Ideology and the evolution of vital institutions : guilds, the gold standard, and modern international cooperation

1 Overview.- I An Example: Significant Bilateral Exchange.- II Generalizing the Example: A Theory of Social Organization.- III How Optimality Criteria Depend upon the Political Environment.- IV Rationalizing Citizen-Efficiency and Distributional Advice.- V The Need for a Rapid Adjustment Process.- VI Achieving Rapid Adjustment: Vitalness and Effective Democracy.- VII The Economic Benefits of Effective Democracy: Efficiency Tests.- VIII The Impermanence of Dominance.- IX A Brief Readers’ Guide for Specialists.- X The Evolutionary Argument: A More Detailed Readers’ Guide.- XI Extension to Biology: An Evolutionary Principle.- XII A Summary of the Policy Framework.- 2 The Efficiency Problem, the Distribution Problem, and a Possible Solution.- I The Efficiency Problem.- II The Distributional Problem.- III A Constitutional Solution.- 3 A New Interpretation of Guilds, Tariffs, and Laissez Faire.- Abstract and Introduction.- I An Efficiency-Based Theory of Democratic Political Associations.- II Efficient Guild Policies.- III The Economic Policies Generated by Protectionist Lobbies.- IV Policy Conclusion: On the Beating of Live Horses.- 4 On the Gold Standard: Why Depressions have been a Necessary Evil, or How the Economics of Keynes Dethroned Europe.- Introduction: Emergency Finance and the Gold Standard.- I Mainstream Macroeconomics and the Gold Standard.- II Business Cycles and the Gold Standard.- III The Broad Price Trends Observed under the Gold Standard.- IV Emergency Finance after the Gold Standard.- 5 On Modern International Cooperation: Exchange Controls, Hyperinflation, and Costly Social Revolution as Efficient National Responses to Externally Imposed Trade Liberalization.- Abstract and Introduction.- I The Primary Western Policy Imposition and the Responses of theDependent Nations.- II Peacetime Hyperinflation as a Rational Response to Dominant-Country Reactions to Permissible Exchange Controls.- III A Model of Rational Hyperinflation.- IV Statistical Analysis.- V Graphical Summary.- VI Conclusions.- 6 Summary, Policy Implications, and a Final Test.- I Vital Institutions and Civilizational Upturns.- II Civilizational Downturns and How to Avoid Them.- III Avoiding the Pending Distributional Disaster.- IV Does Economics Have Another Lesson for Biology?.- V Life in the Fast Lane.- VI An Intellectual Effect of the Proposed Policy.- References for the Text and A-Appendices.