Shadow Sovereigns

Shadow Sovereigns PDF Author: Susan George
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0745697852
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 134

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Book Description
Lobbying has long been part of the political landscape. But in recent years links between big business and government have become stronger and more far-reaching than ever. Global corporations now demand control over decisions affecting labour laws, finance, public health, food and agriculture, safety regulations, taxes and international trade and investment. They even claim the right to private tribunals where they can sue governments for passing laws that could harm their present or future profits. These business elites dont want to govern directly. They operate behind the scenes - directing planning, setting standards and fashioning government to maximise their own profits. Thanks to the UN Global Compact they have extended their influence to the highest levels of multilateral decision-making and now, via the Davos-inspired Global Redesign Initiative, they are setting their sights on managing world-wide public policy. Elected by and accountable to no one, secretive and highly organized, these shadow sovereigns are destroying the very notion of the common good and making a mockery of democracy. It is high time we challenged this assault on our rights and our institutions. In this incisive and clear-sighted book Susan George provides us with the practical knowledge to do just that.

Shadow Sovereigns

Shadow Sovereigns PDF Author: Susan George
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0745697852
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 134

Get Book Here

Book Description
Lobbying has long been part of the political landscape. But in recent years links between big business and government have become stronger and more far-reaching than ever. Global corporations now demand control over decisions affecting labour laws, finance, public health, food and agriculture, safety regulations, taxes and international trade and investment. They even claim the right to private tribunals where they can sue governments for passing laws that could harm their present or future profits. These business elites dont want to govern directly. They operate behind the scenes - directing planning, setting standards and fashioning government to maximise their own profits. Thanks to the UN Global Compact they have extended their influence to the highest levels of multilateral decision-making and now, via the Davos-inspired Global Redesign Initiative, they are setting their sights on managing world-wide public policy. Elected by and accountable to no one, secretive and highly organized, these shadow sovereigns are destroying the very notion of the common good and making a mockery of democracy. It is high time we challenged this assault on our rights and our institutions. In this incisive and clear-sighted book Susan George provides us with the practical knowledge to do just that.

Out for Blood

Out for Blood PDF Author: Bastion Press
Publisher: Bastion Press, Inc.
ISBN: 9781592630097
Category : Games & Activities
Languages : en
Pages : 100

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Book Description


Work's Intimacy

Work's Intimacy PDF Author: Melissa Gregg
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0745637469
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
This book provides a long-overdue account of online technology and its impact on the work and lifestyles of professional employees. It moves between the offices and homes of workers in the knew "knowledge" economy to provide intimate insight into the personal, family, and wider social tensions emerging in today’s rapidly changing work environment. Drawing on her extensive research, Gregg shows that new media technologies encourage and exacerbate an older tendency among salaried professionals to put work at the heart of daily concerns, often at the expense of other sources of intimacy and fulfillment. New media technologies from mobile phones to laptops and tablet computers, have been marketed as devices that give us the freedom to work where we want, when we want, but little attention has been paid to the consequences of this shift, which has seen work move out of the office and into cafés, trains, living rooms, dining rooms, and bedrooms. This professional "presence bleed" leads to work concerns impinging on the personal lives of employees in new and unforseen ways. This groundbreaking book explores how aspiring and established professionals each try to cope with the unprecedented intimacy of technologically-mediated work, and how its seductions seem poised to triumph over the few remaining relationships that may stand in its way.

Time and Social Theory

Time and Social Theory PDF Author: Barbara Adam
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0745669395
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 346

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Book Description
Time is at the forefront of contemporary scholarly inquiry across the natural sciences and the humanities. Yet the social sciences have remained substantially isolated from time-related concerns. This book argues that time should be a key part of social theory and focuses concern upon issues which have emerged as central to an understanding of today's social world. Through her analysis of time Barbara Adam shows that our contemporary social theories are firmly embedded in Newtonian science and classical dualistic philosophy. She exposes these classical frameworks of thought as inadequate to the task of conceptualizing our contemporary world of standardized time, computers, nuclear power and global telecommunications.

Crisis

Crisis PDF Author: Sylvia Walby
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 150950320X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 174

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Book Description
We are living in a time of crisis which has cascaded through society. Financial crisis has led to an economic crisis of recession and unemployment; an ensuing fiscal crisis over government deficits and austerity has led to a political crisis which threatens to become a democratic crisis. Borne unevenly, the effects of the crisis are exacerbating class and gender inequalities. Rival interpretations – a focus on ‘austerity’ and reduction in welfare spending versus a focus on ‘financial crisis’ and democratic regulation of finance – are used to justify radically diverse policies for the distribution of resources and strategies for economic growth, and contested gender relations lie at the heart of these debates. The future consequences of the crisis depend upon whether there is a deepening of democratic institutions, including in the European Union. Sylvia Walby offers an alternative framework within which to theorize crisis, drawing on complexity science and situating this within the wider field of study of risk, disaster and catastrophe. In doing so, she offers a critique and revision of the social science needed to understand the crisis.

