Download or read book Rethinking Economics Starting from the Commons written by Valentina Rotondi and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2023-02-20 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book proposes a new approach to economics, starting from the commons and based on the Economy of Francesco (EoF), a worldwide movement of young people who aim to change the current economic models and working towards a fair, sustainable, and inclusive economic system. EoF was convened by Pope Francis and is inspired by the example of St. Francis of Assisi, featuring Franciscan economic roots and institutions, as well as theories of the social sciences. The authors raise and answer several important questions throughout the volume, such as: What if the economic courses taught in the universities across the globe focused their attention on the topics of the commons rather than on private goods? What if social businesses, rather than being considered as a hybrid form of businesses, became the normal approach, and ethical and green finance ruled over the standard financial sector? Is it possible to move away from the primacy of the consumers to the preeminence of ethical consumers who express their preferences for an inclusive, sustainable, and workers-friendly economic system with their daily choices? Using a unique approach, the book includes the contributions of prominent scholars which are integrated and discussed by young international scholars, providing a fresh analysis with a glance of hope for the future. The book is a must-read for students, scholars, and researchers of economics and related disciplines interested in alternatives to the current economic mainstream in general, and the Economy of Francesco in particular.

Download or read book Rethinking Economics written by Liliann Fischer and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-09-22 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Economics is a broad and diverse discipline, but most economics textbooks only cover one way of thinking about the economy. This book provides an accessible introduction to nine different approaches to economics: from feminist to ecological and Marxist to behavioural. Each chapter is written by a leading expert in the field described and is intended to stand on its own as well as providing an ambitious survey that seeks to highlight the true diversity of economic thought. Students of economics around the world have begun to demand a more open economics education. This book represents a first step in creating the materials needed to introduce new and diverse ideas into the static world of undergraduate economics. This book will provide context for undergraduate students by placing the mainstream of economic thought side by side with more heterodox schools. This is in keeping with the Rethinking Economics campaign which argues that students are better served when they are presented with a spectrum of economic ideas rather than just the dominant paradigm. Rethinking Economics: An Introduction to Pluralist Economics is a great entry-level economics textbook for lecturers looking to introduce students to the broader range of ideas explored within the economics profession. It is also appropriate and accessible for people outside of academia who are interested in economics and economic theory.

Download or read book Economics for the Common Good written by Jean Tirole and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2019-05-14 with total page 582 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "When Jean Tirole won the 2014 Nobel Prize in Economics, he suddenly found himself being stopped in the street by complete strangers and asked to comment on issues of the day, no matter how distant from his own areas of research. His transformation from academic economist to public intellectual prompted him to reflect further on the role economists and their discipline play in society. The result is Economics for the Common Good, a passionate manifesto for a world in which economics, far from being a 'dismal science,' is a positive force for the common good. Economists are rewarded for writing technical papers in scholarly journals, not joining in public debates. But Tirole says we urgently need economists to engage with the many challenges facing society, helping to identify our key objectives and the tools needed to meet them. To show how economics can help us realize the common good, Tirole shares his insights on a broad array of questions affecting our everyday lives and the future of our society, including global warming, unemployment, the post-2008 global financial order, the euro crisis, the digital revolution, innovation, and the proper balance between the free market and regulation. Providing a rich account of how economics can benefit everyone, Economics for the Common Good sets a new agenda for the role of economics in society"--Provided by publisher.

