Daniel Yergin & Joseph Stanislaw, "The Commanding Heights: The Battle for the World Economy (revised and updated)"

The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Prize joins a leading expert on the global economy to present an incisive narrative of the risks and opportunities that are emerging as the balance of power shifts around the world between governments and markets—and the battle over globalization comes front and center. The Commanding Heights is essential for understanding the struggle over the "new rules of the game" for the twenty-first century. Also see the PBS Series Commanding Heights based on this book.

Amazon.com Review
The "commanding heights," according to Pulitzer Prize-winner Daniel Yergin and international business advisor Joseph Stanislaw, are those dominant enterprises and industries that form the high economic ground in nations around the globe. In their analysis of the new world economy, The Commanding Heights: The Battle Between Government and the Marketplace That Is Remaking the Modern World, they examine "the individuals, the ideas, the conflicts, and the turning points" that are responsible. And by considering events such as the ongoing Asian monetary crisis, they suggest what the ultimate interconnection of financial markets might mean in the future.

From Booklist
Yergin and Stanislaw's global tour d'horizon doesn't extrapolate from the discrediting of various shades of socialism that free markets are here to stay. The situation varies from country to country. The authors report on the post-World War II performance of significant national economies and, moreover, on the politicians who, starting with Margaret Thatcher, advocated the disengagement of the state from the economy.

This work complements Robert Skidelsky's Road from Serfdom (1996), a readable analysis of how the predictions of free-market economist F. A. Hayek came true. The authors supplement their research with interviews of influential economists and politicians over the past two decades, such as those who implemented "shock therapies" in ex-communist countries. The authors' judgments are reasoned and seasoned, far from podium-pounding homilies on the free market; rather, they explain why the welfare state was so appealing after the war, then how it gradually sputtered into 1970s stagflation. Renders wide-ranging acquaintance with the basic ideas of contemporary economics.

Contents

Introduction: At the Frontier
 Why the Shift?
 The Power of Ideas
 Relinking Past and Future
 Critical Tests
List of Illustrations

1 Thirty Glorious Years: Europe's Mixed Economy
 Toward the Mixed Economy
 Britain: Making Good on the Promise
 Conquering the Commanding Heights
 "We Work Things Out Practically"
 France: "The Levers of Command"
 The Cognac Salesman
 The Plan: "Modernization or Decadence"?
 Germany: Lucky Strikes and "Chicken Feed"
 The Ordoliberals and the Social Market
 Erhard: "Pay No Attention"
 The Wirtschaftswunder
 Italy: The National Champion
 "The Encroachment" of John Maynard Keynes
 Trade and National Power
 "You Never Had It So Good"

2 The Curse of Bigness: America's Regulatory Capitalism
 The Rise of Regulation
 The People's Lawyer
 Normalcy, "Not Nostrums"
 The New Deal: "I Never Felt Surer of Anything"
 "The Prophet of Regulation"
 Keynes' American Beachhead
 Toward Full Employment
 Regulation and Reform
 The Last Liberal Administration
 Malaise and Inflation

3 Tryst with Destiny: The Rise of the Third World
 Nation Building
 Nehru's Discovery
 "Tractors and Big Machinery"
 "The Idea of Planning"
 The Permit Raj
 "An Agenda for a Better World": The Development Economists
 "The Bank"
 The Rise of the State-owned Company
 "The Wind of Change"
 "First the Political Kingdom"
 Marketing Boards: The Tools of Control
 The Volta Dam: The High Tide of African Socialism
 "Third Worldism"
 Good-bye, Coca-Cola
 The End of an Idea

4 The Mad Monk: Britain's Market Revolution
 "My Closest Political Friend"
 "The Minister of Thought"
 The "U-Turn"
 The "Conversion" of Keith Joseph
 The Leadership Battle
 "No Time to Be Mealy-mouthed"
 "There Are No Trains Today"
 "Now for the Real Battle"
 The "Wets" Versus the "Drys"
 "The Lady's Not for Turning"
 The Falklands War: "The Unexpected Happens"
 The Decisive Battle
 The Birth of Privatization
 But How to Do It?
 A Far Bigger Program
 "A Bit of an Institution"
 "Always with Beliefs"

5 Crisis of Confidence: The Global Critique
 Crisis of Confidence
 The Debt Crisis and the Lost Decade
 The National Champions
 Red Star Sinking
 Asian Star Rising
 New Zealand: "You've Got No Economy"
 Friedrich von Hayek and the "Battle of Ideas"
 The Road to Serfdom
 The Chicago School
 Grudging Respect
 The Emergence of Emerging Markets
 Financial Integration

