Heilbroner is ok but not exactly “untainted by ideology”. It was written when he still felt socialism was a workable solution and he focuses heavily on socialists, Marxists, and Keynesians while essentially ignoring Say, Bastiat, Fisher, Friedman, Mises, Hayek, etc.

Later, in the late 1980s, Heilbroner reconsidered his views and, in 1989, he wrote a piece called “The Triumph of Capitalism” in which he concluded that capitalism had triumphed over socialism in the real world.

BUT his famous history was written while he still believed socialism could work and it reflects that view.

Try Mark Skousen’s The Making of Modern Economics as an alternative.

This book was so well-written that it was the only time I’ve truly enjoyed reading anything about economics!

Ignoring TSD’s principles for a second, consider the Fed’s explicit goal of steady 2% inflation: it’s better to have debt in this situation, because you actually have an annual 2% debt reduction. Conversely, if you follow TSD’s ideals, your savings erodes similarly every year.

Clearly, it’s unwise for an individual to take on a ton of debt based on the idea of inflation; that’s the whole theme of TSD. But, it seems that the deck is somewhat stacked against savers.

What does that mean? Is it short hand for “everyone who wants a job can get one”, then I strongly disagree. Maybe I’m understanding this wrong.

@Charles Cohn: What you think is going to be good for you will be desastrous for your country. Borrowing and spending will grind to a halt, because people are waiting for ever lower prices, a lot of people won’t be able to get out of debt (and we have seen what that means in 2007) and a lot of people will be laid off because cutting salaries ever lower is very difficult. Ask Krugman:http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/02/why-is-deflation-bad/

BTW Keynes published the General Theory in 1936 but the New Deal started in 1933. Keynes work was seen as justifying New Deal style policies in retrospect.

For example, stating that “consumer spending” is the biggest element of “economic growth” is complete nonsense. “Production” of valued goods & services is the ONLY source of human economic progress/growth.

Consumption (consumer spending) can not even exist before production — you can’t buy stuff that hasn’t been produced. Government-Spending, too, is just more consumption — not an economic growth input.

The Federal Reserve description is more disinformation. The Fed is a government enforced cartel of major U.S. banks; its primary purpose is coordination of deliberate Dollar inflation… to enrich bankers & fund vast Congressional spending.

Hard to believe this book is being so highly praised here.