Thursday, September 17, 2015

Howard S. Katz. The Paper Autocracy. 00. Foreword, Contents, Illustrations. Books in Focus. 1976.



To Alana, Temah and Mya

Acknowledgements
  I wish to extend my personal thanks to Don B. Duncan and Steve Zarlenga, without whose backing, this book would not have been possible Thanks also to Rana Arons as editor, Dolores Grande as indexer and Don Hauptman as idea man.

Further acknowledgement is due to:
1.       Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc. for permission to quote from The Revolutionary Generation by E.B. Greene, @ 1943.
2.       Yale U. Press for permission to quote from The Fathers of the Constitution by Max Farrand, @ 1921.
3.       Peter Smith Publishers for permission to quote from The Foundations of American Constitutionalism by Andrew C. McLaughlin, @ 1932.
4.       Van Nostrand Reinhold Co. for permission to quote from Economics and the Public Welfare by Benjamin Anderson, @ 1949.The Academy of Political Science for permission to quote from Political Science Quarterly, @ 1935.
5.       New York Times Co. for permission to quote from “Economics 1-The Summit” in New York Times Magazine, Sept. 22, 1974, by Leonard Silk, 1974.
6.       Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc. for permission to quote from General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money by John Maynard Keynes, @ 1936.
7.       Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc. for permission to quote from A History of American Currency by William G. Sumner, @ 1874.

Author’s Note
1.       Nothing in this book should be construed as being against the rich for being rich. I believe it is perfectly in accord with justice when a man gets rich by creating economic values, and it is quite legitimate when a man acquires wealth by a voluntary gift. What I am against are people who get rich by the use of force and fraud, who make themselves better off by making others worse off. The exposure of such a fraud and the spotlighting of the manner in which force is used for this end are the purposes of this book.

Foreword: The Dismal Science
Economics, dear reader, is one of the most important aspects of your life. You either work or are dependent for your life on someone who does work. Unless you are a rather odd recluse, you use money and engage in trade. And you probably spend a good part of your waking hours engaged in economic activity.
However, economics has become known as the Dismal Science — a title it acquired by virtue of being so boring. The reason the subject of economics is regarded as dismal is that economists have taken a false approach, which I call the little brother complex. Economists look upon the physical sciences (especially mathematics and physics) with the awe and admiration reserved for a little boy’s attitude toward his older brother. They adopt a pseudoscientific guise and try to imitate the physical sciences in every detail.
Economics is a social science; it is a science dealing with man. Inherent in this is the fact that economics must deal with moral issues; it must deal with issues which arouse passions. But economists regard any passion or emotion as a weakness; they brand such aspects as unscientific.
When the social sciences try to imitate the physical sciences too closely, they overlook precisely those qualities pertaining to man, such as free will and morality. That is not true science, but it is very dismal. Free will and moral issues must be taken into consideration in any study of man. They are facts.
This book is about economics; but it is not dismal. It tells about a small group of men who depreciate the nation’s currency through their control of the money system — and thereby steal billions of dollars from the common people of this country. It talks about justice. And it talks about the evils which are yet to follow from this system if it is not destroyed.
So, dear reader, the author must offer an “apology.” This will not be the typical dispassionate, pseudo-scientific, dismal economics book. It should not be disparaged for that reason. True science proceeds by reason and common sense. If the conclusions reached are also passionate, so be it. The Dismal Science has not achieved any great success.

Contents
Chapter I A Great Forsaking
Chapter II Paper Money
Chapter III Who Gains and Who Loses?
Chapter IV Modern Theology
Chapter V The Modern Priesthood
Chapter VI The Legal Aspect
Chapter VII “How You Can Profit From The Coming”
Chapter VIII What Really Goes On In The U.S. Economy
Afterword
Appendix A The Calculation Of Gross National Product
Appendix B The Robber Barons Vs. The Modern Businessman [missing]

ILLUSTRATIONS (Not yet available)
THE VALUE OF THE U.S. DOLLAR, 1790-1973
GROSS NATIONAL PRODUCT AND REAL VALUE OF TAKE HOME PAY, 1965-1974
REAL TAKE HOME PAY, 1942-1974
UNEMPLOYMENT IN TWO PERIODS, 1900-09 and 1960-69
CORRELATION BETWEEN MINIMUM WAGE AND UNEMPLOYABLES
6A. COMPARISON OF RAIL STOCKS IN PERIOD OF DECLINING PRICES AND PERIOD OF RISING PRICES
6B. COMPARISON OF REAL WAGES IN PERIOD OF DECLINING PRICES AND PERIOD OF RISING PRICES

This material is made available with the generous permission of Howard Katz (1931-2012).
Copyright © 1976 by Books in Focus, Inc. ISBN 0-916728-01-3

No comments:

Post a Comment