Sab Phictional hain

I was reading this 1937 classic called "Man's Worldly Goods" by Leo Huberman. The book traces the economics forces that were into play to create the world as we know it today.While political and religious consequences are important in unraveling major historical events, in popular history the contribution of economic forces are always underplayed. Huberman regards these as the most important.

To a man living today it seems obvious that all political movements and religious movements transpire because of monetary reasons. It is easy to digest something like that because capitalism has been around for quite somewhile and we have adapted ourselves to accept a rationale based on money. However when we study history at school more emphasis is always laid on the political and religious ideas that shaped history.

Hubermans book is an eyeopener even for todays audience. He discusses how the world moved from the medivial ages to the world as it existed in 1937(before World War I). The book is pro-communist and the authors optimism with regard to the Communist Government in Russia is very evident in the last few chapters. He would not be happy with how the world has turned up.

His arguments for Communist Governments are very convincing. What interested me the most is, how, inspite of the arguements being so convincing, communist governments have not survived the test of time. Maybe, we should not take the economists and their theories so seriously. Atleast not to the extent that revolutions are born out of them. It is well known
that in todays money markets and national fiscal policies a lot of keynesian economics is employed. I think we should stop at that. There are instances all over history where theories are accepted on the use-ability of the theory by a few select groups of people to protect their interests. Maybe the theories that see the light and public acceptance are a consequence of the extensive marketing recieved because of the people who see advantage in using the theory to further their interests and not because the theories are proven to be genuinely correct.

Also there is a definite demand for another book that traces major events in history from an economic viewpoint from 1937 to today as a continuation of Huberman's work. Any History/Economics geeks reading??