6 Beyond the Miracle: Asia's Emergence
 Japan: "I'll Go for Income Doubling"
  The Iron Triangle: "The 1955 System"
  A "Suicide Act" for Bureaucrats
  The Lost Decade
 Korea: The Pros and Cons of Picking Winners
 Taiwan: Confucian Capitalism
  The Supertechnocrats
 Singapore: The State as Venture Capitalist
 Malaysia: The Sons of the Soil
 Asia, Inc
 The End of the Miracle?
 Becoming "Relevant to the World"

7 The Color of the Cat: China's Transformation
 Catching Mice
 The Reform Begins
 "Bird in a Cage"
 "Socialism with Chinese Characteristics"
 Reform and Retrenchment
 Tiananmen Square
 The Nanxun: Deng's Last Campaign
 The Two Economies
 "A New Tiger"
 "One Country, Two Systems"
 Breaking with Conventions
 China and the World Economy
 China Adapts

8 After the Permit Raj: India's Awakening
 "Up the Marxist Mountain"
 The Dynasty
 The Crisis
 "No Head for Figures"
 Waking Up
 "A Functionless Capitalism"
 "A Vastly Different Role"
 Sunset of the Permit Raj
 Drawing on Its Best Brains
 The Hindu Rate of Growth

9 Playing by the Rules: The New Game in Latin America
 Shock Therapy: Decree 21060
 Dependencia Rules
 The Lost Decade
 The New Consensus: "We Asked Too Much"
 The Technopols
 Chile: The Ambiguous Role Model
 The Paradox of Argentina
  The Broom Maker's Son
  Privatization
 Peru: The Agronomist and the Book Writer
  Fujishock
 Market Economy "with a Human Face"
 Brazil: Dependentista Turned Inflation Slayer
 Mexico: The Diffusion of Power
 "We Must Change Things"
 Rediscovering the State

10 Ticket to the Market: The Journey After Communism
 Poland's Crisis: The Beginning of the End
  The Phone Call
  "My Ludwig Erhard"
  Market Revolution
  "Stop Looking to the Top"
 The Two Václavs
 The Soviet Command Economy
 The Marriage of the Hedgehog and the Snake
 Market Making
 An Orderly Transition?
 Revolution—Or Radical Reform
 Everything—As Rapidly as You Can
 The Essential Element: Creating Private Property
 A Ticket to the Free Economy
 Communists on the Rise
 Privatizing the Commanding Heights
 "I Would Do The Same Tomorrow"
 Russia Defaults
 "Successful Product of Soviet Education"
 No Turning Back
 The End of Isolation

11 The Commitment: Europe's Search for a New Social Contract
 The Double Retreat
 France: "The Break with Capitalism"
 M. Delors and the Second Left
 "Cash-Flow Incinerators"
 The Great U-Turn
 Socialists "Efface the State"
 Stagnation and Euro-pessimism
 The Single Market: Relaunching Europe
 Flying in the Face of History?
 Buba Knows Best?
 "The D-mark Comes"
 The Commitment
 Privatization and Restructuring
 New Leaders for New Europe
 The Costs of the Welfare State
 Europe's New Quest

12 The Delayed Revolution: America's New Balance
 "Big Government Is Over"
 The Outsider
 "Mugged by Reality"
 The Central Banker
 Beyond Tax and Spend
 A Delayed Revolution
 From Capture to Competition
 "Plums "and "Dogs"
 "Marginal Costs with Wings"
 For Whom the Bell Tolls
 Where the Money Is
 Electricity: The Collapse of the "Compact"
 "We're Teachable"
 Social Regulation: Expanding Its Reach
 The "Rights Explosion"
 Going Private, American-Style
 Education and the Welfare Frontier
 "As Old as the Country"

13 The Age of Globalization: The Battle for the World Economy
 The New Line-up
 What, After All, Is Globalization?
 How New? The First Age of Globalization
 Signals of Integration
 Reconnecting: Postwar Foundations of Globalization
 After the Seventies: From Trade to Capital Markets
 The Closed-Economies Relink
 The Second Age of Globalization
 New Concerns
 Not the End of Government

14 The Balance of Confidence: The New Rules of the Game
 A New Consensus?
 The Woven World
 The Company in the Mobile Economy
 Judging on Results: Critical Tests
  1. Delivering the Goods?
  2. Ensuring Fairness?
  3. Securing the Environment?
  4. Coping with Demographics?
  5. Upholding Identity?
 The Balance of Confidence

Chronology
Notes
Interviews
Selected Bibliography
Acknowledgments
Index
About the Authors

Tags: qGlobalization, qHistory, qEconomics, qFinance, qWorldPolitics, qChina, qIndia

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