000			02940dam a2200337Ia 4500
001			0000063574
003			0001
008			140327s2012 vraa b 000 0 eng
020			_a9781846147432
020			_a1846147433
020			_a9781846147326
020			_a1846147328
035			_a(OCoLC)814352219
040			_aAU@ _beng _cAU@ _dOCLCO _dCDX _dOUN
042			_aanuc
082			_a306.091724
084			_a306.091724 _bFER-G
090			_aHB74.P65 _bF474 2012x
100	1		_aFerguson, Niall.
245	1	4	_aThe great degeneration _h[Book] : _bhow institutions decay and economies die / _cNiall Ferguson.
260			_aMelbourne, Vic. : _bAllen Lane, _cc2012.
300			_a173 p. : _bill. ; _c22 cm.
500			_a"Based on the BBC Radio 4 Reith Lectures 2012"--Cover.
520			_aThe decline of the West is something that has long been prophesied. Symptoms of decline are all around us today, it seems: slowing growth, crushing debts, aging populations, anti-social behaviour. But what exactly is amiss with Western civilization? The answer, Niall Ferguson argues, is that our institutions - the intricate frameworks within which a society can flourish or fail - are degenerating. Representative government, the free market, the rule of law and civil society: these were once the four pillars of West European and North American societies. It was these institutions, rather than any geographical or climatic advantages, that set the West on the path to global dominance after around 1500. In our time, however, these institutions have deteriorated in disturbing ways. Our democracies have broken the contract between the generations by heaping IOUs on our children and grandchildren. Our markets are increasingly distorted by over-complex regulations that are in fact the disease of which they purport to be the cure. The rule of law has metamorphosed into the rule of lawyers. And civil society has degenerated into uncivil society, where we lazily expect all our problems to be solved by the state. "The Degeneration of the West" a powerful - and in places polemical - indictment of an era of negligence and complacency. While the Arab world struggles to adopt democracy, and while China struggles to move from economic liberalization to the rule of law, Europeans and Americans alike are frittering away the institutional inheritance of centuries. To arrest the degeneration of the West's once dominant civilization, Ferguson warns, will take heroic leadership and radical reform. This book is based on Niall Ferguson's 2012 BBC Reith Lectures, which were broadcast under the title "The Rule of Law and Its Enemies"
650		0	_aRegression (Civilization).
650		0	_aCivilization, Western.
650		0	_aEconomic history.
650		0	_aCivil society.
650		0	_aRule of law.
852			_p47202 _92172.03 _dBooks
999			_c14998 _d14998