Four Futures

Four Futures PDF Author: Peter Frase
Publisher: Verso Books
ISBN: 1781688141
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 134

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Book Description
An exploration of the utopias and dystopias that could develop from present society Peter Frase argues that increasing automation and a growing scarcity of resources, thanks to climate change, will bring it all tumbling down. In Four Futures, Frase imagines how this post-capitalist world might look, deploying the tools of both social science and speculative fiction to explore what communism, rentism and extermininsm might actually entail. Could the current rise of the real-life robocops usher in a world that resembles Ender's Game? And sure, communism will bring an end to material scarcities and inequalities of wealth—but there's no guarantee that social hierarchies, governed by an economy of "likes," wouldn't rise to take their place. A whirlwind tour through science fiction, social theory and the new technologies are already shaping our lives, Four Futures is a balance sheet of the socialisms we may reach if a resurgent Left is successful, and the barbarisms we may be consigned to if those movements fail.

Design after Capitalism

Design after Capitalism PDF Author: Matthew Wizinsky
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262543567
Category : Design
Languages : en
Pages : 347

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Book Description
How design can transcend the logics, structures, and subjectivities of capitalism: a framework, theoretical grounding, and practical principles. The designed things, experiences, and symbols that we use to perceive, understand, and perform our everyday lives are much more than just props. They directly shape how we live. In Design after Capitalism, Matthew Wizinsky argues that the world of industrial capitalism that gave birth to modern design has been dramatically transformed. Design today needs to reorient itself toward deliberate transitions of everyday politics, social relations, and economies. Looking at design through the lens of political economy, Wizinsky calls for the field to transcend the logics, structures, and subjectivities of capitalism—to combine design entrepreneurship with social empowerment in order to facilitate new ways of producing those things, symbols, and experiences that make up everyday life. After analyzing the parallel histories of capitalism and design, Wizinsky offers some historical examples of anticapitalist, noncapitalist, and postcapitalist models of design practice. These range from the British Arts and Crafts movement of the nineteenth century to contemporary practices of growing furniture or biotextiles and automated forms of production. Drawing on insights from sociology, philosophy, economics, political science, history, environmental and sustainability studies, and critical theory—fields not usually seen as central to design—he lays out core principles for postcapitalist design; offers strategies for applying these principles to the three layers of project, practice, and discipline; and provides a set of practical guidelines for designers to use as a starting point. The work of postcapitalist design can start today, Wizinsky says—with the next project.

After Capitalism

After Capitalism PDF Author: David Schweickart
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
ISBN: 0742564991
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 281

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Book Description
Since first published in 2002, After Capitalism has offered students and political activists alike a coherent vision of a viable and desirable alternative to capitalism. David Schweickart calls this system Economic Democracy, a successor-system to capitalism which preserves the efficiency strengths of a market economy while extending democracy to the workplace and to the structures of investment finance. In the second edition, Schweickart recognizes that increased globalization of companies has created greater than ever interdependent economies and the debate about the desirability of entrepreneurship is escalating. The new edition includes a new preface, completely updated data, reorganized chapters, and new sections on the economic instability of capitalism, the current economic crisis, and China. Drawing on both theoretical and empirical research, Schweickart shows how and why this model is efficient, dynamic, and applicable in the world today.

The Netocracts

The Netocracts PDF Author: Alexander Bard
Publisher: Stockholm Text
ISBN: 918717300X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 278

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Book Description
History is always written from the perspective of the ruling or rising elite at the time of writing. Concepts like The Stone Age, The Bronze Age, etc. were of course unknown during the stone age and the bronze age. They were invented in the 1800s to make sense of a development that seemed to reach its climax with industrialisation...

Parecon

Parecon PDF Author: Michael Albert
Publisher: Verso Books
ISBN: 178960947X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 470

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Book Description
'What do you want?' is a constant query put to economic and globalization activists decrying current poverty, alienation and degradation. In this highly praised new work, destined to attract worldwide attention and support, Michael Albert provides an answer: Participatory Economics, 'Parecon' for short, a new economy, an alternative to capitalism, built on familiar values including solidarity, equity, diversity and people democratically controlling their own lives, but utilizing original institutions fully described and defended in the book.

The Post-Corporate World

The Post-Corporate World PDF Author: David C. Korten
Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers
ISBN: 1605093963
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 332

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Book Description
This work investigates the growing gap between the promises of new global capitalism and the reality of insecurity, inequality, social breakdown, spiritual emptiness and environmental destruction. It looks at what went wrong and offers solutions based on examples from new biology.

Knowledge and Power

Knowledge and Power PDF Author: George Gilder
Publisher: Regnery Publishing
ISBN: 1621570274
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 370

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Book Description
Ronald Reagan’s most-quoted living author—George Gilder—is back with an all-new paradigm-shifting theory of capitalism that will upturn conventional wisdom, just when our economy desperately needs a new direction. America’s struggling economy needs a better philosophy than the college student's lament: "I can't be out of money, I still have checks in my checkbook!" We’ve tried a government spending spree, and we’ve learned it doesn’t work. Now is the time to rededicate our country to the pursuit of free market capitalism, before we’re buried under a mound of debt and unfunded entitlements. But how do we navigate between government spending that's too big to sustain and financial institutions that are "too big to fail?" In Knowledge and Power, George Gilder proposes a bold new theory on how capitalism produces wealth and how our economy can regain its vitality and its growth. Gilder breaks away from the supply-side model of economics to present a new economic paradigm: the epic conflict between the knowledge of entrepreneurs on one side, and the blunt power of government on the other. The knowledge of entrepreneurs, and their freedom to share and use that knowledge, are the sparks that light up the economy and set its gears in motion. The power of government to regulate, stifle, manipulate, subsidize or suppress knowledge and ideas is the inertia that slows those gears down, or keeps them from turning at all. One of the twentieth century’s defining economic minds has returned with a new philosophy to carry us into the twenty-first. Knowledge and Power is a must-read for fiscal conservatives, business owners, CEOs, investors, and anyone interested in propelling America’s economy to future success.

Life After Capitalism

Life After Capitalism PDF Author: George Gilder
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1684512247
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 226

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Book Description
For more than two hundred years, capitalism spread wealth around the globe, bringing unprecedented prosperity and progress, liberating human potential. But something has gone terribly wrong in the world economy. The bestselling futurist and venture capitalist George Gilder explains why economics is not an incentive system to be manipulated but an information system to be freed. Material resources are essentially as plentiful as the atoms of the universe. What drives economic growth in a free market is our limitless human ingenuity and creativity.

Postcapitalism

Postcapitalism PDF Author: Paul Mason
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 0374235546
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 369

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Book Description
"Originally published in 2015 by Allen Lane, an imprint of Penguin Random House, Great Britain"--Title page verso.

The Future is Degrowth

The Future is Degrowth PDF Author: Matthias Schmelzer
Publisher: Verso Books
ISBN: 1839765860
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 321

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Book Description
We need to break free from the capitalist economy. Degrowth gives us the tools to bend its bars. 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.