Download or read book Doughnut Economics written by Kate Raworth and published by Chelsea Green Publishing. This book was released on 2018-03-08 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Economics is the mother tongue of public policy. It dominates our decision-making for the future, guides multi-billion-dollar investments, and shapes our responses to climate change, inequality, and other environmental and social challenges that define our times. Pity then, or more like disaster, that its fundamental ideas are centuries out of date yet are still taught in college courses worldwide and still used to address critical issues in government and business alike. That’s why it is time, says renegade economist Kate Raworth, to revise our economic thinking for the 21st century. In Doughnut Economics, she sets out seven key ways to fundamentally reframe our understanding of what economics is and does. Along the way, she points out how we can break our addiction to growth; redesign money, finance, and business to be in service to people; and create economies that are regenerative and distributive by design. Named after the now-iconic “doughnut” image that Raworth first drew to depict a sweet spot of human prosperity (an image that appealed to the Occupy Movement, the United Nations, eco-activists, and business leaders alike), Doughnut Economics offers a radically new compass for guiding global development, government policy, and corporate strategy, and sets new standards for what economic success looks like. Raworth handpicks the best emergent ideas—from ecological, behavioral, feminist, and institutional economics to complexity thinking and Earth-systems science—to address this question: How can we turn economies that need to grow, whether or not they make us thrive, into economies that make us thrive, whether or not they grow? Simple, playful, and eloquent, Doughnut Economics offers game-changing analysis and inspiration for a new generation of economic thinkers.

Download or read book The Blue Commons written by Guy Standing and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2022-07-07 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A FINANCIAL TIMES BEST ECONOMICS BOOK OF 2022 'A landmark book... The Blue Commons is at once a brilliant synthesis, a searing analysis, and an inspiring call to action.' - David Bollier 'With remarkable erudition, passion and lyricism, Guy Standing commands the reader to wake up to the threat posed by rentier capitalism's violent policies for extraction, exploitation and depletion of that which is both common to us all, but also vital to our survival: the sea and all within it.' - Ann Pettifor 'Shines a bright light on the economy of the oceans, directing us brilliantly towards where a sustainable future lies.' - Danny Dorling 'This is a powerful, visionary book - essential reading for all who yearn for a better world.' - Jason Hickel The sea provides more than half the oxygen we breathe, food for billions of people and livelihoods for hundreds of millions. But giant corporations are plundering the world's oceans, aided by global finance and complicit states, following the neoliberal maxim of Blue Growth. The situation is dire: rampant exploitation and corruption now drive all aspects of the ocean economy, destroying communities, intensifying inequalities, and driving fish populations and other ocean life towards extinction. The Blue Commons is an urgent call for change, from a campaigning economist responsible for some of the most innovative solutions to inequality of recent times. From large nations bullying smaller nations into giving up eco-friendly fishing policies to the profiteering by the Crown Estate in commandeering much of the British seabed, the scale of the global problem is synthesised here for the first time, as well as a toolkit for all of us to rise up and tackle it. The oceans have been left out of calls for a Green New Deal but must be at the centre of the fight against climate change. How do we do it? By building a Blue Commons alternative: a transformative worldview and new set of proposals that prioritise the historic rights of local communities, the wellbeing of all people and, with it, the health of our oceans.

Download or read book Reclaiming economics for future generations written by Lucy Ambler and published by Manchester University Press. This book was released on 2022-01-25 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Today’s economies fail to recognise that we are in a rapidly worsening crisis, reproducing and often worsening vast and harmful inequalities between people and countries. The current models are unsustainable, and at a time when global temperatures are rising and divides are deepening, humanity is left in a rapidly worsening situation of its own making, the destruction of the living world, which will make large parts of the earth uninhabitable. Without access to the knowledge, skills or tools to build a better future, local, national and global economies will continue to fail to address the interlinked challenges of systemic racism, inequalities faced by women, the Covid-19 pandemic and the nature and climate emergency. Across the world, economics students are coming together under the banner of the student movement, Rethinking Economics, to create a better economics – one which can help to create a world where all our children can flourish regardless of their gender, background or birthplace. Drawing on over sixty interviews with students and professionals from identities and backgrounds marginalised in economics and a wide range of global and historical research, this book illustrates the ways in which the discipline is currently not fit for purpose and sets out a vision for how it can be diversified, decolonised and democratised. The struggle to reclaim economics could not be more crucial - our futures depend on it. This book explains how it can be done.

