000			02760nam a2200301 a 4500
001			ASIN1846147433
005			20170105102928.0
008			131213s2012 xxu eng d
020			_a1846147433 (paperback)
020			_a9781846147432 (paperback)
040			_a0
050	0	4	_aHN19
082	0	4	_a306.091724 _bFER 2012
100	1		_aFerguson, Niall.
245	1	4	_aThe great degeneration : _bhow institutions decay and economies die / _cNiall Ferguson.
260			_a[S.l.] : _bAllen Lane, _c2012.
300			_a1 v. (unpaged) ; _c24 cm.
520			_aThe decline of the West is something that has long been prophesied. Symptoms of decline are all around us today, it seems: slowing growth, crushing debts, aging populations, anti-social behaviour. But what exactly is amiss with Western civilization? The answer, Niall Ferguson argues, is that our institutions - the intricate frameworks within which a society can flourish or fail - are degenerating. Representative government, the free market, the rule of law and civil society: these were once the four pillars of West European and North American societies. It was these institutions, rather than any geographical or climatic advantages, that set the West on the path to global dominance after around 1500. In our time, however, these institutions have deteriorated in disturbing ways. Our democracies have broken the contract between the generations by heaping IOUs on our children and grandchildren. Our markets are increasingly distorted by over-complex regulations that are in fact the disease of which they purport to be the cure. The rule of law has metamorphosed into the rule of lawyers. And civil society has degenerated into uncivil society, where we lazily expect all our problems to be solved by the state. "The Degeneration of the West" a powerful - and in places polemical - indictment of an era of negligence and complacency. While the Arab world struggles to adopt democracy, and while China struggles to move from economic liberalization to the rule of law, Europeans and Americans alike are frittering away the institutional inheritance of centuries. To arrest the degeneration of the West's once dominant civilization, Ferguson warns, will take heroic leadership and radical reform. This book is based on Niall Ferguson's 2012 BBC Reith Lectures, which were broadcast under the title "The Rule of Law and Its Enemies".
650		0	_aCivil society
650		0	_aCivilization, Western
650		0	_aDeveloped countries
650		0	_aEconomic history
650		0	_aRegression (Civilization)
650		0	_aSocial history
650		0	_aSocial institutions
856	4	0	_3Amazon.com _uhttp://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1846147433/chopaconline-20
942			_2ddc _cBK
999			_c15905 _d15905