Austerity Ecology & the Collapse-Porn Addicts

Austerity Ecology & the Collapse-Porn Addicts PDF Author: Leigh Phillips
Publisher: John Hunt Publishing
ISBN: 1782799613
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 269

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Book Description
Economic growth, progress, industry and, erm, stuff have all come in for a sharp kicking from the green left and beyond in recent years. Everyone from black-hoodied Starbucks window-smashers to farmers' market heirloom-tomato-mongers to Prince Charles himself seem to be embracing 'degrowth' and anti-consumerism, which is nothing less than a form of ecological austerity. Meanwhile, the back-to-the-land ideology and aesthetic of locally-woven organic carrot-pants, pathogen-encrusted compost toilets and civilisational collapse is hegemonic. Yet modernity is not the cause of climate change and the wider biocrisis. It is indeed capitalism that is the source of our environmental woes, but capitalism as a mode of production, not the fuzzy understanding of capitalism of Naomi Klein, Bill McKibben, Derrick Jensen, Paul Kingsnorth and their anarcho-liberal epigones as a sort of globalist corporate malfeasance. In combative and puckish style, science journalist Leigh Phillips marshals evidence from climate science, ecology, paleoanthropology, agronomy, microbiology, psychology, history, the philosophy of mathematics, and heterodox economics to argue that progressives must rediscover their historic, Promethean ambitions and counter this reactionary neo-Malthusian ideology that not only retards human flourishing, but won't save the planet anyway. We want to take over the machine and run it rationally, not turn the machine off.

Austerity Ecology & the Collapse-Porn Addicts

Austerity Ecology & the Collapse-Porn Addicts PDF Author: Leigh Phillips
Publisher: John Hunt Publishing
ISBN: 1782799613
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 269

Get Book Here

Book Description
Economic growth, progress, industry and, erm, stuff have all come in for a sharp kicking from the green left and beyond in recent years. Everyone from black-hoodied Starbucks window-smashers to farmers' market heirloom-tomato-mongers to Prince Charles himself seem to be embracing 'degrowth' and anti-consumerism, which is nothing less than a form of ecological austerity. Meanwhile, the back-to-the-land ideology and aesthetic of locally-woven organic carrot-pants, pathogen-encrusted compost toilets and civilisational collapse is hegemonic. Yet modernity is not the cause of climate change and the wider biocrisis. It is indeed capitalism that is the source of our environmental woes, but capitalism as a mode of production, not the fuzzy understanding of capitalism of Naomi Klein, Bill McKibben, Derrick Jensen, Paul Kingsnorth and their anarcho-liberal epigones as a sort of globalist corporate malfeasance. In combative and puckish style, science journalist Leigh Phillips marshals evidence from climate science, ecology, paleoanthropology, agronomy, microbiology, psychology, history, the philosophy of mathematics, and heterodox economics to argue that progressives must rediscover their historic, Promethean ambitions and counter this reactionary neo-Malthusian ideology that not only retards human flourishing, but won't save the planet anyway. We want to take over the machine and run it rationally, not turn the machine off.

The People's Republic of Walmart

The People's Republic of Walmart PDF Author: Leigh Phillips
Publisher: Verso Books
ISBN: 178663516X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
Are multi-national corporations like Walmart and Amazon laying the groundwork for international socialism? For the left and the right, major multinational companies are held up as the ultimate expressions of free-market capitalism. Their remarkable success appears to vindicate the old idea that modern society is too complex to be subjected to a plan. And yet, as Leigh Phillips and Michal Rozworski argue, much of the economy of the West is centrally planned at present. Not only is planning on vast scales possible, we already have it and it works. The real question is whether planning can be democratic. Can it be transformed to work for us? An engaging, polemical romp through economic theory, computational complexity, and the history of planning, The People’s Republic of Walmart revives the conversation about how society can extend democratic decision-making to all economic matters. With the advances in information technology in recent decades and the emergence of globe-straddling collective enterprises, democratic planning in the interest of all humanity is more important and closer to attainment than ever before.

