Download or read book Democratic Capitalism at the Crossroads written by Carles Boix and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2019-05-28 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An incisive history of the changing relationship between democracy and capitalism The twentieth century witnessed the triumph of democratic capitalism in the industrialized West, with widespread popular support for both free markets and representative elections. Today, that political consensus appears to be breaking down, disrupted by polarization and income inequality, widespread dissatisfaction with democratic institutions, and insurgent populism. Tracing the history of democratic capitalism over the past two centuries, Carles Boix explains how we got here—and where we could be headed. Boix looks at three defining stages of capitalism, each originating in a distinct time and place with its unique political challenges, structure of production and employment, and relationship with democracy. He begins in nineteenth-century Manchester, where factory owners employed unskilled laborers at low wages, generating rampant inequality and a restrictive electoral franchise. He then moves to Detroit in the early 1900s, where the invention of the modern assembly line shifted labor demand to skilled blue-collar workers. Boix shows how growing wages, declining inequality, and an expanding middle class enabled democratic capitalism to flourish. Today, however, the information revolution that began in Silicon Valley in the 1970s is benefitting the highly educated at the expense of the traditional working class, jobs are going offshore, and inequality has risen sharply, making many wonder whether democracy and capitalism are still compatible. Essential reading for these uncertain times, Democratic Capitalism at the Crossroads proposes sensible policy solutions that can help harness the unruly forces of capitalism to preserve democracy and meet the challenges that lie ahead.

Download or read book We Own the Future written by Kate Aronoff and published by The New Press. This book was released on 2020-01-14 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A stunningly original and timely collection that makes the case for "socialism, American style" It's a strange day when a New York Times conservative columnist is forced to admit that the left is winning, but as David Brooks wrote recently, "the American left is on the cusp of a great victory." Among Americans under thirty, 43 percent had a favorable view of socialism, while only 32 percent had a favorable view of capitalism. Not since the Great Depression have so many Americans questioned the fundamental tenets of capitalism and expressed openness to a socialist alternative. We Own the Future: Democratic Socialism—American Style offers a road map to making this alternative a reality, giving readers a practical vision of a future that is more democratic, egalitarian, inclusive, and environmentally sustainable. The book includes a crash course in the history and practice of democratic socialism, a vivid picture of what democratic socialism in America might look like in practice, and compelling proposals for how to get there from the age of Trump and beyond. With contributions from some of the nation's leading political activists and analysts, We Own the Future articulates a clear and uncompromising view from the left—a perfectly timed book that will appeal to a wide audience hungry for change. Table of Contents Part I: Is a New America Possible? Introduction Kate Aronoff, Peter Dreier, and Michael Kazin How Socialists Changed America Peter Dreier and Michael Kazin Toward a Third Reconstruction Andrea Flynn, Susan Holmberg, Dorian Warren, and Felicia Wong A Three-Legged Stool for Racial and Economic Justice Darrick Hamilton Democratic Socialism for a Climate-Changed Century Naomi Klein Part II: Expanding Democracy Governing Socialism Bill Fletcher Jr. We the People: Voting Rights, Campaign Finance, and Election Reform J. Mijin Cha Confronting Corporate Power Robert Kuttner Building the People's Banks David Dayen Democracy, Equality, and the Future of Workers Sarita Gupta, Stephen Lerner, and Joseph A. McCartin Who Gets to Be Safe? Prisons, Police, and Terror Aviva Stahl On Immigration: A Socialist Case for Open Borders Michelle Chen On Foreign Policy: War from Above, Solidarity from Below Tejasvi Nagaraja Part III: The Right to a Good Life Livable Cities Thomas J. Sugrue What Does Health Equity Require? Racism and the Limits of Medicare for All Dorothy Roberts The Family of the Future Sarah Leonard Defending and Improving Public Education Pedro Noguera Reclaiming Competition: Sports and Socialism David Zirin What About a Well-Fed Artist? Imagining Cultural Work in a Democratic Socialist Society Francesca Fiorentini How Socialism Surged, and How It Can Go Further Harold Meyerson Afterword: A Day in the Life of a Socialist Citizen Michael Walzer

