Creating Alternative Futures: The End of Economics (Kumarian Press Books for a World That Works) [Paperback]

Hazel Henderson (Author), E. F. Schumacher (Foreword), Elise Boulding (Foreword)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1565490606 | ISBN-13: 978-1565490604 | Publication Date: June 1996

Creating Alternative Futures has pioneered many debates on how to guide industrial societies on healthier paths toward more equitable, ecologically sustainable human development. Henderson explains how GNP distorts the goal of human development worldwide. She points out misleading assumptions and a redefinition of health, wealth, and progress for humanity's long-term survival. The book predicts the sweep of democratization and the new "third sector" of grassroots globalists.

Product Details

• Paperback: 430 pages
• Publisher: Kumarian Press (June 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1565490606
• ISBN-13: 978-1565490604
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 5.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,272,288 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Hazel Henderson, founder, Ethical Markets Media, LLC and Series Creator and Co-Executive Producer of its TV series - Dr. Hazel Henderson is a world renowned futurist, evolutionary economist, a worldwide syndicated columnist, consultant on sustainable development, and author of Beyond Globalization, and seven other books. Her editorials appear in 27 languages and more than 400 newspapers syndicated by InterPress Service, Rome, New York, and Washington DC. Her articles have appeared in over 250 journals, including (in USA) Harvard Business Review, New York Times, Christian Science Monitor, and Challenge, Mainichi (Japan), El Diario (Venezuela), World Economic Herald (China), LeMonde Diplomatique (France) and Australian Financial Review. Her books are translated into German, Spanish, Japanese, Dutch, Swedish, Korean, Portuguese, and Chinese. More at www.HazelHenderson.com.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Optimistic Jew, August 31, 2007

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Tsvi Bisk - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Creating Alternative Futures: The End of Economics (Kumarian Press Books for a World That Works) (Paperback)

This was the first book that made me realize that GNP figures include traffic accidents, natural catastrophes (like hurricanes) etc. as positive growth additions. In other words the costs incurred cleaning up the devastation of Katrina added to economic growth figures. Once I became self-employed and could analyze what economists were saying, I realized that most of them live in an idealized Platonic universe and not in the actual, economic reality of real human beings. Economic growth is based on innovation. Innovation is based on cultural values, constitutional protections and human imagination.
Henderson's insight have made me suspicious of economists whose theories contradict common sense (e.g. if you had one teacher per 20 students and now have one teacher per 40 students you have doubled teacher productivity). They have also made me suspicious of social reformers who similarly believe that increased education and health budgets will solve our problems (what I call in my own book "The Optimistic Jew" the quantitative fallacy). What is needed is the imaginative and innovative rethinking of the entire social welfare issue.