Irrationality of Capitalism and Climate Change

Irrationality of Capitalism and Climate Change PDF Author: Andrew Kolin
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1666902004
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 127

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Book Description
The irrational social system known as capitalism has, over time, led to the destruction of the environment. A possibility exists to replace capitalism with a form of rational socialism that doesn't necessitate conquering the environment.

Irrationality of Capitalism and Climate Change

Irrationality of Capitalism and Climate Change PDF Author: Andrew Kolin
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1666902004
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 127

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Book Description
The irrational social system known as capitalism has, over time, led to the destruction of the environment. A possibility exists to replace capitalism with a form of rational socialism that doesn't necessitate conquering the environment.

Climate Change and the Crisis of Capitalism

Climate Change and the Crisis of Capitalism PDF Author: Mark Pelling
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0415676940
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 213

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Book Description
Are established economic, social and political practices capable of dealing with the combined contemporary crisis of climate change and economic disruption? Will falling back on those wisdoms that have prefigured crises help identify ways forward or simply reconfigure risk so that it might reappear in another guise in the future? This volume argues that the combination of global environmental change and global economic restructuring require a re-thinking of the priorities, processes and underlying values that shape contemporary development aspirations and policy. "If you're interested in getting to the bottom of why we are killing this beautiful planet of ours and finding out the ways in which we can fight this unfortunate tendency of our species, then, please, have a go, you might like it." - Manchester Climate Monthly

Glorious Causes

Glorious Causes PDF Author: Yale R. Magrass
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000186385
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 270

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Book Description
Drawing on historical cases of the American South before and after the Civil War, Europe – especially Germany – between the world wars, and the United States in Vietnam and its aftermath, this book takes a historical approach to explain the problems of capitalism and democratic leadership in western democracies today. Capitalist democracies proclaim equality, material prosperity and comfort but produce extreme differences in wealth and power. They promise security and peace, but deliver frequent wars. The promises broken, elites often turn to other visions- partially borrowed from feudalism- to win public support. Nations turn to honor, nobility and war as a way of winning over workers and legitimating the capitalist system itself. Capitalism’s contradictions often have produced a cultural divide. One side, "cosmopolitans" – urban, see themselves as citizens of the world, not one region or country – identify as secular, preach multi-culturalism, entertain state welfare systems, and are cautious about going to war. Their opponents, "traditionalists," breed among people who feel left behind, anxiousness and insecurity, often embracing community, tradition, God and family. The devastation of the world wars and the Third Reich led Europe to forgo visions of empire, militarism and glory and focus upon improving the quality of life for their own citizens. Although the United States does not need to experience comparable trauma, they should follow Europe’s example- forget glory and instead build a better life for the American people. The last chapter will consider how such a change could emerge in the US and who might help fight for it.

Tropic of Chaos

Tropic of Chaos PDF Author: Christian Parenti
Publisher: Bold Type Books
ISBN: 1568586620
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
From Africa to Asia and Latin America, the era of climate wars has begun. Extreme weather is breeding banditry, humanitarian crisis, and state failure. In Tropic of Chaos, investigative journalist Christian Parenti travels along the front lines of this gathering catastrophe--the belt of economically and politically battered postcolonial nations and war zones girding the planet's midlatitudes. Here he finds failed states amid climatic disasters. But he also reveals the unsettling presence of Western military forces and explains how they see an opportunity in the crisis to prepare for open-ended global counterinsurgency. Parenti argues that this incipient "climate fascism" -- a political hardening of wealthy states-- is bound to fail. The struggling states of the developing world cannot be allowed to collapse, as they will take other nations down as well. Instead, we must work to meet the challenge of climate-driven violence with a very different set of sustainable economic and development policies.

Routledge Handbook of the Climate Change Movement

Routledge Handbook of the Climate Change Movement PDF Author: Matthias Dietz
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135038872
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 382

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Book Description
This handbook provides a comprehensive overview of the growing transnational climate movement. A dual focus on climate politics and civil society provides a hitherto unavailable broad and systematic analysis of the current global movement, highlighting how its dynamic and diverse character can play an important role in environmental politics and climate protection. The range of contributors, from well-known academics to activist-scholars, look at climate movements in the developed and developing world, north and south, small and large, central and marginal. The movement is examined as a whole and as single actors, thereby capturing its scope, structure, development, activities and influence. The book thoroughly addresses theoretical approaches, from classic social movement theory to the influence of environmental justice frames, and follows this with a systematic focus on regions, specific NGOs and activists, cases and strategies, as well as relations with peripheral groups. In its breadth, balance and depth, this accessible volume offers a fresh and important take on the question of social mobilization around climate change, making it an essential text for advanced undergraduates, postgraduate students and researchers in the social sciences.

