Synopses & Reviews
ECONOMIST DOUG HENWOOD SCRUTINZES THE 1990s AND BRILLIANTLY DISSECTS THE SO-CALLED "NEW ECONOMY." During the 1990s boom, we heard constantly about the New Economy. A technological and organizational revolution that precipitated an unprecedented era of rapid productivity growth and rendered recessions as obsolete as rotary-dial phones. Mass participation in the stock market transformed workers into owners; the freewheeling US economy became the envy of the world; and "globalization, " whatever that is exactly, had rendered national borders obsolete. Some of the manic exuberance surrounding this story has disappeared with the bursting of the Nasdaq bubble and the scandals that emerged as the froth cleared. But what really happened? Why did the stock market go on an eighteen-year tear? Was there really a technological revolution? Is the world as borderless as everyone says? Did class distinctions really erode? Was corporate malfeasance really a matter of a few bad apples--or was the rot far more pervasive than that? And what does the future hold in store? Economic journalist Doug Henwood answers all of these questions in After the New Economy.
Synopsis
Rarely a day went by in the dizzy 1990s without some well-paid pundit heralding the triumphant arrival of a "New Economy." According to these financial mavens, an unprecedented technological and organizational revolution had extinguished the threat of recession forever. Though much of the rhetoric sounds ridiculous today, few analysts have explored how the New Economy moment emerged from deep within America's economic and ideological machinery--instead, they've preferred to treat it as an episode of mass delusion.
Now, with customary irreverence and acuity, journalist Doug Henwood dissects the New Economy, arguing that the delirious optimism was actually a manic set of variations on ancient themes, all promoted from the highest of places. Claims of New Eras have plenty of historical precedents; in this latest act, our modern mythmakers held that technology would overturn hierarchies, democratizing information and finance and leading inexorably to a virtual social revolution. But, as Henwood vividly demonstrates, the gap between rich and poor has never been so wide, wealth never so concentrated. After the New Economy offers an accessible and entertaining account of the less-than-lustrous reality beneath the gloss of the 1990s boom.
Synopsis
Some of the manic exuberance surrounding this story has disappeared with the bursting of the Nasdaq bubble and the scandals that emerged as the froth cleared. But what really happened? Economic journalist Doug answers all of these questions in "After the New Economy."