Ashford and Shakespeare should be congratulated for recognizing Louis Kelso as a major contributor to economic theory and the architect of a unified system of economics. Kelso's system, first articulated in his 1958 classic THE CAPITALIST MANIFESTO co-authored with philosopher Mortimer Adler, combines the elegance of classical market theory and moral philosophy with the highest spiritual values. Ashford and Shakespeare pinpoint where Adam Smith, Karl Marx, and John Maynard Keynes fell short theoretically by not recognizing the increasing productiveness of capital as the main source of economic growth and the most logical source of widespread income distribution. This conceptual omission is embedded in all conventional schools of economic thought, from left to right. Consequently, few economic theorists can ever make accurate predictions about the future or offer sound long-range solutions to meet the dangers of economic globalization.

Binary economics states that in a genuinely free market economy, people should be able to contribute to and gain their incomes from the economic process, based on both their labor and their capital inputs. Most neo-classical and Keynesian economists would dismiss this postulate as absurd, asserting that capitalism already operates this way. Louis Kelso and the authors of BINARY ECONOMICS, however, show that institutional barriers to broad-based ownership limit most people to earning their incomes through their labor alone. Consequently the market system breaks down, as government is forced to interfere with the market mechanism and redistribute incomes to non-owning working people and the unemployed.

The authors explain why neither Wall Street capitalism nor the many versions of socialism can ever achieve economic or social justice. Ashford and Shakespeare argue that so-called "free market" policies alone cannot achieve sustainable growth, and explain why the wealth gap continues to widen dangerously between nations and between the rich and poor within all nations. They point to a system beyond capitalism and socialism that provides every person, as a fundamental right of citizenship, with equal access to capital credit and other "social goods" needed to become owners of capital. Their new paradigm provides:

--a new understanding of the relationship between humans and things as they work together to produce goods and services;

--a new explanation for industrial growth, poverty and affluence; and

--a new strategy for achieving general affluence for all people on free market principles.

Few people would disagree with the authors that the so-called "free market" would be better termed the "un-free market." As they point out, a free and open market cannot work efficiently or justly under conditions where (1) workers have only their labor to sell in a free global marketplace, (2) ownership of productive capital globally is concentrated into the hands of a small ownership class, (3) the productive efforts and labor incomes of propertyless workers remain threatened globally by labor-displacing technology and by workers willing to accept lower wages, and (4) exclusionary barriers to more equal ownership opportunities remain in our laws and institutions.

The strength of this readable book is its sharp focus on economic theory. The book touches only lightly on the moral and political dimensions of binary economics. For a deeper discussion on those issues, the reader should turn directly to Kelso's writings and to the compendium of articles (including one by Kelso and another by Ashford) presented in the book, CURING WORLD POVERTY: THE NEW ROLE OF PROPERTY, John H. Miller, ed., published in 1994 by Social Justice Review (St. Louis).

To move toward the goal of general affluence within the new ownership paradigm, the authors advocate a "binary infrastructure" including principled yet practical social policies and "social tools," such as:

--"constituency" vehicles, like ESOPs, using tested principles of corporate finance to connect all citizens to capital credit as a new and fundamental right of citizenship;

--a tax system and corporate policies that encourage the full payout of corporate profits;

--capital credit insurance and re-insurance as a substitute for collateral; and

--a flexible but disciplined monetary policy which liberates future growth from the slavery of past savings.

I wholeheartedly endorse this book as required reading for all serious and open-minded students of economics. It is especially valuable for all policymakers who have not yet become, in the words of Keynes, unwitting "slaves of some defunct economist."

ABOUT THE REVIEWER: Mr. Kurland, a lawyer-economist and president of the Center for Economic and Social Justice was Louis Kelso's Washington-based political strategist for 11 years, following years of work in civil rights and the War on Poverty. In 1974, he and Kelso persuaded Senator Russell Long to champion legislation to promote employee stock ownership plans or "ESOPs." Among the expanded ownership models Kurland designed was the world's first 100% leveraged ESOP buyout, and the first ESOP in a developing country. Mr. Kurland was appointed by President Reagan in 1985 as deputy chairman of the bipartisan Presidential Task Force on Project Economic Justice, formed to promote Kelsonian reforms in US assistance programs to developing economies.

To my knowledge, there isn't an audiobook version of the full text. But there are a couple of gushing extracts contained on the Naxos compilation '1000 Years of Laughter' which demonstrate that it isn't just the troubled spelling which make the book so amusing. The introduction to those extracts lead us to believe that JM Barrie, who wrote the introduction, could have had much to do with the entire work. Certainly once Barrie had died, she never wrote again, but my feeling is that the nine-year-old Ashford probably was the author. The story is less than 60 pages long, and can be enjoyed in a couple of sittings, then repeatedly re-read.

This work is likely to experience a dramatic surge in popularity this year. A TV adaptation starring Jim Broadbent (of 'Moulin Rouge' fame) will be broadcast, and this recently overlooked masterpiece will return to prominence once again.

This book was written by an eight year old girl some time around the turn of the century. It is a story of courtship. The author had read many of the clasic novels on the subject. Combined with the experiences of a child, the result is a book filled with unintentional humour.

The result is that her characters are at once children and adults. When taken for a ride in a cariage, her heroin kneels on her trunk and looks out the window, bouncing up and down in her excitement. When Mr. Salteena, whose ambition it is to be a "real gentleman," is presented at court the Prince of Whales offers him ice cream. When he goes to visit London, Mr. Salteena sees nothing improper about sending the heroin to stay with the hero, unchaperoned. They fall in love and marry, much to the disapointment of Mr. Salteena who loves her too. He consoles himself by eating some of the wonderful deserts at their wedding supper.

This is one of the funniest books ever written.

It doesn't help matters that most design software seems to be written by the left-brain dominant spouses of craft practitioners...well intentioned souls with no sense of the real kinesthetics of working color, form, texture.

Janet Ashford has navigated through the difficult middle course between technology and entrancement. She draws! She creates custom palettes in her application software! She doesn't hit you over the head or talk down to the reader. Perhaps her experience of designing for and with her daughter has given her the wonderful tone of teaching someone she likes, who is lacking in knowledge but not in ability. That is a prized gift in any teacher, and Ashford has it mastered.

She has maintained her enthusiasm, her innocent pleasure in sharing the joys of color and pattern, line, light and form. She is conscientious in gathering really useful resources together into a book that can pay off in serious fun the first weekend you get to use it, without resorting to false expectations. Buy the book. Use the example. You, and your craft, will be enriched without hype or over-simplification. Serious artists and craftspeople do not expect the tool to do the real work of creation for them. This book is written for the serious artists and craftspeople at any stage of their careers...from about 9 years old on up.

You'll need some software to try the projects in it, an image editor of some kind and a printer. But that's all you need for most of the projects described. Janet Ashford has really creative ideas for transforming every day objects like metal tins and boxes, using computer designs.

I can just about guarantee, if you're artistic at all and you buy this book, you'll not only enjoy it, but you'll wind up designing some really amazing things as a result!