The 99 Percent Economy

The 99 Percent Economy PDF Author: Paul S. Adler
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190931892
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
We live in a time of crises - economic turmoil, workplace disempowerment, unresponsive government, environmental degradation, social disintegration, and international rivalry. In The 99 Percent Economy, Paul S. Adler, a leading expert on business management, argues that these crises are destined to deepen unless we radically transform our economy. But despair is not an option, and Adler provides a compelling alternative: democratic socialism. He argues that to overcome these crises we need to assert democratic control over the management of both individual enterprises and the entire national economy. To show how that would work, he draws on a surprising source of inspiration: the strategic management processes of many of our largest corporations. In these companies, the strategy process promises to involve and empower workers and to ensure efficiency and innovation. In practice, this promise is rarely realized, but in principle, that process could be consolidated within enterprises and it could be scaled-up to the national level. Standing in the way? Private ownership of society's productive resources, which is the foundation of capitalism's ruthless competition and focus on private gain at the cost of society, the environment, and future generations. Adler shows how socialized, public ownership of our resources will enable democratic councils at the local and national levels to decide on our economic, social, and environmental goals and on how to reach them. The growing concentration of industry makes this socialization step ever easier. Democratic socialism is not a leap into the unknown, Adler shows. Capitalist industry has built the foundations for a world beyond capitalism and its crises.

The Far Right Today

The Far Right Today PDF Author: Cas Mudde
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 150953685X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 129

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Book Description
The far right is back with a vengeance. After several decades at the political margins, far-right politics has again taken center stage. Three of the world’s largest democracies – Brazil, India, and the United States – now have a radical right leader, while far-right parties continue to increase their profile and support within Europe. In this timely book, leading global expert on political extremism Cas Mudde provides a concise overview of the fourth wave of postwar far-right politics, exploring its history, ideology, organization, causes, and consequences, as well as the responses available to civil society, party, and state actors to challenge its ideas and influence. What defines this current far-right renaissance, Mudde argues, is its mainstreaming and normalization within the contemporary political landscape. Challenging orthodox thinking on the relationship between conventional and far-right politics, Mudde offers a complex and insightful picture of one of the key political challenges of our time.

Animal Spirits

Animal Spirits PDF Author: George A. Akerlof
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400834724
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 261

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Book Description
From acclaimed economists George Akerlof and Robert Shiller, the case for why government is needed to restore confidence in the economy The global financial crisis has made it painfully clear that powerful psychological forces are imperiling the wealth of nations today. From blind faith in ever-rising housing prices to plummeting confidence in capital markets, "animal spirits" are driving financial events worldwide. In this book, acclaimed economists George Akerlof and Robert Shiller challenge the economic wisdom that got us into this mess, and put forward a bold new vision that will transform economics and restore prosperity. Akerlof and Shiller reassert the necessity of an active government role in economic policymaking by recovering the idea of animal spirits, a term John Maynard Keynes used to describe the gloom and despondence that led to the Great Depression and the changing psychology that accompanied recovery. Like Keynes, Akerlof and Shiller know that managing these animal spirits requires the steady hand of government—simply allowing markets to work won't do it. In rebuilding the case for a more robust, behaviorally informed Keynesianism, they detail the most pervasive effects of animal spirits in contemporary economic life—such as confidence, fear, bad faith, corruption, a concern for fairness, and the stories we tell ourselves about our economic fortunes—and show how Reaganomics, Thatcherism, and the rational expectations revolution failed to account for them. Animal Spirits offers a road map for reversing the financial misfortunes besetting us today. Read it and learn how leaders can channel animal spirits—the powerful forces of human psychology that are afoot in the world economy today. In a new preface, they describe why our economic troubles may linger for some time—unless we are prepared to take further, decisive action.

Capitalism: Should You Buy it?

Capitalism: Should You Buy it? PDF Author: Charles Derber
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317262794
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 323

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Book Description
Before there was economics, there was political economy, an interdisciplinary adventure boldly and critically seeking to understand capitalism. Over time, the social sciences evolved into specific disciplines - economics, sociology, political science - that less often questioned capitalist perspectives and the state. Contrasting three traditions - neoclassicism, Keynesianism, and neo-Marxism - Capitalism: Should You Buy It? traces the historical development of each and evaluates whether they view capitalism as the root cause of or the solution to the pressing problems now facing humanity. This accessible and hopeful book is a call to everyone - citizen, student, public intellectual - to revive the critical edge towards capitalism.

Climate Change as Class War

Climate Change as Class War PDF Author: Matthew T. Huber
Publisher: Verso Books
ISBN: 1788733894
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 321

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Book Description
How to build a movement to confront climate change The climate crisis is not primarily a problem of ‘believing science’ or individual ‘carbon footprints’ – it is a class problem rooted in who owns, controls and profits from material production. As such, it will take a class struggle to solve. In this ground breaking class analysis, Matthew T. Huber argues that the carbon-intensive capitalist class must be confronted for producing climate change. Yet, the narrow and unpopular roots of climate politics in the professional class is not capable of building a movement up to this challenge. For an alternative strategy, he proposes climate politics that appeals to the vast majority of society: the working class. Huber evaluates the Green New Deal as a first attempt to channel working class material and ecological interests and advocates building union power in the very energy system we need to dramatically transform. In the end, as in classical socialist movements of the early 20th Century, winning the climate struggle will need to be internationalist based on a form of planetary working class solidarity.