ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts covered in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book argues that economies grow in waves: there is a tide in growth and decline of economies, and with them, great cities and civilisations and art. Economies are much more complex and complicated than simplistic Monetary Theory or Keynesianism or neo-classical econometrics suggests. Politics and ideology can undermine economic development and usually boils down to taxation levels, government spending on welfare programmes, and the extent to which investment, risk-taking and entrepreneurship is encouraged or disparaged. The field of macroeconomics has evolved in an attempt to smooth out the peaks and troughs of capitalist economic development, famously posited by John Maynard Keynes as 'demand management', and later by Monetarists as balancing inflation against unemployment. The Western economic system or capitalism is in growth phase of an upwave and so the next 20 years or so, will be a time of plenty, a golden age.