Download or read book The Future of Capitalism written by Paul Collier and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2018-12-04 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bill Gates's Five Books for Summer Reading 2019 From world-renowned economist Paul Collier, a candid diagnosis of the failures of capitalism and a pragmatic and realistic vision for how we can repair it. Deep new rifts are tearing apart the fabric of the United States and other Western societies: thriving cities versus rural counties, the highly skilled elite versus the less educated, wealthy versus developing countries. As these divides deepen, we have lost the sense of ethical obligation to others that was crucial to the rise of post-war social democracy. So far these rifts have been answered only by the revivalist ideologies of populism and socialism, leading to the seismic upheavals of Trump, Brexit, and the return of the far-right in Germany. We have heard many critiques of capitalism but no one has laid out a realistic way to fix it, until now. In a passionate and polemical book, celebrated economist Paul Collier outlines brilliantly original and ethical ways of healing these rifts—economic, social and cultural—with the cool head of pragmatism, rather than the fervor of ideological revivalism. He reveals how he has personally lived across these three divides, moving from working-class Sheffield to hyper-competitive Oxford, and working between Britain and Africa, and acknowledges some of the failings of his profession. Drawing on his own solutions as well as ideas from some of the world’s most distinguished social scientists, he shows us how to save capitalism from itself—and free ourselves from the intellectual baggage of the twentieth century.

Download or read book Capitalism and Democracy in the Twenty First Century written by Gavin Kitching and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-10-17 with total page 197 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This short book makes a connection between recent ‘tectonic shifts’ in the world economy and the political problems currently confronted by western democracies. The shift of manufacturing away from the West, allied to the pressure to keep costs down in an increasingly competitive global economy, has led to economic inequality, reliance on service industry employment and public sector austerity. All this has in turn produced large numbers of desperate citizens attracted to a populist economic nationalism accompanied by xenophobia. However, the originality of this text lies not in the above argument, but in the philosophical reflections which drive and derive from it. These include reflections on history as a supposed causal process; on the need to make ethical judgements of economic activities and the difficulties of doing so; and on the problems confronting modern citizens in understanding complex economic processes and their political implications. Capitalism and Democracy in the Twenty-First Century endorses Wittgenstein’s ‘praxis’ approach to human social life and its study. Accordingly, it not only analyses economic and political problems but suggests ways of solving or mitigating them. In doing so it relies on Marx’s conviction that our capacity to see certain phenomena as problems is at least a priori evidence that they can be solved. This book will appeal to undergraduate and postgraduate students of politics, comparative politics, political economy and international relations.

Download or read book The Politics of Advanced Capitalism written by Pablo Beramendi and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2015-04-23 with total page 473 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book serves as a sequel to two distinguished volumes on capitalism: Continuity and Change in Contemporary Capitalism (Cambridge, 1999) and Order and Conflict in Contemporary Capitalism (1985). Both volumes took stock of major economic challenges advanced industrial democracies faced, as well as the ways political and economic elites dealt with them. However, during the last decades, the structural environment of advanced capitalist democracies has undergone profound changes: sweeping deindustrialization, tertiarization of the employment structure, and demographic developments. This book provides a synthetic view, allowing the reader to grasp the nature of these structural transformations and their consequences in terms of the politics of change, policy outputs, and outcomes. In contrast to functionalist and structuralist approaches, the book advocates and contributes to a 'return of electoral and coalitional politics' to political economy research.

Download or read book The Paradox of Democratic Capitalism written by David F. Prindle and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2006-08-25 with total page 398 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A truly interdisciplinary enterprise, The Paradox of Democratic Capitalism examines the interplay of ideas about politics, economics, and law in American society from the pre-revolutionary era to the eve of the September 11 attacks. David F. Prindle argues that while the United States was founded on liberalism, there is constant tension between two ideals of the liberal tradition: capitalism and democracy. Tracing the rise of natural law doctrine from neoclassical economics, Prindle examines the influence of economic development in late medieval society on the emergence of classical liberalism in early America and likens that influence to the impact of orthodox economics on contemporary American society. Prindle also evaluates political, economic, and legal ideas through the lens of his own beliefs. He warns against the emerging extremes of liberal ideology in contemporary American politics, where the right's definition of capitalism excludes interference from democratic publics and the left's definition of democracy excludes a market-based economy.

Download or read book Democracy and Prosperity written by Torben Iversen and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2020-11-03 with total page 359 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is a widespread view that democracy and the advanced nation-state are in crisis, weakened by globalization and undermined by global capitalism, in turn explaining rising inequality and mounting populism. This book, written by two of the world's leading political economists, argues this view is wrong: advanced democracies are resilient, and their enduring historical relationship with capitalism has been mutually beneficial. For all the chaos and upheaval over the past century--major wars, economic crises, massive social change, and technological revolutions--Torben Iversen and David Soskice show how democratic states continuously reinvent their economies through massive public investment in research and education, by imposing competitive product markets and cooperation in the workplace, and by securing macroeconomic discipline as the preconditions for innovation and the promotion of the advanced sectors of the economy. Critically, this investment has generated vast numbers of well-paying jobs for the middle classes and their children, focusing the aims of aspirational families, and in turn providing electoral support for parties. Gains at the top have also been shared with the middle (though not the bottom) through a large welfare state. Contrary to the prevailing wisdom on globalization, advanced capitalism is neither footloose nor unconstrained: it thrives under democracy precisely because it cannot subvert it. Populism, inequality, and poverty are indeed great scourges of our time, but these are failures of democracy and must be solved by democracy.

