Экономика
Различные книги в жанре ЭкономикаPrivate Island
How the British government packaged and sold its people to the world. In a little over a generation the bones and sinews of the British economy – rail, energy, water, postal services, municipal housing – have been sold to remote, unaccountable private owners. In a series of brilliant portraits James Meek shows how Britain’s common wealth became private, and the impact it has had on us all. In a series of panoramic accounts, Meek explores the human stories behind the incremental privatization of the nation over the last three decades. As our national assets are being sold, the new buyers reap the rewards, and the ordinary consumer is left to pay the ever rising bill. Urgent, powerfully written and deeply moving, Private Island is a passionate anatomy of the state of the nation for readers of Chavs and Whoops!.
Rationality and Irrationality in Economics
An analysis of social and economic systems and why they appear and disappear throughout history. This book is the result of a research project begun by the author in 1958 with the aim of answering two questions: First, what is the rationality of the economic systems that appear and disappear throughout history—in other words, what is their hidden logic and the underlying necessity for them to exist, or to have existed? Second, what are the conditions for a rational understanding of these systems—in other words, for a fully developed comparative economic science? The field of investigation opened up by these two questions is vast, touching on the foundations of social reality and on how to understand them. The author, being a Marxist, sought the answers, as he writes, ‘not in philosophy or by philosophical means, but in and through examining the knowledge accumulated by the sciences.’ The stages of his journey from philosophy to economics and then to anthropology are indicated by the divisions of his book. Godelier rejects, at the outset, any attempt to tackle the question of rationality or irrationality of economic science and of economic realities from the angle of an a priori idea, a speculative definition of what is rational. Such an approach can yield only, he feels, an ideological result. Rather, he treats the appearance and disappearance of social and economic systems in history as being governed by a necessity ‘wholly internal to the concrete structures of social life.
The Complete Works of Rosa Luxemburg - Volume 1
This first volume in Rosa Luxemburg’s Complete Works, entitled Economic Writings 1, contains some of Luxemburg’s most important statements on the globalization of capital, wage labor, imperialism, and pre-capitalist economic formations. In addition to a new translation of her doctoral dissertation, “The Industrial Development of Poland,” Volume I includes the first complete English-language publication of her “Introduction to Political Economy,” which explores (among other issues) the impact of capitalist commodity production and industrialization on noncapitalist social strata in the developing world. Also appearing here are ten recently discovered manuscripts, none of which has ever before been published in English.
Buying Time
"Reminds one of Karl Marx's Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte." Jurgen Habermas. The financial and economic crisis that began in 2008 still has the world on tenterhooks. The gravity of the situation is matched by a general paucity of understanding about what is happening and how it started. In this book, based on his 2012 Adorno Lectures given in Frankfurt, Wolfgang Streeck places the crisis in the context of the long neoliberal transformation of postwar capitalism that began in the 1970s. He analyses the subsequent tensions and conflicts involving states, governments, voters and capitalist interests, as expressed in inflation, public debt, and rising private indebtedness. Streeck traces the transformation of the tax state into a debt state, and from there into the consolidation state of today. At the centre of the analysis is the changing relationship between capitalism and democracy, in Europe and elsewhere, and the advancing immunization of the former against the latter.
Chavs
In modern Britain, the working class has become an object of fear and ridicule. From Little Britain’s Vicky Pollard to the demonization of Jade Goody, media and politicians alike dismiss as feckless, criminalized and ignorant a vast, underprivileged swathe of society whose members have become stereotyped by one, hate-filled word: chavs. In this acclaimed investigation, Owen Jones explores how the working class has gone from “salt of the earth” to “scum of the earth.” Exposing the ignorance and prejudice at the heart of the chav caricature, he portrays a far more complex reality. The chav stereotype, he argues, is used by governments as a convenient fig leaf to avoid genuine engagement with social and economic problems and to justify widening inequality. When Chavs was first published in 2011 it opened up the discussion of class in Britain. Then, in the public debate after the riots of that summer, Owen Jones’s thesis was proved right—the working class were the scapegoats for everything that was wrong with Britain. This new edition includes a new chapter, reflecting on the overwhelming response to the book and the situation in Britain today.
