Download or read book The Politics of Greed written by Andrew Harrison Schwartz and published by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. This book was released on 2006-10-12 with total page 379 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With the dissolution of the Soviet Empire, it seemed that market capitalism had triumphed and that democracy might replace authoritarian regimes. Economic reformers in the former Eastern Bloc rushed to liberalize prices and transfer state assets to private hands. They assumed that private owners in a market setting would have no choice but to behave rationally—that is, to invest in restructuring privatized enterprises so as to maximize profits. They also assumed that these owners would perceive a stable institutional environment as conducive to economic success and thus become a powerful lobby in favor of the rule of law, paving the way for democracy. The post-communist reality turned out to be very different. Private owners found that in a weak state with limited laws and regulations and ineffective corporate governance structures, it was more lucrative to steal enterprise assets and exploit opportunities for arbitrage than to restructure enterprises. The lesson learned is that not all forms of private ownership are the same. As this book's in-depth political history of privatization in Central and Eastern Europe demonstrates, the way that assets are privatized matters, both with respect to national economic performance and the successful development of the rule of law. Andrew Harrison Schwartz had unprecedented access to high-level Czech government officials during the Czech Republic's privatization process. This book is the result of the unique insights he gained and the innovative analytical framework he subsequently developed—ownership regime theory—which for the first time places ownership structures at the center of political transition analysis. Engaging and important, The Politics of Greed applies ownership regime theory to a broad range of post-communist privatization cases, including those of the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, Russia, and Ukraine.
Download or read book Greed Is Dead written by Paul Collier and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2020-07-30 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Two of the UK's leading economists call for an end to extreme individualism as the engine of prosperity 'provocative but thought-provoking and nuanced' Telegraph Throughout history, successful societies have created institutions which channel both competition and co-operation to achieve complex goals of general benefit. These institutions make the difference between societies that thrive and those paralyzed by discord, the difference between prosperous and poor economies. Such societies are pluralist but their pluralism is disciplined. Successful societies are also rare and fragile. We could not have built modernity without the exceptional competitive and co-operative instincts of humans, but in recent decades the balance between these instincts has become dangerously skewed: mutuality has been undermined by an extreme individualism which has weakened co-operation and polarized our politics. Collier and Kay show how a reaffirmation of the values of mutuality could refresh and restore politics, business and the environments in which people live. Politics could reverse the moves to extremism and tribalism; businesses could replace the greed that has degraded corporate culture; the communities and decaying places that are home to many could overcome despondency and again be prosperous and purposeful. As the world emerges from an unprecedented crisis we have the chance to examine society afresh and build a politics beyond individualism.
Download or read book The New Power Elite written by Alan Shipman and published by Anthem Press. This book was released on 2018-04-13 with total page 482 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Elites have always ruled – wielding inordinate power and wealth, taking decisions that shape life for the rest. In good times the ‘1%’ can hide their privilege, or use growing social mobility and economic prosperity as a justification. When times get tougher there’s a backlash. So the first years of the twenty-first century – a time of financial crashes, oligarchy and corruption in the West; persistent poverty in the south; and rising inequality everywhere – have brought elites and ‘establishments’ under unprecedented fire. Yet those swept to power by this discontent are themselves a part of the elite, attacking from within and extending rather than ending its agenda. The New Power Elite shows how major political and social change is typically driven by renegade elite fractions, who co-opt or sideline elites’ traditional enemies. It is the first book to combine the politics, economics, sociology and history of elite rule to present a compact, comprehensive account of who’s at the top, and why we let them get there.
Download or read book Greed Corruption and the Modern State written by Susan Rose-Ackerman and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2015-09-25 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What makes the control of corruption so difficult and contested? Drawing on the insights of political science, economics and law, the expert contributors to this book offer diverse perspectives. One group of chapters explores the nature of corruption in democracies and autocracies, and “reforms” that are mere facades. Other contributions examine corruption in infrastructure, tax collection, cross-border trade, and military procurement. Case studies from various regions – such as China, Peru, South Africa and New York City – anchor the analysis with real-world situations. The book pays particular attention to corruption involving international business and the domestic regulation of foreign bribery.
