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Book Cover for: Commercial Society: A Primer on Ethics and Economics, Cathleen Johnson

Commercial Society: A Primer on Ethics and Economics

Cathleen Johnson

The authors discuss the connections between the ethical, economic, and entrepreneurial dimensions of a life well-lived.

Book Details

  • Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
  • Publish Date: Oct 4th, 2019
  • Pages: 354
  • Language: English
  • Edition: undefined - undefined
  • Dimensions: 9.00in - 6.00in - 0.79in - 1.15lb
  • EAN: 9781786613561
  • Recommended age: 18-UP
  • Categories: Political EconomyEntrepreneurship

About the Author

Johnson, Cathleen: - Cathleen Johnson is an experimental economist. She is currently teaching in the Philosophy, Politics, Economics and Law program at the University of Arizona. Her professional work has evolved into three main areas: research in behavioral aspects of investment and social norms, implementation of large research projects and research teams, and teaching economics through the use of laboratory experiments.
Lusch, Robert: - Robert F. Lusch was Professor of Marketing at the University of Arizona Business School.
Schmidtz, David: - David Schmidtz is Kendrick Professor of Philosophy (College of Social & Behavioral Sciences), Eller Chair of Service-Dominant Logic (College of Management), founding Director of the Center for Philosophy of Freedom, founder of the Department of Political Economy and Moral Sciences, and editor in chief of Social Philosophy & Policy, at the University of Arizona. In political philosophy, Arizona is ranked as the world's #1 graduate program by the Philosophical Gourmet. Dave's sixteen former doctoral students all hold faculty positions and have published articles in Journal of Philosophy and Ethics. Oxford, Cambridge, and Princeton University Presses have published their books. He has taught at Yale, Florida State College of Law, and Hamburg University. He has been a Research Fellow at various institutions, including the Maurice Young Centre for Applied Ethics at UBC, McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University, UNC-Chapel Hill, and Kings' College London. He was a Phi Beta Kappa National Scholar in 2015. David has published many books and articles. Many scholars claim to have written a hundred articles in their careers, but David's essays have been reprinted 91 times in anthologies, textbooks, and translations (13 languages in all). Most essays are never even cited; it is rare for one to be reprinted.

Praise for this book

Commercial Society is about how to understand a market economy. The book, part of the "Economy, Polity, and Society" series, is a primer on economics and ethical entrepreneurship. The authors (all, Univ. of Arizona) cover concepts in both microeconomics and macroeconomics, and they provide chapters on business and entrepreneurship. The chapters are brief and cover the basics; each chapter concludes with exercises and topics for class discussion. Each chapter also has a QR code, that, when scanned with a cell phone, takes the user to a website for more information. . . This work could serve as a textbook on economics for students who are not economics majors. Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates, including students in technical programs.

The authors do an outstanding job of capturing the essential, complementary roles of commerce and ethics in short, concise chapters that are easily digestible for readers of almost any age and educational background. They adroitly link seemingly diverse concepts into a simple narrative of societal sustainability through human interdependence and cooperation. Commercial Society is a thoughtful, delightfully easy, and critically important read.
This thought-provoking text encourages exploration and engagement in life's conversation regarding the connection of ethical behavior to commercial economic progress, as well as the importance of entrepreneurship in creating ways to make others better off. It is succinct and will engage students creatively and deeply in dialogue, study, and research.

Learning economics is hard because it is part social science, part business discipline, part moral philosophy. You need to learn how the world works, how to flourish in business and life, and how choices benefit or harm others. Commercial Society is the first text that consistently stresses all three of these points in a clear and simple way. Highly recommended!

A well-conceived and well-executed guide for young adults embarking on lives in our commercial society. The book provides a beautifully clear description of trade and its centrality to human life, the institutions supporting trade, and the ethics woven into its fabric. On the practical side it discusses personal and business finance and ends with a challenge to the reader to start his or her own business.