000			02994cam a2200277zu 4500
001			88833462
003			FRCYB88833462
005			20250107141354.0
006			m o d
007			cr un
008			250107s2014 fr | o|||||0|0|||eng d
020			_a9780691119670
035			_aFRCYB88833462
040			_aFR-PaCSA _ben _c _erda
100	1		_aBernstein, Michael A.
245	0	1	_aA Perilous Progress _bEconomists and Public Purpose in Twentieth-Century America _c['Bernstein, Michael A.']
264		1	_bPrinceton University Press _c2014
300			_a p.
336			_btxt _2rdacontent
337			_bc _2rdamdedia
338			_bc _2rdacarrier
650		0	_a
700	0		_aBernstein, Michael A.
856	4	0	_2Cyberlibris _uhttps://international.scholarvox.com/netsen/book/88833462 _qtext/html _a
520			_aThe 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. In arresting and provocative detail Bernstein describes economists' fitful efforts to sway a state apparatus where values and goals could seldom remain separate from means and technique, and how their vocation was ultimately humbled by government itself. Replete with novel research findings, his work also analyzes the historical peculiarities that led the profession to a key role in the contemporary backlash against federal initiatives dating from the 1930s to reform the nation's economic and social life. Interestingly enough, scholars have largely overlooked the history that has shaped this profession. An economist by training, Bernstein brings a historian's sensibilities to his narrative, utilizing extensive archival research to reveal unspoken presumptions that, through the agency of economists themselves, have come to mold and define, and sometimes actually deform, public discourse. This book offers important, even troubling insights to readers interested in the modern economic and political history of the United States and perplexed by recent trends in public policy debate. It also complements a growing literature on the history of the social sciences. Sure to have a lasting impact on its field, A Perilous Progress represents an extraordinary contribution of gritty empirical research and conceptual boldness, of grand narrative breadth and profound analytical depth.
999			_c32946 _d32946