Realm of Lesser Evil

Realm of Lesser Evil PDF Author: Jean-Claude Michea
Publisher: Polity
ISBN: 0745646212
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 159

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Book Description
Winston Churchill said of democracy that it was ‘the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.’ The same could be said of liberalism. While liberalism displays an unfailing optimism with regard to the capacity of human beings to make themselves ‘masters and possessors of nature’, it displays a profound pessimism when it comes to appreciating their moral capacity to build a decent world for themselves. As Michea shows, the roots of this pessimism lie in the idea – an eminently modern one – that the desire to establish the reign of the Good lies at the origin of all the ills besetting the human race. Liberalism’s critique of the ‘tyranny of the Good’ naturally had its costs. It created a view of modern politics as a purely negative art – that of defining the least bad society possible. It is in this sense that liberalism has to be understood, and understands itself, as the ‘politics of lesser evil’. And yet while liberalism set out to be a realism without illusions, today liberalism presents itself as something else. With its celebration of the market among other things, contemporary liberalism has taken over some of the features of its oldest enemy. By unravelling the logic that lies at the heart of the liberal project, Michea is able to shed fresh light on one of the key ideas that have shaped the civilization of the West.

The Radicality of Love

The Radicality of Love PDF Author: Srećko Horvat
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 074569117X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 120

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Book Description
What would happen if we could stroll through the revolutionary history of the 20th century and, without any fear of the possible responses, ask the main protagonists - from Lenin to Che Guevara, from Alexandra Kollontai to Ulrike Meinhof - seemingly naïve questions about love? Although all important political and social changes of the 20th century included heated debates on the role of love, it seems that in the 21st century of new technologies of the self (Grindr, Tinder, online dating, etc.) we are faced with a hyperinflation of sex, not love. By going back to the sexual revolution of the October Revolution and its subsequent repression, to Che's dilemma between love and revolutionary commitment and to the period of '68 (from communes to terrorism) and its commodification in late capitalism, the Croatian philosopher Srecko Horvat gives a possible answer to the question of why it is that the most radical revolutionaries like Lenin or Che were scared of the radicality of love. What is so radical about a seemingly conservative notion of love and why is it anything but conservative? This short book is a modest contribution to the current upheavals around the world - from Tahrir to Taksim, from Occupy Wall Street to Hong Kong, from Athens to Sarajevo - in which the question of love is curiously, surprisingly, absent.

Cognitive Capitalism

Cognitive Capitalism PDF Author: Yann Moulier-Boutang
Publisher: Polity
ISBN: 0745647324
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 258

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Book Description
This book argues that we are undergoing a transition from industrial capitalism to a new form of capitalism - what the author calls & lsquo; cognitive capitalism & rsquo;

Axel Honneth

Axel Honneth PDF Author: Christopher Zurn
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0745686788
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
With his insightful and wide-ranging theory of recognition, AxelHonneth has decisively reshaped the Frankfurt School tradition ofcritical social theory. Combining insights from philosophy,sociology, psychology, history, political economy, and culturalcritique, Honneth’s work proposes nothing less than anaccount of the moral infrastructure of human sociality and itsrelation to the perils and promise of contemporary sociallife. This book provides an accessible overview of Honneth’s maincontributions across a variety of fields, assessing the strengthsand weaknesses of his thought. Christopher Zurn clearly explainsHonneth’s multi-faceted theory of recognition and itsrelation to diverse topics: individual identity, morality, activistmovements, progress, social pathologies, capitalism, justice,freedom, and critique. In so doing, he places Honneth’stheory in a broad intellectual context, encompassing classic socialtheorists such as Kant, Hegel, Marx, Freud, Dewey, Adorno andHabermas, as well as contemporary trends in social theory andpolitical philosophy. Treating the full range of Honneth’scorpus, including his major new work on social freedom anddemocratic ethical life, this book is the most up-to-date guideavailable. Axel Honneth will be invaluable to students and scholarsworking across the humanities and social sciences, as well asanyone seeking a clear guide to the work of one of the mostinfluential theorists writing today.

Shadowlands

Shadowlands PDF Author: Anthony McCann
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1635571219
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 449

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Book Description
Los Angeles Times Bestseller An “epic exploration” of the 2016 right-wing Oregon Occupation-"an excellent microcosm by which we might better understand our difficult national history and distressing political moment” (Maggie Nelson). In 2016, a group of armed, divinely inspired right-wing protestors led by Ammon Bundy occupied the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in the high desert of eastern Oregon. Encamped in the shadowlands of the republic, insisting that the Federal government had no right to own public land, the occupiers were seen by a divided country as either dangerous extremists dressed up as cowboys, or as heroes insisting on restoring the rule of the Constitution. From the Occupation's beginnings, to the trials of the occupiers in federal court in downtown Portland and their tumultuous aftermaths, Shadowlands is the resonant, multifaceted story of one of the most dramatic flashpoints in the year that gave us Donald Trump. Sharing the expansive stage with the occupiers are a host of others-Native American tribal leaders, public-lands ranchers, militia members, environmentalists, federal defense attorneys, and Black Lives Matter activists-each contending in their different ways with the meaning of the American promise of Liberty. Gathering into its vortex the realities of social media technology, history, religion, race, and the environment-this piercing work by Anthony McCann offers us a combination of beautiful writing and high-stakes analysis of our current cultural and political moment. Shadowlands is a clarifying, exhilarating story of a nation facing an uncertain future and a murky past in a time of great collective reckoning.