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Excerpt: The Conservative Nanny State: How
the Wealthy Use the Government to Stay Rich and Get Richer, by macroeconomist
Dean Baker debunks the myth that conservatives favor the market over government
intervention. The book examines a variety of "nanny state" policies
that make the rich richer while leaving most Americans worse off. Baker,
co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, candidly rejects
current political truisms, proposes alternatives, and encourages readers to
openly debate the way forward. "The key flaw in the stance that most progressives have
taken on economic issues is that they have accepted a framing whereby
conservatives are assumed to support market outcomes, while progressives want
to rely on the government. This framing leads progressives to futilely lash out
against markets, rather than examining the factors that lead to undesirable
market outcomes. The market is just a tool, and in fact a very useful one. It
makes no more sense to lash out against markets than to lash out against the
wheel." (Excerpted from Preface) To download a free
electronic copy of book, visit: www.conservativenannystate.org. By distributing the book free online,
Baker hopes to spark public debate about the most effective mechanism for
supporting the writing and designing of books and other forms of intellectual
work. Paperback copies are available for a fee that covers printing and
shipping costs. Published
by the Center for Economic and Policy Research, Washington, DC. Creative
Commons (cc) 2006 ISBN:
978-1-4116-9395-1 About the
author: Dean Baker is a
macroeconomist and co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research
in Washington, DC. He is co-author of Social
Security: The Phony Crisis (with Mark Weisbrot, University of Chicago Press,
1999), co-author of The Benefits of Full
Employment (with Jared
Bernstein, Economic Policy Institute, 2004), and author of The History of the
United States Since 1980 (Cambridge
University Press, forthcoming 2006). He received his Ph.D. in economics from
the University of Michigan. His blog, Beat the Press, provides
commentary on economic reporting [ http://beatthepress.blogspot.com
]. The Center for Economic and Policy Research is an independent, nonpartisan
think tank that was established to promote democratic debate on the most
important economic and social issues that affect people's lives. CEPR's
Advisory Board of Economists includes Nobel Laureate economists Robert Solow
and Joseph Stiglitz, and Richard Freeman, Professor of Economics at Harvard
University. http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/051506P.shtml |
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