Download or read book Age of Greed written by Jeff Madrick and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2012-06-12 with total page 482 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A vivid history of the economics of greed told through the stories of those major figures primarily responsible. Age of Greed shows how the single-minded and selfish pursuit of immense personal wealth has been on the rise in the United States over the last forty years. Economic journalist Jeff Madrick tells this story through incisive profiles of the individuals responsible for this dramatic shift in our country’s fortunes, from the architects of the free-market economic philosophy (such as Milton Friedman and Alan Greenspan) to the politicians and businessmen (including Nixon, Reagan, Boesky, and Soros) who put it into practice. Their stories detail how a movement initially conceived as a moral battle for freedom instead brought about some of our nation's most pressing economic problems, including the intense economic inequity and instability America suffers from today. This is an indispensible guide to understanding the 1 percent.
Download or read book The Power of Greed written by Michael Rosberg and published by University of Alberta. This book was released on 2005-08-16 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Power of Greed recommends a shift away from the moralistic way we often go about doing international development. It says we can be too focused on our own ambitions for others and too unaware of what they’re up to on their own behalf. It argues that the desperate and greedy behaviours of the poor and their oppressors are not the enemies of international development, but its potential allies. It also says we ought to resist taking sides in defence of the poor. Productive alliances between oppressed and oppressor are possible if the conditions are right. Furthermore, it says that we need to tie national institutional and economic strengthening measures to the creation of sustainable interest groups at the grassroots. Only they could be in a position to prevent greed and corruption at the top in a sustainable way. For these reasons, The Power of Greed tries to get us to focus on doing more about the opportunity structure in the developing world and, for the rest, to rely on the opportunism of the population.
Download or read book The Politics of Greed written by Andrew Schwartz and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2006 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presenting the political history of privatization in Central and Eastern Europe, this work demonstrates that the way that assets are privatized matters, both with respect to national economic performance and the successful development of the rule of law. It applies ownership regime theory to a range of post-communist privatization cases.
Download or read book Mean Girl written by Lisa Duggan and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2019-05-14 with total page 136 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ayn Rand’s complicated notoriety as popular writer, leader of a political and philosophical cult, reviled intellectual, and ostentatious public figure endured beyond her death in 1982. In the twenty-first century, she has been resurrected as a serious reference point for mainstream figures, especially those on the political right from Paul Ryan to Donald Trump. Mean Girlfollows Rand’s trail through the twentieth century from the Russian Revolution to the Cold War and traces her posthumous appeal and the influence of her novels via her cruel, surly, sexy heroes. Outlining the impact of Rand’s philosophy of selfishness, Mean Girl illuminates the Randian shape of our neoliberal, contemporary culture of greed and the dilemmas we face in our political present.
Download or read book On Corruption in America written by Sarah Chayes and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2020-08-11 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the prizewinning journalist and internationally recognized expert on corruption in government networks throughout the world comes a major work that looks homeward to America, exploring the insidious, dangerous networks of corruption of our past, present, and precarious future. “If you want to save America, this might just be the most important book to read now." —Nancy MacLean, author of Democracy in Chains Sarah Chayes writes in her new book, that the United States is showing signs similar to some of the most corrupt countries in the world. Corruption, she argues, is an operating system of sophisticated networks in which government officials, key private-sector interests, and out-and-out criminals interweave. Their main objective: not to serve the public but to maximize returns for network members. In this unflinching exploration of corruption in America, Chayes exposes how corruption has thrived within our borders, from the titans of America's Gilded Age (Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, J. P. Morgan, et al.) to the collapse of the stock market in 1929, the Great Depression, and FDR's New Deal; from Joe Kennedy's years of banking, bootlegging, machine politics, and pursuit of infinite wealth to the deregulation of the Reagan Revolution--undermining this nation's proud middle class and union members. She then brings us up to the present as she shines a light on the Clinton policies of political favors and personal enrichment and documents Trump's hydra-headed network of corruption, which aimed to systematically undo the Constitution and our laws. Ultimately and most importantly, Chayes reveals how corrupt systems are organized, how they enable bad actors to bend the rules so their crimes are covered legally, how they overtly determine the shape of our government, and how they affect all levels of society, especially when the corruption is overlooked and downplayed by the rich and well-educated.
Download or read book Heat Greed and Human Need written by Ian Gough and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2017-10-27 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book builds an essential bridge between climate change and social policy. Combining ethics and human need theory with political economy and climate science, it offers a long-term, interdisciplinary analysis of the prospects for sustainable development and social justice. Beyond ‘green growth’ (which assumes an unprecedented rise in the emissions efficiency of production) it envisages two further policy stages vital for rich countries: a progressive ‘recomposition’ of consumption, and a post-growth ceiling on demand. An essential resource for scholars and policymakers.