Download or read book Foundations of Real World Economics written by John Komlos and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-01-11 with total page 452 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The 2008 financial crisis, the rise of Trumpism and the other populist movements which have followed in their wake have grown out of the frustrations of those hurt by the economic policies advocated by conventional economists for generations. Despite this, textbooks continue to praise conventional policies such as deregulation and hyperglobalization. This textbook demonstrates how misleading it can be to apply oversimplified models of perfect competition to the real world. The math works well on college blackboards but not so well on the Main Streets of America. This volume explores the realities of oligopolies, the real impact of the minimum wage, the double-edged sword of free trade, and other ways in which powerful institutions cause distortions in the mainstream models. Bringing together the work of key scholars, such as Kahneman, Minsky, and Schumpeter, this book demonstrates how we should take into account the inefficiencies that arise due to asymmetric information, mental biases, unequal distribution of wealth and power, and the manipulation of demand. This textbook offers students a valuable introductory text with insights into the workings of real markets not just imaginary ones formulated by blackboard economists. A must-have for students studying the principles of economics as well as micro- and macroeconomics, this textbook redresses the existing imbalance in economic teaching. Instead of clinging to an ideology that only enriched the 1%, Komlos sketches the outline of a capitalism with a human face, an economy in which people live contented lives with dignity instead of focusing on GNP.

Download or read book The Zero Marginal Cost Society written by Jeremy Rifkin and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2014-04-01 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Zero Marginal Cost Society,New York Times bestselling author Jeremy Rifkin describes how the emerging Internet of Things is speeding us to an era of nearly free goods and services, precipitating the meteoric rise of a global Collaborative Commons and the eclipse of capitalism. Rifkin uncovers a paradox at the heart of capitalism that has propelled it to greatness but is now taking it to its death—the inherent entrepreneurial dynamism of competitive markets that drives productivity up and marginal costs down, enabling businesses to reduce the price of their goods and services in order to win over consumers and market share. (Marginal cost is the cost of producing additional units of a good or service, if fixed costs are not counted.) While economists have always welcomed a reduction in marginal cost, they never anticipated the possibility of a technological revolution that might bring marginal costs to near zero, making goods and services priceless, nearly free, and abundant, and no longer subject to market forces. Now, a formidable new technology infrastructure—the Internet of things (IoT)—is emerging with the potential of pushing large segments of economic life to near zero marginal cost in the years ahead. Rifkin describes how the Communication Internet is converging with a nascent Energy Internet and Logistics Internet to create a new technology platform that connects everything and everyone. Billions of sensors are being attached to natural resources, production lines, the electricity grid, logistics networks, recycling flows, and implanted in homes, offices, stores, vehicles, and even human beings, feeding Big Data into an IoT global neural network. Prosumers can connect to the network and use Big Data, analytics, and algorithms to accelerate efficiency, dramatically increase productivity, and lower the marginal cost of producing and sharing a wide range of products and services to near zero, just like they now do with information goods. The plummeting of marginal costs is spawning a hybrid economy—part capitalist market and part Collaborative Commons—with far reaching implications for society, according to Rifkin. Hundreds of millions of people are already transferring parts of their economic lives to the global Collaborative Commons. Prosumers are plugging into the fledgling IoT and making and sharing their own information, entertainment, green energy, and 3D-printed products at near zero marginal cost. They are also sharing cars, homes, clothes and other items via social media sites, rentals, redistribution clubs, and cooperatives at low or near zero marginal cost. Students are enrolling in free massive open online courses (MOOCs) that operate at near zero marginal cost. Social entrepreneurs are even bypassing the banking establishment and using crowdfunding to finance startup businesses as well as creating alternative currencies in the fledgling sharing economy. In this new world, social capital is as important as financial capital, access trumps ownership, sustainability supersedes consumerism, cooperation ousts competition, and "exchange value" in the capitalist marketplace is increasingly replaced by "sharable value" on the Collaborative Commons. Rifkin concludes that capitalism will remain with us, albeit in an increasingly streamlined role, primarily as an aggregator of network services and solutions, allowing it to flourish as a powerful niche player in the coming era. We are, however, says Rifkin, entering a world beyond markets where we are learning how to live together in an increasingly interdependent global Collaborative Commons.

