{"product_id":"economics-through-the-looking-glass","title":"Economics Through the Looking-Glass","description":"\u003cp\u003ePublished in 1998. In spite of spectacular improvements in market flexibility, the characteristics of the past twenty years are slow growth and high unemployment. \u003cem\u003eEconomics Through the Looking-Glass\u003c\/em\u003e exposes the theoretical fallacy at the heart of the New Economic Orthodoxy. The fallacy lies in treating the economy as a \"single-gear\" machine guaranteed to operate at its full employment potential as long as it benefits from the lubricant of perfectly flexible markets (in a Walrasian Utopia of continuous market-clearing equilibrium). Unemployment is thereby reduced to a structural problem of market imperfection. As a cure for unemployment, market flexibility is presumed to be adequate; as a cure for inflation, monetary restriction is presumed to be safe. The flaw in Orthodox logic is exposed by a demonstration that a monetary economy operates as a 'multi-gear' machine. Unless it is in 'top-gear', market flexibility (even of Utopian perfection) is not sufficient for full employment. 'Single-gear' Economic Orthodoxy is shown to have developed, not as a science, but as a religion beginning with Adam Smith's revelation of the Law of Competition. A Looking-Glass journey backwards in time from Adam Smith uncovers his suppression of the Law of Circulation and exposes the dangerous delusion of Orthodox economic policy. As a weapon against unemployment, market flexibility is inadequate; as a weapon against inflation, monetary restriction is unsafe. The 'multi-gear' alternative heralds the final stage of economic liberalisation: deregulation of the market for money. The rescue of interest rates from political or central bank interference and the control of inflation by a mechanism triggered by market forces would put an end to the Orthodox policy of maintaining unemployment above its natural market rate by misguided monetary intervention.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Taylor \u0026 Francis Ltd","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54242807513432,"sku":"9780367000875","price":173.6,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0278\/1295\/4195\/files\/9780367000875.jpg?v=1779176738","url":"https:\/\/agendabookshop.com\/products\/economics-through-the-looking-glass","provider":"Agenda Bookshop","version":"1.0","type":"link"}