how grassroots innovation created jobs, challenge, and change Phelps, Edmund S. (Edmund Strother) 1933- creator text bibliography nju Princeton Oxford Princeton University Press [2013] 2013 monographic eng

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xii, 378 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm. Phelps explores what makes nations prosper--and why the sources of that prosperity are under threat today. Why did prosperity explode in some nations between the 1820s and 1960s, creating not just unprecedented material wealth but "flourishing"--meaningful work, self-expression, and personal growth for more people than ever before? "In this book, Nobel Prize-winning economist Edmund Phelps draws on a lifetime of thinking to make a sweeping new argument about what makes nations prosper--and why the sources of that prosperity are under threat today. Why did prosperity explode in some nations between the 1820s and 1960s, creating not just unprecedented material wealth but "flourishing"--meaningful work, self-expression, and personal growth for more people than ever before? Phelps makes the case that the wellspring of this flourishing was modern values such as the desire to create, explore, and meet challenges. These values fueled the grassroots dynamism that was necessary for widespread, indigenous innovation. Most innovation wasn't driven by a few isolated visionaries like Henry Ford; rather, it was driven by millions of people empowered to think of, develop, and market innumerable new products and processes, and improvements to existing ones. Mass flourishing--a combination of material well-being and the "good life" in a broader sense--was created by this mass innovation. Yet indigenous innovation and flourishing weakened decades ago. In America, evidence indicates that innovation and job satisfaction have decreased since the late 1960s, while postwar Europe has never recaptured its former dynamism. The reason, Phelps argues, is that the modern values underlying the modern economy are under threat by a resurgence of traditional, corporatist values that put the community and state over the individual. The ultimate fate of modern values is now the most pressing question for the West: will Western nations recommit themselves to modernity, grassroots dynamism, indigenous innovation, and widespread personal fulfillment, or will we go on with a narrowed innovation that limits flourishing to a few? A book of immense practical and intellectual importance, Mass Flourishing is essential reading for anyone who cares about the sources of prosperity and the future of the West." -- Publisher's description. Introduction : Advent of the modern economies -- Part One: The experience of the modern economy. How modern economies got their dynamism -- Material effects of the modern economies -- The experience of modern life -- How modern economies formed -- Part Two: Against the modern economy. The lure of socialism -- The third way : corporatism right and left -- Weighing the rivals on their terms -- The satisfaction of nations -- Part Three: Decay and refounding. Markers of post-1960s decline -- Understanding the post-1960s decline -- The good life : Aristotle and the moderns -- The good and the just -- Epilogue : Regaining the modern -- Timeline. Edmund Phelps. Includes bibliographical references (pages 337-349) and index. Commended for Axiom Business Book Awards (Economics) 2014 Historia económica Ciencias económicas Países desarrollados Sociedad civil Países desarrollados Condiciones económicas HC 51 P538m 2013 330.09 9780691158983 0691158983 2013936720 http://www.loc.gov/catdir/enhancements/fy1410/2013936720-d.html http://www.loc.gov/catdir/enhancements/fy1410/2013936720-b.html http://www.loc.gov/catdir/enhancements/fy1410/2013936720-t.html http://www.loc.gov/catdir/enhancements/fy1410/2013936720-d.html http://www.loc.gov/catdir/enhancements/fy1410/2013936720-b.html http://www.loc.gov/catdir/enhancements/fy1410/2013936720-t.html YDXCP 130401 20230411090621.0 17680356 eng