Download or read book Growth in a Traditional Society written by Philip T. Hoffman and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2018-06-05 with total page 378 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Philip Hoffman shatters the widespread myth that traditional agricultural societies in early modern Europe were socially and economically stagnant and ultimately dependent on wide-scale political revolution for their growth. Through a richly detailed historical investigation of the peasant agriculture of ancien-régime France, the author uncovers evidence that requires a new understanding of what constituted economic growth in such societies. His arguments rest on a measurement of long-term growth that enables him to analyze the economic, institutional, and political factors that explain its forms and rhythms. In comparing France with England and Germany, Hoffman arrives at fresh answers to some classic questions: Did French agriculture lag behind farming in other countries? If so, did the obstacles in French agriculture lurk within peasant society itself, in the peasants' culture, in their communal property rights, or in the small scale of their farms? Or did the obstacles hide elsewhere, in politics, in the tax system, or in meager opportunities for trade? The author discovers that growth cannot be explained by culture, property rights, or farm size, and argues that the real causes of growth derived from politics and gains from trade. By challenging other widely held beliefs, such as the nature of the commons and the workings of the rural economy, Hoffman offers a new analysis of peasant society and culture, one based on microeconomics and game theory and intended for a wide range of social scientists.
Download or read book Vunamami written by Richard Frank Salisbury and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 1970 with total page 408 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Case study of factors contributing to economic development and social change in the vunamami area of Papua New Guinea, illustrating the link between tradition and technological change in rural area social structures - covers aspects of ethnography and the historical background of agriculture, and includes land ownership, entrepreneurship, the functioning of rural cooperatives and marketing cooperatives, the role of leadership, etc.
Download or read book Prosperity without Growth written by Tim Jackson and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2016-12-08 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What can prosperity possibly mean in a world of environmental and social limits? The publication of Prosperity without Growth was a landmark in the sustainability debate. Tim Jackson’s piercing challenge to conventional economics openly questioned the most highly prized goal of politicians and economists alike: the continued pursuit of exponential economic growth. Its findings provoked controversy, inspired debate and led to a new wave of research building on its arguments and conclusions. This substantially revised and re-written edition updates those arguments and considerably expands upon them. Jackson demonstrates that building a ‘post-growth’ economy is a precise, definable and meaningful task. Starting from clear first principles, he sets out the dimensions of that task: the nature of enterprise; the quality of our working lives; the structure of investment; and the role of the money supply. He shows how the economy of tomorrow may be transformed in ways that protect employment, facilitate social investment, reduce inequality and deliver both ecological and financial stability. Seven years after it was first published, Prosperity without Growth is no longer a radical narrative whispered by a marginal fringe, but an essential vision of social progress in a post-crisis world. Fulfilling that vision is simply the most urgent task of our times.
Download or read book The Passing of Traditional Society written by Daniel Lerner and published by . This book was released on 1958 with total page 490 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book A Culture of Growth written by Joel Mokyr and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2018 with total page 424 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why Enlightenment culture sparked the Industrial Revolution During the late eighteenth century, innovations in Europe triggered the Industrial Revolution and the sustained economic progress that spread across the globe. While much has been made of the details of the Industrial Revolution, what remains a mystery is why it took place at all. Why did this revolution begin in the West and not elsewhere, and why did it continue, leading to today's unprecedented prosperity? In this groundbreaking book, celebrated economic historian Joel Mokyr argues that a culture of growth specific to early modern Europe and the European Enlightenment laid the foundations for the scientific advances and pioneering inventions that would instigate explosive technological and economic development. Bringing together economics, the history of science and technology, and models of cultural evolution, Mokyr demonstrates that culture--the beliefs, values, and preferences in society that are capable of changing behavior--was a deciding factor in societal transformations. Mokyr looks at the period 1500-1700 to show that a politically fragmented Europe fostered a competitive "market for ideas" and a willingness to investigate the secrets of nature. At the same time, a transnational community of brilliant thinkers known as the "Republic of Letters" freely circulated and distributed ideas and writings. This political fragmentation and the supportive intellectual environment explain how the Industrial Revolution happened in Europe but not China, despite similar levels of technology and intellectual activity. In Europe, heterodox and creative thinkers could find sanctuary in other countries and spread their thinking across borders. In contrast, China's version of the Enlightenment remained controlled by the ruling elite. Combining ideas from economics and cultural evolution, A Culture of Growth provides startling reasons for why the foundations of our modern economy were laid in the mere two centuries between Columbus and Newton.