Download or read book Rethinking Consumer Protection written by Thomas Tacker and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2019-07-15 with total page 188 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explains how revamped consumer protection regulations, allowing greater individual choice, along with the government partially shifting to more of an advisory role, can save many thousands of lives annually, and make medicines and other products radically cheaper. Major case studies include the FDA, TSA passenger screening, and Uber versus taxis.

Download or read book The Commons in an Age of Uncertainty written by Franklin Obeng-Odoom and published by University of Toronto Press. This book was released on 2020-11-03 with total page 355 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the last two hundred years, the earth has increasingly become the private property of a few classes, races, transnational corporations, and nations. Repeated claims about the "tragedy of the commons" and the "crisis of capitalism" have done little to explain this concentration of land, encourage solution-building to solve resource depletion, or address our current socio-ecological crisis. The Commons in an Age of Uncertainty presents a new explanation, vision, and action plan based on the idea of commoning the land. The book argues that by commoning the land, rather than privatising it, we can develop the foundation for prosperity without destructive growth and address both local and global challenges. Making the land the most fundamental priority of all commons does not only give hope, it also opens the doors to a new world in which economy, environment, and society are decolonised and liberated.

Download or read book Owning Our Future written by Marjorie Kelly and published by Berrett-Koehler Publishers. This book was released on 2012-07-04 with total page 343 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collection of company profiles that “succeeds in demonstrating how more sustainable business ventures can function in practice” (Publishers Weekly). As long as businesses are set up to focus exclusively on maximizing financial income for the few, our economy will be locked into endless growth and widening inequality. But now people are experimenting with new forms of ownership, which Marjorie Kelly calls generative: aimed at creating the conditions for life for many generations to come. These designs may hold the key to the deep transformation our civilization needs. To understand these emerging alternatives, Kelly reports from all over the world, visiting a community-owned wind facility in Massachusetts, a lobster cooperative in Maine, a multibillion-dollar employee-owned department-store chain in London, a foundation-owned pharmaceutical company in Denmark, a farmer-owned dairy in Wisconsin, and other places where a hopeful new economy is being built. Along the way, she finds the five essential patterns of ownership design that make these models work. “This magnificent book is a kind of recipe for how civilization might cope with its too-big-to-fail problem. It’s a hardheaded, clear-eyed, and therefore completely moving account of what a different world might look like—what it already does look like in enough places that you will emerge from its pages inspired to get involved.” —Bill McKibben, author of Deep Economy

Download or read book The Econocracy written by Joe Earle and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2017-07-06 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A century ago, the idea of 'the economy' didn't exist. Now economics is the supreme ideology of our time, with its own rules and language. The trouble is, most of us can't speak it. This is damaging democracy. Dangerous agendas are hidden inside mathematical wrappers; controversial policies are presented as 'proven' by the models of economic 'science'. Government is being turned over to a publicly unaccountable technocratic elite. The Econocracy reveals that economics is too important to be left to the economists - and shows us how we can begin to participate more fully in the decisions which affect all our futures.

Download or read book Free Fair and Alive written by David Bollier and published by New Society Publishers. This book was released on 2019-09-03 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The power of the commons as a free, fair system of provisioning and governance beyond capitalism, socialism, and other -isms. From co-housing and agroecology to fisheries and open-source everything, people around the world are increasingly turning to 'commoning' to emancipate themselves from a predatory market-state system. Free, Fair, and Alive presents a foundational re-thinking of the commons — the self-organized social system that humans have used for millennia to meet their needs. It offers a compelling vision of a future beyond the dead-end binary of capitalism versus socialism that has almost brought the world to its knees. Written by two leading commons activists of our time, this guide is a penetrating cultural critique, table-pounding political treatise, and practical playbook. Highly readable and full of colorful stories, coverage includes: Internal dynamics of commoning How the commons worldview opens up new possibilities for change Role of language in reorienting our perceptions and political strategies Seeing the potential of commoning everywhere. Free, Fair, and Alive provides a fresh, non-academic synthesis of contemporary commons written for a popular, activist-minded audience. It presents a compelling narrative: that we can be free and creative people, govern ourselves through fair and accountable institutions, and experience the aliveness of authentic human presence.