How the World Works

How the World Works PDF Author: Paul Cockshott
Publisher: Monthly Review Press
ISBN: 158367778X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 376

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Book Description
A sweeping history of the full range of human labor Few authors are able to write cogently in both the scientific and the economic spheres. Even fewer possess the intellectual scope needed to address science and economics at a macro as well as a micro level. But Paul Cockshott, using the dual lenses of Marxist economics and technological advance, has managed to pull off a stunningly acute critical perspective of human history, from pre-agricultural societies to the present. In How the World Works, Cockshott connects scientific, economic, and societal strands to produce a sweeping and detailed work of historical analysis. This book will astound readers of all backgrounds and ages; it will also will engage scholars of history, science, and economics for years to come.

Dead Man Working

Dead Man Working PDF Author: Carl Cederstrom
Publisher: John Hunt Publishing
ISBN: 1780991576
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 83

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Book Description
Capitalism has become strange. Ironically, while the ‘age of work’ seems to have come to an end, working has assumed a total presence – a ‘worker’s society’ in the worst sense of the term – where everyone finds themselves obsessed with it. So what does the worker tell us today? "I feel drained, empty… dead." This book tells the story of the dead man working. It follows this figure through the daily tedium of the office, to the humiliating mandatory team building exercise, to awkward encounters with the funky boss who pretends to hate capitalism and tells you to be authentic. In this society, the experience of work is not of dying...but neither of living. It is one of a living death. And yet, the dead man working is nevertheless compelled to wear the exterior signs of life, to throw a pretty smile, feign enthusiasm and make a half-baked joke. When the corporation has colonized life itself, even our dreams, the question of escape becomes ever more pressing, ever more desperate… ,

Slime Dynamics

Slime Dynamics PDF Author: Ben Woodard
Publisher: John Hunt Publishing
ISBN: 1780992483
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 85

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Book Description
Through speculative philosophy and lurid cultural objects, Slime Dynamics explores the muck of life as a darkly vitalistic substance.

The End of Capitalism

The End of Capitalism PDF Author: Ted Reese
Publisher: John Hunt Publishing
ISBN: 1789047749
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 195

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Book Description
Henryk Grossman is a name most socialists or students of political and social theory - let alone the mass of working people around the world - have probably never heard of. Yet Grossman, a Polish Jew born in 1881, deserves recognition as the most sophisticated defender of Karl Marx's theory of capitalism's inevitable collapse. With capitalism sinking into its deepest ever crisis, Grossman's neglected work must be revisited and popularised. Is capitalism entering its final breakdown?

The Marcusean Mind

The Marcusean Mind PDF Author: Eduardo Altheman C. Santos
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1040146740
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 727

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Book Description
Herbert Marcuse (1898–1979) was a member of the Frankfurt School, a leading figure of 1960s counterculture, and a fundamental character for the New Left. His ideas and theories, inspired by a rich fusion of Marxian and Freudian thought, exert a strong influence on contemporary thinking about activism, emancipation, and political resistance. He was also a student of Martin Heidegger in the late 1920s and engaged deeply with philosophy throughout his career. The Marcusean Mind is an outstanding survey and assessment of Marcuse's thought. Beginning with a thorough introduction to Marcuse's life and work, 39 chapters by an international and interdisciplinary team of contributors are organized into five clear parts: Intellectual Ecosystems of Marcuse Reason and Sensibilities Futures and Utopias Contemporary Movements Counterrevolutions, Neoliberalism, and Fascism These sections each contain a short introduction, after which Marcusean ideas are brought to bear on many key contemporary debates and issues across the humanities, social sciences, and science and technology. Including a Foreword by Craig Calhoun and an Afterword by Douglas Kellner, The Marcusean Mind is a superb resource for anyone interested in Marcuse's thought and its legacy. It is valuable reading for students of contemporary political theory, activism, philosophy, sociology, media and cultural studies, critical legal studies, and race and gender studies.

