The Design of Markets / Alex Marshall.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Marshall, Alex, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Design services--Marketing.

Design services.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (156 pages)

Place of Publication:

[Place of publication not identified] : University of Texas Press, 2021.

Summary:

The “free market” has been a hot topic of debate for decades. Proponents tout it as a cure-all for just about everything that ails modern society, while opponents blame it for the very same ills. But the heated rhetoric obscures one very important, indeed fundamental, fact—markets don’t just run themselves; we create them. Starting from this surprisingly simple, yet often ignored or misunderstood fact, Alex Marshall takes us on a fascinating tour of the fundamentals that shape markets and, through them, our daily economic lives. He debunks the myth of the “free market,” showing how markets could not exist without governments to create the structures through which we assert ownership of property, real and intellectual, and conduct business of all kinds. Marshall also takes a wide-ranging look at many other structures that make markets possible, including physical infrastructure ranging from roads and railroads to water systems and power lines; mental and cultural structures such as common languages and bodies of knowledge; and the international structures that allow goods, services, cash, bytes, and bits to flow freely around the globe. Sure to stimulate a lively public conversation about the design of markets, this broadly accessible overview of how a market economy is constructed will help us create markets that are fairer, more prosperous, more creative, and more beautiful.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Introduction. The designer disappears: Markets and their Makers

Section one. On the Books: The Markets We Make by Law

Chapter one. Coming into Being: In Praise of Markets

Chapter Two. Me and Mine: Property, the First Market

Chapter Three. Lex Non Scripta: The Laws We Don’t Make, or, the Common Law

Chapter four. I Am My Brother’s Keeper: Cooperatives

Chapter five. Trust: How We Cooperate to Compete

Chapter Six. Staking Claims on the Mind: Intellectual Property

Chapter Seven. Little Commonwealths: Corporations and the State That Creates Them

Chapter eight. The Future of Corporations

Section two. Infrastructure: The Markets We Make by Hand

Chapter nine. From Highways to Health Care: Progress through Infrastructure

Chapter Ten. Making Places

Chapter eleven. The Great Nineteenth- Century Train Robbery

Chapter Twelve. A Socialist Paradise: The American Road System

Chapter Thirteen. Waiting for a Train Station

Chapter fourteen. What We Did Before: Path Dependence and Markets

Chapter fifteen. Police and Prisons: Freedom, Security, and Democracy

Chapter Sixteen. Why Don’t You Make Me? Government and Force

Section three. Seeding the Fields: The Markets We Make in Our Minds

Chapter Seventeen. Common Tongue, Common Culture, Common Markets

Section four. The Markets We Build Abroad

Chapter eighteen. By Your Bootstraps: Developing Countries and Markets

Chapter nineteen. Last Night upon the Stairs: International Law

Section five. Looking Forward: Making Better Markets

Conclusion. Making Better Markets

Afterword. My own story: a Circuitous Journey

Acknowledgments

Notes

Selected Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Description based on: online resource; title from PDF information screen (University of Texas Press, viewed November 16, 2022).

ISBN:

0-292-73918-4

OCLC:

1286805958