The Accumulation of Freedom
What do anarchists think about the economic crisis? This new collection of essays explores the history and present of anarchist-inspired economic analysis.No other collection has so fully explored contemporary economics from an anarchist perspective; left-leaning readers with an interest in economic theory, as well as in participatory economics (Parecon) will find this collection of great use.Accumulation of Freedom includes contributions from some of the most well-known political economists of the radical left (including Z Magazine founder Michael Albert, and economist Robin Hahnel), and is edited by a group of promising young scholars who are garnering accolades in the scholarly community for their new book series at Routledge.Two of the editors are organizers of the annual North American Anarchist Studies Network conference; Accumulation of Freedom will launch at NAASN and the editors will tour the country throughout the Spring.
Democracy Without Decency
The conservative attacks on the welfare system in the United States over the past several decades have put liberal defenders of poverty relief and social insurance programs on the defensive. In this no-holds-barred look at the reality of American social policy since World War II, William Epstein argues that this defense is not worth mounting—that the claimed successes of American social programs are not sustained by evidence. Rather than their failure being the result of inadequate implementation or political resistance stemming from the culture wars, these programs and their built-in limitations actually do represent what the vast majority of people in this country want them to be. However much people may speak in favor of welfare, the proof of what they really want is in the pudding of the social policies that are actually legislated. The stinginess of America’s welfare system is the product of basic American values rooted in the myth of “heroic individualism” and reinforced by a commitment to social efficiency, the idea that social services need to be minimal and compatible with current social arrangements.
From Windfall to Curse?
Since the discovery of abundant oil resources in the 1920s, Venezuela has had an economically privileged position among the nations of Latin America, which has led to its being treated by economic and political analysts as an exceptional case. In her well-known study of Venezuela’s political economy, The Paradox of Plenty (1997), Stanford political scientist Terry Karl argued that this oil wealth induced extraordinary corruption, rent-seeking, and centralized intervention that resulted in restricting productivity and growth. What this and other studies of Venezuela’s economy fail to explain, however, is how such conditions have accompanied both growth and stagnation at different periods of Venezuela’s history and why countries experiencing similar levels of corruption and rent-seeking produce divergent developmental outcomes. By investigating the record of economic development in Venezuela from 1920 to the present, Jonathan Di John shows that the key to explaining why the economy performed much better between 1920 and 1980 than in the post-1980 period is to understand how political strategies interacted with economic strategies—specifically, how politics determined state capacity at any given time and how the stage of development and development strategies affected the nature of political conflicts. In emphasizing the importance of an approach that looks at the political economy, not just at the economy alone, Di John advances the field methodologically while he contributes to a long-needed history of Venezuela’s economic performance in the twentieth century.
Democratic Professionalism
Bringing expert knowledge to bear in an open and deliberative way to help solve pressing social problems is a major concern today, when technocratic and bureaucratic decision making often occurs with little or no input from the general public. Albert Dzur proposes an approach he calls “democratic professionalism” to build bridges between specialists in domains like law, medicine, and journalism and the lay public in such a way as to enable and enhance broader public engagement with and deliberation about major social issues. Sparking a critical and constructive dialogue among social theories of the professions, professional ethics, and political theories of deliberative democracy, Dzur reveals interests, motivations, strengths, and vulnerabilities in conventional professional roles that provide guideposts for this new approach. He then applies it in examining three practical arenas in which experiments in collaboration and power-sharing between professionals and citizens have been undertaken: public journalism, restorative justice, and the bioethics movement. Finally, he draws lessons from these cases to refine this innovative theory and identify the kinds of challenges practitioners face in being both democratic and professional.
Business Is ART
Estimates say that as many as eight out of ten new businesses fail within the first eighteen months. More conservative estimates say that about half of new business start-ups are still in business four to five years later. In either case, the likelihood of business failure is very high. Studies prove that good planning practices more than double the chance of business success. Yet, the vast majority of small to medium sized businesses operate without a formal plan, and of those who do build a plan, only a handful carefully measure their targeted objectives and adjust their plans accordingly.Business Is ART provides business leaders with an easy-to-follow approach to business success. The book is intended for any business owner, executive or organizational leader, but is especially designed for the small to medium sized organization. Its purpose is to provide a simple process—with templates—that business and organizational leaders can follow, from the creation of a powerful vision, to strategic business plans, to performance metrics and back again in a continuous cycle of improvement.Created by Jon Umstead, and tested over a thirty year business career, the ART program shows business leaders how to successfully Articulate their vision, Revise their plans, and Track their progress. Umstead draws on personal anecdotes and experience, as well as wisdom from other business leaders, to create an engaging, accessible and empowering guide to business success.