Download or read book The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism written by Michael Novak and published by . This book was released on 2015-05-18 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 30 years after the release of his ground-breaking work, The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism, Michael Novak returns to answer the question of what gives rise to democratic capitalism - that intricate blend of commerce and rule of law that encourages peace and global trade. This essay is vital to understanding the intangible environment that best inspires human flourishing, as it discovers capitalism's essence, and uncovers what truly fosters creativity.Novak articulates how democratic capitalism works toward creating, not just consuming, wealth, along with encouraging ambition, discipline, and mutual benefit. He explains how critics fail to consider the interaction between the system and the role that economic, political, and moral liberties play in comprehensive human flourishing.This new and exciting work enlivens the connection between the Bible and democratic capitalism by showcasing how seamlessly the dynamic polity fits with the imperatives of human capacity and drive.

Download or read book The Future of Democracy written by Ronald M. Glassman and published by Springer. This book was released on 2019-05-24 with total page 202 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book focuses on the processes that help stabilize democracy. It provides a socio-historical analysis of the future prospects of democracy. The link between advanced capitalism and democracy is emphasized, focusing on contract law and the separation of the economy from the state. The book also emphasizes the positive effects of the scientific world view on legal- rational authority. Aristotle’s theory of the majority middle class and its stabilizing effect on democracy is highlighted. This book describes the face to face democracies of the past in order to give us a better perspective on the high tech democracies of the future, making it appealing to students and academics in the political and social sciences.

Download or read book The Age of Surveillance Capitalism written by Shoshana Zuboff and published by PublicAffairs. This book was released on 2019-01-15 with total page 683 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The challenges to humanity posed by the digital future, the first detailed examination of the unprecedented form of power called "surveillance capitalism," and the quest by powerful corporations to predict and control our behavior. In this masterwork of original thinking and research, Shoshana Zuboff provides startling insights into the phenomenon that she has named surveillance capitalism. The stakes could not be higher: a global architecture of behavior modification threatens human nature in the twenty-first century just as industrial capitalism disfigured the natural world in the twentieth. Zuboff vividly brings to life the consequences as surveillance capitalism advances from Silicon Valley into every economic sector. Vast wealth and power are accumulated in ominous new "behavioral futures markets," where predictions about our behavior are bought and sold, and the production of goods and services is subordinated to a new "means of behavioral modification." The threat has shifted from a totalitarian Big Brother state to a ubiquitous digital architecture: a "Big Other" operating in the interests of surveillance capital. Here is the crucible of an unprecedented form of power marked by extreme concentrations of knowledge and free from democratic oversight. Zuboff's comprehensive and moving analysis lays bare the threats to twenty-first century society: a controlled "hive" of total connection that seduces with promises of total certainty for maximum profit -- at the expense of democracy, freedom, and our human future. With little resistance from law or society, surveillance capitalism is on the verge of dominating the social order and shaping the digital future -- if we let it.

Download or read book The Future of Democratic Capitalism written by S. Howard Patterson and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2017-01-23 with total page 124 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Future of Democratic Capitalism poses this question: what are the chances of survival for America's present economic and political way of life? Opposing totalitarian communism proclaimed by the USSR stands the democratic capitalism of the United States, which is being attacked from within as well as from without and is undergoing such serious, rapid changes that its fundamental nature has been altered within a single generation. Between these two extremes stand the democratic and socialist nations of western Europe. The maintenance of the status quo is a challenge to all concerned, a challenge as difficult and dangerous as it is vital in character. And the best approach to the uncertain future of democratic capitalism would seem to be through a better understanding of the chief institutions of our present economic order. In this volume five distinguished authorities examine some of our most pressing related problems. Contributors: Thurman W. Arnold, Morris L. Ernst, Adolf A. Berle, Jr., Lloyd K. Garrison, Sir Alfred Zimmern.

Download or read book Capitalism Alone written by Branko Milanovic and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2021-09-07 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For the first time in history, the globe is dominated by one economic system. Capitalism prevails because it delivers prosperity and meets desires for autonomy. But it also is unstable and morally defective. Surveying the varieties and futures of capitalism, Branko Milanovic offers creative solutions to improve a system that isn’t going anywhere.