Download or read book The Process of Development of Societies written by Kanjirathara Chandy Alexander and published by . This book was released on 1994 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Tradition Culture and Development in Africa written by Ambe J Njoh and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-12-05 with total page 358 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The fact that Africa continues to lag behind all regions of the world on every indicator of development is hardly contentious. However, there is fierce debate on why this should be the case, despite national and international efforts to reverse this situation. While this book does not attempt to answer this question per se, it addresses a largely ignored, but important issue, which might provide some insights into the matter. This issue is the link between culture/tradition and socio-economic development in Africa. By weaving a common thread through these concepts, this book breaks new ground in the discourse on development. It highlights the differences between Euro-centric culture, which is rooted in capitalist ideology and Protestant ethic, and traditional African culture, where concepts such as capital accumulation, entrepreneurial attitudes and material wealth are not of top priority. In doing so, it dispels popular myths, stereotypes and distortions, as well as discounting misleading accounts about major aspects of African culture and traditional practices.
Download or read book What We Owe Each Other written by Minouche Shafik and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2022-08-23 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From one of the leading policy experts of our time, an urgent rethinking of how we can better support each other to thrive Whether we realize it or not, all of us participate in the social contract every day through mutual obligations among our family, community, place of work, and fellow citizens. Caring for others, paying taxes, and benefiting from public services define the social contract that supports and binds us together as a society. Today, however, our social contract has been broken by changing gender roles, technology, new models of work, aging, and the perils of climate change. Minouche Shafik takes us through stages of life we all experience—raising children, getting educated, falling ill, working, growing old—and shows how a reordering of our societies is possible. Drawing on evidence and examples from around the world, she shows how every country can provide citizens with the basics to have a decent life and be able to contribute to society. But we owe each other more than this. A more generous and inclusive society would also share more risks collectively and ask everyone to contribute for as long as they can so that everyone can fulfill their potential. What We Owe Each Other identifies the key elements of a better social contract that recognizes our interdependencies, supports and invests more in each other, and expects more of individuals in return. Powerful, hopeful, and thought-provoking, What We Owe Each Other provides practical solutions to current challenges and demonstrates how we can build a better society—together.
Download or read book Developing Dixie written by Winfred Moore and published by Praeger. This book was released on 1988-06-27 with total page 394 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection of essays examines the development of the American South from the end of the Civil War to the end of World War II. Written by both well-known and emerging scholars, the essays are divided into sections that address some of the major issues of that era, such as race relations, economic development, political reform, the roles of southern women, the messages of folk music, and the problems of the region's historians. Each article offers fresh insights or new information on its subject, and collectively the articles help to illuminate how the most traditional of American regions tried to cope with the forces of modernization.
Download or read book Dream Hoarders written by Richard Reeves and published by Brookings Institution Press. This book was released on 2018-05-08 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dream Hoarders sparked a national conversation on the dangerous separation between the upper middle class and everyone else. Now in paperback and newly updated for the age of Trump, Brookings Institution senior fellow Richard Reeves is continuing to challenge the class system in America. In America, everyone knows that the top 1 percent are the villains. The rest of us, the 99 percent—we are the good guys. Not so, argues Reeves. The real class divide is not between the upper class and the upper middle class: it is between the upper middle class and everyone else. The separation of the upper middle class from everyone else is both economic and social, and the practice of “opportunity hoarding”—gaining exclusive access to scarce resources—is especially prevalent among parents who want to perpetuate privilege to the benefit of their children. While many families believe this is just good parenting, it is actually hurting others by reducing their chances of securing these opportunities. There is a glass floor created for each affluent child helped by his or her wealthy, stable family. That glass floor is a glass ceiling for another child. Throughout Dream Hoarders, Reeves explores the creation and perpetuation of opportunity hoarding, and what should be done to stop it, including controversial solutions such as ending legacy admissions to school. He offers specific steps toward reducing inequality and asks the upper middle class to pay for it. Convinced of their merit, members of the upper middle class believes they are entitled to those tax breaks and hoarded opportunities. After all, they aren't the 1 percent. The national obsession with the super rich allows the upper middle class to convince themselves that they are just like the rest of America. In Dream Hoarders, Reeves argues that in many ways, they are worse, and that changes in policy and social conscience are the only way to fix the broken system.
