The Market Experience

Robert Lane offers evidence that the major premises of market economics are mistaken.

Robert E. Lane (Author)

9780521407373, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 30 August 1991

644 pages
23.3 x 15.5 x 3.6 cm, 0.902 kg

'This will surely be one of the most important social science books of the 1990s and beyond. It bridges the social sciences with the ease and confidence only a mature scholar, at the top of his career and intellectual power, can accomplish … Lane writes clearly and powerfully and in terms we all can relate to. He is exceptionally erudite and he draws on, cites, and commands an incredible array of literature.' Amitai Etzioni, George Washington University

In a period when market economics are widely recognised as the most desirable form of economic organisation, Robert Lane offers evidence that the major premises of market economics are mistaken. Lane shows that work, far from being a disutility, as economic theory would have it, is instead one of two major sources of lifetime satisfaction, and that money income, despite being a source of utility that compensates a person for his or her sacrifices at work, contributes very little to a sense of well-being. This reversal of the premises of market economics suggests a major, axial shift in the way we think about our economies.

Acknowledgements
Part I: Introduction
Part II: Cognition and emotion
Part III: Self-attribution and self-esteem
Part IV: Human relations
Part V: Work
Part VI: Rewards
Part VII: Utility and happiness
Part VIII: Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Political economy [KCP]