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Title: The Nature of Economies by Jane Jacobs ISBN: 0-375-70243-1 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 13 March, 2001 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.72 (18 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Definitely worth reading
Comment: If you pass chapter 1, you will find it more interesting. You may have already known many ideas presented in the book, but Jacobs integrates all those ideas and tries to apply them for general purposes. I felt like I was reading a poem. You may know all the words and their meanings, but how they rhyme and how they finally capture your feeling artfully make it a great poem. "The Nature of Economies" is just like that for both sides of your brain.
Rating: 5
Summary: The content is major even if the form is debatable
Comment: A number of the other reviews critiscise the conversational form of this book. And one reviewer (who is clearly an investment analyst) critiscises one tiny sentence which makes a rather erroneous analogy between corporate and national behaviour.
But the central theme of the book, that economies must be defined by natural principles since they are the product of human beings, themselves merely a succesful product of nature, is crucial. Its enlightening and must be debated and fleshed out. It gets beyond the "hack" economics that suggests economies need to make exports in order to earn their keep. Instead, Jacobs says that exports are the output of economic systems, not the inputs. The real inputs are basic resources - e.g. weather, location, human skills & the depth and breadth of the existing economic system.
As an amateur economist I find the argument to be a strong one. Serious critiscisms of this book should be based on critiscisms of the central argument and its substantiveness, rather than of the formn of the book. I'd enjoy seeing such critiscism from professional economists.
Rating: 1
Summary: Biased and questionable analysis, smugly delivered.
Comment: Jacobs' book disappointed me on two fronts - the poor quality of its analysis and the horrendous dialogue she uses to deliver her polemic.
"The Nature of Economies" is Jacobs' attempt to present her worldview to readers, combining economics, environmentalism, and secular humanism in one incoherent philosophy. Unfortunately, she presents many of her views sans evidence, and often gets her analysis dead wrong. To wit, this passage from page 96 demonstrates either her economic illiteracy or her own political bias:
"Feedback reports that operating income isn't sufficient to cover operating expenses. Suppose the response to is obtain a loan to make up the discrepancy. The loan itself adds interest costs to operating expenses. That increases the discrepancy. Therefore, still more money is borrowed. That increases the discrepancy further, and so on. This vicious circle is called deficit financing, and finally it becomes financially insupportable."
Of course, this entire analysis rests on the assumption that the entity only borrows enough to cover the shortfall OR that any money borrowed is only used in negative-ROI projects. That's a major flaw, one that assumes that all managers are incompetent. "Nature" is full of such incomplete analyses, including many environmentalist proclamations that belie their lack of scientific support.
The book's second flaw is the ... dialogue Jacobs uses to present her views. The dialogue itself is stilted and the characters are unbelievable bores; one can hardly imagine maintaining a conversation with one of them in a subway, much less spending hours on end listening to their harangues. Thank goodness the book is short, because it becomes more painful as the characters become more shrill.
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Title: Systems of Survival : A Dialogue on the Moral Foundations of Commerce and Politics by Jane Jacobs ISBN: 0679748164 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 13 January, 1994 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: The Economy of Cities by Jane Jacobs ISBN: 039470584X Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 12 February, 1970 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: Cities and the Wealth of Nations by Jane Jacobs ISBN: 0394729110 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 12 March, 1985 List Price(USD): $12.50 |
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Title: The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs ISBN: 067974195X Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 01 December, 1992 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: The Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization by Thomas L. Friedman ISBN: 0385499345 Publisher: Anchor Pub. Date: 02 May, 2000 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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