intellectual introversion has robbed it, he contends, of the very public influence it coveted and cultivated for so long. With wit and irony he examines how a community of experts now identified with uncritical celebration of ''free market'' virtues was itself shaped, dramatically so, by government and collective action. Michael A. Bernstein is Professor of History and Associated Faculty Member in Economics at the University of California, San Diego. He is the author of The Great Depression: Delayed Recovery and Economic Change in America, 1929-1939 , and coeditor of Understanding American Economic Decline . |
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