Download or read book Democratic Capitalism and Its Discontents written by Brian C. Anderson and published by Intercollegiate Studies Institute. This book was released on 2007 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite the fall of its ideological enemies--the political messianisms of communism and national socialism--democratic capitalism faces extraordinary challenges in the new millennium, argues City Journal editor and South Park Conservatives author Brian C. Anderson in this thought-provoking new book. Not only has a fanatical form of Islam distrupted the peace and prosperity of the postcommunist era, which some had wrongly heralded as a liberal-democratic "end of history"; our free societies also remain haunted by internal demons--egalitarian fantasies, moral libertinism, an arid and unsustainable secularism, a suicide of culture. Yet nothing ordains the triumph of these demons over the democratic capitalist prospect, Anderson believes. Drawing on a rich anti-utopian tradition of political thought, he defends the real achievements of the free society against an array of critics, ranging from Jean-Paul Sartre to British anti-market conservative John Gray to the quietly authoritarian social democrat John Rawls to the postmodern Marxist and one-time terrorist Antonio Negri. Anderson pays particularly close attention to the United States, the democratic capitalist nation par excellence, showing how it differs from other liberal democracies in its robust religiosity, vigorous civil society, and constitutionalism--all under threat from the American Left. Finally, Anderson explores the thought of some of the deepest anti-utopian thinkers who are friends--albeit critical ones--of the modern regime of liberty, including the brilliant French political theorist Pierre Manent and the godfather of neoconservatism, Irving Kristol. Crisply and vividly presented, Democratic Capitalism and Its Discontents is an essential guide to the conflicts of our time.

Download or read book Changemakers written by Adam Arvidsson and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2019-10-15 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book argues that, as industrial capitalism enters a period of prolonged crisis, a new paradigm of ‘industrious modernity’ is emerging. Based on small-scale, commons-based and market-oriented entrepreneurship, this industrious modernity is being pioneered by the many outcasts that no longer find a place within a crumbling industrial modernity. This new industriousness draws on the new planetary commons that have been generated by the globalization of industrial capitalism itself. The outsourcing of material production to global supply chains has made the skills necessary to engage in commodity production generic and common, and the globalization of media culture and the internet have generated new knowledge commons. Together these new commons have radically reduced the capital requirements to engage in economic activity, and are providing new, highly efficient tools of productive organization at little cost. This timely analysis of the new forces of change in our societies today will be of great interest to anyone concerned with the impact of digital technologies and the future of capitalism.

Download or read book Can Democracy Safeguard the Future written by Grahame Smith and published by Polity. This book was released on 2021-02-16 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Our democracies repeatedly fail to safeguard the future. From pensions to pandemics, health and social care through to climate, biodiversity and emerging technologies, democracies have been unable to deliver robust policies for the long term. In this book, Graham Smith, a leading scholar of democratic theory and practice, asks why? Exploring the drivers of the short-termism that dominate contemporary politics, he considers ways of reshaping legislatures and constitutions and proposes strengthening independent offices whose overarching goals do not change at every election. More radically, Smith argues that forms of participatory and deliberative politics offer the most effective democratic response to the current political myopia as well as a powerful means of protecting the interests of generations to come.

Download or read book Democracy at Work written by Richard Wolff and published by Haymarket Books. This book was released on 2012-10-02 with total page 221 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What, and who, are we working for? A thoughtful assessment on our current society from “probably America’s most prominent Marxist economist” (The New York Times). Capitalism as a system has spawned deepening economic crisis alongside its bought-and-paid-for political establishment. Neither serves the needs of our society. Whether it is secure, well-paid, and meaningful jobs or a sustainable relationship with the natural environment that we depend on, our society is not delivering the results people need and deserve. One key cause for this intolerable state of affairs is the lack of genuine democracy in our economy as well as in our politics. The solution requires the institution of genuine economic democracy, starting with workers managing their own workplaces, as the basis for a genuine political democracy. Here Richard D. Wolff lays out a hopeful and concrete vision of how to make that possible, addressing the many people who have concluded economic inequality and politics as usual can no longer be tolerated and are looking for a concrete program of action. “Wolff’s constructive and innovative ideas suggest new and promising foundations for much more authentic democracy and sustainable and equitable development, ideas that can be implemented directly and carried forward. A very valuable contribution in troubled times.” —Noam Chomsky, leading public intellectual and author of Hope and Prospects

Download or read book Community Wealth Building and the Reconstruction of American Democracy written by Melody C. Barnes and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2020-10-30 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How can we create and sustain an America that never was, but should be? How can we build a robust multiracial democracy in which everyone is valued and everyone possesses political, economic and social capital? How can democracy become a meaningful way of life, for all citizens? By critically probing these questions, the editors of Community Wealth Building and the Reconstruction of American Democracy seize the opportunity to bridge the gap between our democratic aspirations and our current reality.