Download or read book Stages of Economic Growth written by Walt Whitman Rostow and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Big Men and Business written by Ben R. Finney and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2019-03-31 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: High in the New Guinea mountains a sociological drama of unique design has been unfolding since the early 1930s. At that time the first of the Europeans who would take part in the area's development trekked into the remote highlands. These early gold prospectors, patrol officers, and missionaries made the first outside contacts with the Stone Age Gorokan people. These encounters ultimately catapulted the Gorokans, subsistence gardeners cultivating sweet potatoes and raising pigs, squarely into the twentieth century. The magnitude of the economic and social changes that followed in the next forty years clearly distinguish the Gorokan case as one of the most remarkable examples of human adaptability to be witnessed in modern times. Although popular thinking has it that traditional societies are change-resistant and that social reforms therefore must precede economic and other types of development, the Gorokans, remarkably, reversed the process and passed from the Stone Age to the twentieth-century marketplace in one generation. Today they are heavily involved in growing coffee, they have developed their own trucking industry for transporting coffee and other cash crops to market, and they are venturing into the raising of beef cattle and the operation of trade stores and various businesses. Big-Men and Business is the record of this extraordinary case of economic change, based on field study conducted in 1967 and 1968. Dr. Finney interviewed many of the Gorokan leaders of this commercial revolution, and draws comparisons between the Gorokan experience and that of other New Guinean peoples. One of the results of his research indicates that the Gorokans may have been predisposed to entrepreneurship. Traditionally, a Gorokan "big-man" was the man who acquired the valuables of his society—cowrie shells, mother-of-pearl shells, pigs, and bird-of-paradise plumes. These leaders were honored for their skills in the flourishing local exchange system. This fact, coupled with a supportive colonial relationship and a favorable natural environment, enhanced the Gorokans' adaptation, and thus the leap from the world of traditional exchange to one where business is conducted on a cash basis was, in reality, a short step. Foreword by Douglas L. Oliver
Download or read book Cultural Heritage in a Changing World written by Karol Jan Borowiecki and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-05-02 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The central purpose of this collection of essays is to make a creative addition to the debates surrounding the cultural heritage domain. In the 21st century the world faces epochal changes which affect every part of society, including the arenas in which cultural heritage is made, held, collected, curated, exhibited, or simply exists. The book is about these changes; about the decentring of culture and cultural heritage away from institutional structures towards the individual; about the questions which the advent of digital technologies is demanding that we ask and answer in relation to how we understand, collect and make available Europe’s cultural heritage. Cultural heritage has enormous potential in terms of its contribution to improving the quality of life for people, understanding the past, assisting territorial cohesion, driving economic growth, opening up employment opportunities and supporting wider developments such as improvements in education and in artistic careers. Given that spectrum of possible benefits to society, the range of studies that follow here are intended to be a resource and stimulus to help inform not just professionals in the sector but all those with an interest in cultural heritage.
Download or read book No Growth Society Pb written by M Olson and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012-10-12 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ‘Two policy proposals are particularly notable and owe nothing to the long-standing controversies between left and right. Rather, they suggest new perceptions of reality and a changing sense of values. They are thoroughly radical and indeed subversive since they attack two fundamental features of modern society: its tendency to exponential growth and its assumption of continuous progress. The two proposals are zero economic growth and zero population growth... Quite apart from the question of the desirability of a no-growth society, or even the possibility that it may even be a necessity, what properties should it have? How would its social, political and economic systems function? What would people be like in such a society? What sort of culture or ‘consciousness’ would be appropriate in it?... A careful examination of the no-growth proposals helps to reveal a number of the most fundamental failings and fears of modern life...’ From the Introduction
Download or read book Restructuring Development Theories and Policies written by M. Shamsul Haque and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 1999-09-09 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the contemporary global context replete with various forms of development crises, there is a growing demand for an alternative perspective. Haque explains the nature and forms of these current development crises, critiques the inadequacies of existing development theories to address such crises, restructures these theories into an alternative theoretical perspective, and suggests specific policy guidelines for attaining a genuine mode of development. He interprets development not as human conformity with any hegemonic development schemes, but as human autonomy from various forms and levels of subjugation. The book presents original arguments, covers up-to-date literature, adopts a multidisciplinary approach, mediates between theories and policies, and offers a comprehensive development alternative.
Download or read book Property Institutions and Social Stratification in Africa written by Franklin Obeng-Odoom and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-03-26 with total page 379 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explores and challenges existing conventions of inequality in Africa while offering new insights to explain persistent poverty across the continent.
Download or read book Africa in Contemporary Perspective written by Manuh, Takyiwaa and published by Sub-Saharan Publishers. This book was released on 2014-05-08 with total page 532 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An important feature of Ghanaian tertiary education is the foundational African Studies Programme which was initiated in the early 1960s. Unfortunately hardly any readers exist which bring together a body of knowledge on the themes, issues and debates which inform and animate research and teaching in African Studies particularly on the African continent. This becomes even more important when we consider the need for knowledge on Africa that is not Eurocentric or sensationalised, but driven from internal understandings of life and prospects in Africa. Dominant representations and perceptions of Africa usually depict a continent in crisis. Rather than buying into external representations of Africa, with its 'lacks' and aspirations for Western modernities, we insist that African scholars in particular should be in the forefront of promoting understanding of the pluri-lingual, overlapping, and dense reality of life and developments on the continent, to produce relevant and usable knowledge. Continuing and renewed interest in Africa's resources, including the land mass, economy, minerals, visual arts and performance cultures, as well as bio-medical knowledge and products, by old and new geopolitical players, obliges African scholars to transcend disciplinary boundaries and to work with each other to advance knowledge and uses of those resources in the interests of Africa's people.