Download or read book Urban Commons written by Christian Borch and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-04-10 with total page 187 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book rethinks the city by examining its various forms of collectivity – their atmospheres, modes of exclusion and self-organization, as well as how they are governed – on the basis of a critical discussion of the notion of urban commons. The idea of the commons has received surprisingly little attention in urban theory, although the city may well be conceived as a shared resource. Urban Commons: Rethinking the City offers an attempt to reconsider what a city might be by studying how the notion of the commons opens up new understandings of urban collectivities, addressing a range of questions about urban diversity, urban governance, urban belonging, urban sexuality, urban subcultures, and urban poverty; but also by discussing in more methodological terms how one might study the urban commons. In these respects, the rethinking of the city undertaken in this book has a critical dimension, as the notion of the commons delivers new insights about how collective urban life is formed and governed.

Download or read book Free Fair and Alive written by David Bollier and published by New Society Publishers. This book was released on 2019-09-03 with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The power of the commons as a free, fair system of provisioning and governance beyond capitalism, socialism, and other -isms. From co-housing and agroecology to fisheries and open-source everything, people around the world are increasingly turning to 'commoning' to emancipate themselves from a predatory market-state system. Free, Fair, and Alive presents a foundational re-thinking of the commons — the self-organized social system that humans have used for millennia to meet their needs. It offers a compelling vision of a future beyond the dead-end binary of capitalism versus socialism that has almost brought the world to its knees. Written by two leading commons activists of our time, this guide is a penetrating cultural critique, table-pounding political treatise, and practical playbook. Highly readable and full of colorful stories, coverage includes: Internal dynamics of commoning How the commons worldview opens up new possibilities for change Role of language in reorienting our perceptions and political strategies Seeing the potential of commoning everywhere. Free, Fair, and Alive provides a fresh, non-academic synthesis of contemporary commons written for a popular, activist-minded audience. It presents a compelling narrative: that we can be free and creative people, govern ourselves through fair and accountable institutions, and experience the aliveness of authentic human presence.

Download or read book Economy Studies written by Sam de Muijnck and published by Amsterdam University Press. This book was released on 2021-12-03 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Economy Studies project emerged from the worldwide movement to modernise economics education, spurred on by the global financial crisis of 2008, the climate crisis, and the COVID-19 pandemic. It envisions a wide variety of economics graduates and specialists, equipped with a broad toolkit, enabling them to collectively understand and help tackle the issues the world faces today. This is a practical guide for (re-)designing economics courses and programs. Based on a clear conceptual framework and ten flexible building blocks, this handbook offers refreshing ideas and practical suggestions to stimulate student engagement and critical thinking across a wide range of courses.

Download or read book Labour and Value Rethinking Marx s Theory of Exploitation written by Ernesto Screpanti and published by Open Book Publishers. This book was released on 2019-10-09 with total page 134 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book Ernesto Screpanti provides a rigorous examination of Marx’s theory of exploitation, one of the cornerstones of Marxist thought. With precision and clarity, he identifies the holes in traditional readings of Marx’s theory before advancing his own original interpretation, drawing on contemporary philosophy and economic theory to provide a refreshingly interdisciplinary exegesis. Screpanti’s arguments are delivered with perspicuity and verve: this is a book that aims to spark a debate. He exposes ambiguities present in Marx’s exposition of his own theory, especially when dealing with the employment contract and the notions of ‘abstract labor’ and ‘labor value’, and he argues that these ambiguities have given rise to misunderstandings in previous analyses of Marx’s theory of exploitation. Screpanti’s own interpretation is a meticulously argued counterpoint to these traditional interpretations. Labour and Value is a significant contribution to the theory of economics, particularly Marxist economics. It will also be of great interest to scholars in other disciplines including sociology, political science, and moral and political philosophy. Screpanti’s clear and engaging writing style will attract the interested general reader as well as the academic theorist.