Download or read book The Sociology of Greed written by Prasanta Ray and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2018-04-27 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Sociology of Greed examines crises in financial institutions such as banks from the vantage point of the greed of the people at their helm. It offers an intensive analysis of the banking crises under the conditions of colonial capitalism in early twentieth-century Bengal that led to institutional and social collapse. Breaking new ground, the book looks at the moral economy of capitalism and money culture by focusing on the victims of banking crises, hitherto unexplored in Western empirical research. Through sociological analyses of political economy, it seamlessly combines archival records, survey and statistical data with literary narratives, realist fiction and performing arts to recount how the greed of bank owners and managers ruined their institutions as well as common people. It argues that greed turns perilous when the state and the market facilitate its agency, and it examines the contexts and histories, the indifference of the fledgling colonial state, feeble political response, and the consequences for those who were impacted and the losses, especially the refugees, the lower-middle class and women. The volume also re-composes relevant elements of Western sociological scholarship from classical theories to early twenty-first-century financial sociology. An insightful account of the social history of banking in India, this book will greatly interest researchers and scholars in sociology, economics, history and cultural studies.
Download or read book Greed to Green written by Charles Derber and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-11-17 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book shows how we can solve the climate change crisis, which is the greatest threat humanity has faced. Charles Derber, a prominent sociologist and political economist, shows that global warming is a symptom of deep pathologies in global capitalism. In conversational and passionate writing, Derber shows that climate change is capitalism's time bomb, certain to explode unless we rapidly transform our economy and create a new green American Dream Derber shows there is hope in the financial meltdown and Great Recession we are now suffering. The economic crisis has raised deep questions about Wall Street and the US capitalist model. Derber systematically explores the causal links between capitalism and climate change, a taboo subject in the U.S, and opens up new thinking to solve both the economic and climate crises.
Download or read book Take This Job and Ship It written by Byron L. Dorgan and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2007-08-07 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the most vocal Democrats in the Senate passionately argues that free trade is not free, and that outsourcing, offshoring, and greedy mega-corporations are destroying Americas economy.
Download or read book Terror of Neoliberalism written by Henry A. Giroux and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-03-29 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book argues that neoliberalism is not simply an economic theory but also a set of values, ideologies, and practices that works more like a cultural field that is not only refiguring political and economic power, but eliminating the very categories of the social and political as essential elements of democratic life. Neoliberalism has become the most dangerous ideology of our time. Collapsing the link between corporate power and the state, neoliberalism is putting into place the conditions for a new kind of authoritarianism in which large sections of the population are increasingly denied the symbolic and economic capital necessary for engaged citizenship. Moreover, as corporate power gains a stranglehold on the media, the educational conditions necessary for a democracy are undermined as politics is reduced to a spectacle, essentially both depoliticizing politics and privatizing culture. This series addresses the relationship among culture, power, politics, and democratic struggles. Focusing on how culture offers opportunities that may expand and deepen the prospects for an inclusive democracy, it draws from struggles over the media, youth, political economy, workers, race, feminism, and more, highlighting how each offers a site of both resistance and transformation.
Download or read book Meltdown written by Paul Mason and published by Verso Books. This book was released on 2020-05-05 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Meltdown is the gripping account of the financial collapse that destroyed the West's investment banks, brought the global economy to its knees, and undermined three decades of neoliberal orthodoxy. Covering the development of the crisis from the economic front line, BBC Newsnight journalist Paul Mason explores the roots of the US and UK's financial hubris, documenting the real-world causes and consequences from the Ford factory, to Wall Street, to the City of London. In this fully updated new edition, he recounts how the credit crunch became a full-blown financial crisis, and explores its impact on capitalist ideology and politics in our new age of austerity.
Download or read book Rethinking the Economics of War written by Cynthia J. Arnson and published by Woodrow Wilson Center Press. This book was released on 2005-10-12 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection of essays questions the adequacy of explaining today's internal armed conflicts purely in terms of economic factors and re-establishes the importance of identity and grievances in creating and sustaining such wars. Countries studied include Lebanon, Angola, Colombia and Afghanistan.
