Understanding the Private–Public Divide
Markets, Governments, and Time Horizons

A distinctive new account of why markets focus on short-term goals, while government needs to concentrate on society's long-term interests.

Avner Offer (Author)

9781108496209, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 7 April 2022

200 pages
22.2 x 14.4 x 2.1 cm, 0.441 kg

'The Covid pandemic has exposed the inadequacy of individualism and the market mechanism as answers to a global catastrophe. Avner Offer, one of the most imaginative and thought-provoking of economic historians, shows how this is just one example of a failure to understand the proper roles of the public and private sectors. His book should be read by every economist, politician and journalist confronting the current economic position and the threat of climate change.' Roderick Floud, author of An Economic History of the English Garden

Markets are taken as the norm in economics and in much of political and media discourse. But if markets are superior why does the public sector remain so large? Avner Offer provides a distinctive new account of the effective temporal limits on private, public, and social activity. Understanding the Private–Public Divide accounts for the division of labour between business and the public sector, how it changes over time, where the boundaries ought to run, and the harm that follows if they are violated. He explains how finance forces markets to focus on short-term objectives and why business requires special privileges in return for long-term commitment. He shows how a private sector policy bias leads to inequality, insecurity, and corruption. Integrity used to be the norm and it can be achieved again. Only governments can manage uncertainty in the long-term interests of society, as shown by the challenge of climate change.

Introduction
1. Patient capital
2. Corruption and integrity
3. Plutocratic blowback
4. Creating humans
5. Exit from work
6. Housing and democracy
7. Climate change and time horizons
Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Economic history [KCZ], Political economy [KCP], International economics [KCL], Economics of industrial organisation [KCD]