Green Development

Green Development PDF Author: Bill Adams
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136734694
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 667

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Book Description
The concept of sustainability lies at the core of the challenge of environment and development, and the way governments, business and environmental groups respond to it. Green Development provides a clear and coherent analysis of sustainable development in both theory and practice. Green Development explores the origins and evolution of mainstream thinking about sustainable development and offers a critique of the ideas behind them. It draws a link between theory and practice by discussing the nature of the environmental degradation and the impacts of development. It argues that, ultimately, ‘green’ development has to be about political economy, about the distribution of power, and not about environmental quality. Its focus is strongly on the developing world. The fourth edition retains the broad structure of previous editions, but has been updated to reflect advances in ideas and changes in international policy. Greater attention has been given to the political ecology of development, market-based and neoliberal environmentalism, and degrowth. This fully revised edition discusses: the origins of thinking about sustainability and sustainable development, and its evolution to the present day; the ideas that dominate mainstream sustainable development (including natural capital, the green economy, market environmentalism and ecological modernisation); critiques of mainstream ideas and of neoliberal framings of sustainability, and alternative ideas about sustainability that challenge ‘business as usual’ thinking, such as arguments about limits to growth and calls for degrowth; the dilemmas of sustainability in the context of forests, desertification, food and farming, biodiversity conservation and dam construction; the challenge of policy choices about sustainability, particularly between reformist and radical responses to the contemporary global dilemmas. Green Development offers clear insights into the challenges of environmental sustainability, and social and economic development. It is unique in offering a synthesis of theoretical ideas on sustainability and in its coverage of the extensive literature on environment and development around the world. The book has proved its value to generations of students as an authoritative, thought-provoking and readable guide to the field of sustainable development.

After Geoengineering

After Geoengineering PDF Author: Holly Jean Buck
Publisher: Verso Books
ISBN: 1788730364
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
What if the people seized the means of climate production? The window for action on climate change is closing rapidly. We are hurtling ever faster towards climate catastrophe—the destruction of a habitable world for many species, perhaps the near-extinction of our own. As anxieties about global temperatures soar, demands for urgent action grow louder. What can be done? Can this process be reversed? Once temperatures rise, is there any going back? Some are thinking about releasing aerosols into the stratosphere in order to reflect sunlight back into space and cool the earth. And this may be necessary, if it actually works. But it would only be the beginning; it’s what comes after that counts. In this groundbreaking book, Holly Jean Buck charts a possible course to a liveable future. Climate restoration will require not just innovative technologies to remove carbon from the atmosphere, but social and economic transformation. The steps we must take are enormous, and they must be taken soon. Looking at industrial-scale seaweed farms, the grinding of rocks to sequester carbon at the bottom of the sea, the restoration of wetlands, and reforestation, Buck examines possible methods for such transformations and meets the people developing them. Both critical and utopian, speculative and realistic, After Geoengineering presents a series of possible futures. Rejecting the idea that technological solutions are some kind of easy workaround, Holly Jean Buck outlines the kind of social transformation that will be necessary to repair our relationship to the earth if we are to continue living here.

The Future is Degrowth

The Future is Degrowth PDF Author: Matthias Schmelzer
Publisher: Verso Books
ISBN: 1839765852
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 406

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Book Description
Economic growth isn't working, and it cannot be made to work. Offering a counter-history of how economic growth emerged in the context of colonialism, fossil-fueled industrialization, and capitalist modernity, The Future Is Degrowth argues that the ideology of growth conceals the rising inequalities and ecological destructions associated with capitalism, and points to desirable alternatives to it. Not only in society at large, but also on the left, we are held captive by the hegemony of growth. Even proposals for emancipatory Green New Deals or postcapitalism base their utopian hopes on the development of productive forces, on redistributing the fruits of economic growth and technological progress. Yet growing evidence shows that continued economic growth cannot be made compatible with sustaining life and is not necessary for a good life for all. This book provides a vision for postcapitalism beyond growth. Building on a vibrant field of research, it discusses the political economy and the politics of a non-growing economy. It charts a path forward through policies that democratise the economy, "now-topias" that create free spaces for experimentation, and counter-hegemonic movements that make it possible to break with the logic of growth. Degrowth perspectives offer a way to step off the treadmill of an alienating, expansionist, and hierarchical system. A handbook and a manifesto, The Future Is Degrowth is a must-read for all interested in charting a way beyond the current crises.