Author: Karl Gerth
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521868467
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 397
Book Description
In this provocative account, Karl Gerth argues that consumerism rather than communism explains the history of China since 1949.
Unending Capitalism
Author: Karl Gerth
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521868467
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 397
Book Description
In this provocative account, Karl Gerth argues that consumerism rather than communism explains the history of China since 1949.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521868467
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 397
Book Description
In this provocative account, Karl Gerth argues that consumerism rather than communism explains the history of China since 1949.
Capitalism and Desire
Author: Todd McGowan
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231542216
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 305
Book Description
Despite creating vast inequalities and propping up reactionary world regimes, capitalism has many passionate defenders—but not because of what it withholds from some and gives to others. Capitalism dominates, Todd McGowan argues, because it mimics the structure of our desire while hiding the trauma that the system inflicts upon it. People from all backgrounds enjoy what capitalism provides, but at the same time are told more and better is yet to come. Capitalism traps us through an incomplete satisfaction that compels us after the new, the better, and the more. Capitalism's parasitic relationship to our desires gives it the illusion of corresponding to our natural impulses, which is how capitalism's defenders characterize it. By understanding this psychic strategy, McGowan hopes to divest us of our addiction to capitalist enrichment and help us rediscover enjoyment as we actually experienced it. By locating it in the present, McGowan frees us from our attachment to a better future and the belief that capitalism is an essential outgrowth of human nature. From this perspective, our economic, social, and political worlds open up to real political change. Eloquent and enlivened by examples from film, television, consumer culture, and everyday life, Capitalism and Desire brings a new, psychoanalytically grounded approach to political and social theory.
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231542216
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 305
Book Description
Despite creating vast inequalities and propping up reactionary world regimes, capitalism has many passionate defenders—but not because of what it withholds from some and gives to others. Capitalism dominates, Todd McGowan argues, because it mimics the structure of our desire while hiding the trauma that the system inflicts upon it. People from all backgrounds enjoy what capitalism provides, but at the same time are told more and better is yet to come. Capitalism traps us through an incomplete satisfaction that compels us after the new, the better, and the more. Capitalism's parasitic relationship to our desires gives it the illusion of corresponding to our natural impulses, which is how capitalism's defenders characterize it. By understanding this psychic strategy, McGowan hopes to divest us of our addiction to capitalist enrichment and help us rediscover enjoyment as we actually experienced it. By locating it in the present, McGowan frees us from our attachment to a better future and the belief that capitalism is an essential outgrowth of human nature. From this perspective, our economic, social, and political worlds open up to real political change. Eloquent and enlivened by examples from film, television, consumer culture, and everyday life, Capitalism and Desire brings a new, psychoanalytically grounded approach to political and social theory.
Celebrity
Author: Milly Williamson
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1509511431
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 216
Book Description
It is a truism to suggest that celebrity pervades all areas of life today. The growth and expansion of celebrity culture in recent years has been accompanied by an explosion of studies of the social function of celebrity and investigations into the fascination of specific celebrities. And yet fundamental questions about what the system of celebrity means for our society have yet to be resolved: Is celebrity a democratization of fame or a powerful hierarchy built on exclusion? Is celebrity created through public demand or is it manufactured? Is the growth of celebrity a harmful dumbing down of culture or an expansion of the public sphere? Why has celebrity come to have such prominence in today’s expanding media? Milly Williamson unpacks these questions for students and researchers alike, re-examining some of the accepted explanations for celebrity culture. The book questions assumptions about the inevitability of the growth of celebrity culture, instead explaining how environments were created in which celebrity output flourished. It provides a compelling new history of the development of celebrity (both long-term and recent) which highlights the relationship between the economic function of celebrity in various media and entertainment industries and its changing social meanings and patterns of consumption.
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1509511431
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 216
Book Description
It is a truism to suggest that celebrity pervades all areas of life today. The growth and expansion of celebrity culture in recent years has been accompanied by an explosion of studies of the social function of celebrity and investigations into the fascination of specific celebrities. And yet fundamental questions about what the system of celebrity means for our society have yet to be resolved: Is celebrity a democratization of fame or a powerful hierarchy built on exclusion? Is celebrity created through public demand or is it manufactured? Is the growth of celebrity a harmful dumbing down of culture or an expansion of the public sphere? Why has celebrity come to have such prominence in today’s expanding media? Milly Williamson unpacks these questions for students and researchers alike, re-examining some of the accepted explanations for celebrity culture. The book questions assumptions about the inevitability of the growth of celebrity culture, instead explaining how environments were created in which celebrity output flourished. It provides a compelling new history of the development of celebrity (both long-term and recent) which highlights the relationship between the economic function of celebrity in various media and entertainment industries and its changing social meanings and patterns of consumption.
The Far Right Today
Author: Cas Mudde
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 150953685X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 132
Book Description
The far right is back with a vengeance. After several decades at the political margins, far-right politics has again taken center stage. Three of the world’s largest democracies – Brazil, India, and the United States – now have a radical right leader, while far-right parties continue to increase their profile and support within Europe. In this timely book, leading global expert on political extremism Cas Mudde provides a concise overview of the fourth wave of postwar far-right politics, exploring its history, ideology, organization, causes, and consequences, as well as the responses available to civil society, party, and state actors to challenge its ideas and influence. What defines this current far-right renaissance, Mudde argues, is its mainstreaming and normalization within the contemporary political landscape. Challenging orthodox thinking on the relationship between conventional and far-right politics, Mudde offers a complex and insightful picture of one of the key political challenges of our time.
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 150953685X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 132
Book Description
The far right is back with a vengeance. After several decades at the political margins, far-right politics has again taken center stage. Three of the world’s largest democracies – Brazil, India, and the United States – now have a radical right leader, while far-right parties continue to increase their profile and support within Europe. In this timely book, leading global expert on political extremism Cas Mudde provides a concise overview of the fourth wave of postwar far-right politics, exploring its history, ideology, organization, causes, and consequences, as well as the responses available to civil society, party, and state actors to challenge its ideas and influence. What defines this current far-right renaissance, Mudde argues, is its mainstreaming and normalization within the contemporary political landscape. Challenging orthodox thinking on the relationship between conventional and far-right politics, Mudde offers a complex and insightful picture of one of the key political challenges of our time.
Seventeen Contradictions and the End of Capitalism
Author: David Harvey
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 019936026X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 354
Book Description
David Harvey examines the foundational contradictions of capital, and reveals the fatal contradictions that are now inexorably leading to its end
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 019936026X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 354
Book Description
David Harvey examines the foundational contradictions of capital, and reveals the fatal contradictions that are now inexorably leading to its end
The Cancer Stage of Capitalism
Author: John McMurtry
Publisher: Pluto Press
ISBN: 9780745313474
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 328
Book Description
In this bold new look at the recent uncontrolled spread of global capitalism, John McMurtry, professor of philosophy at the University of Guelph, develops the metaphor of modern capitalism as a cancer. Its invasive growth, he argues, threatens to break down our society's immune system and--if not soon restrained--could reverse all the progress that has been made toward social equity and stability. On every continent, in every state, there are indicators of profound economic and environmental collapse. From the lands of indigenous communities to the currency markets of Asia, from the ocean floors to the ozone layer, the collapse is all-encompassing and deep-reaching. John McMurtry traces the causes of this global disorder back to the mutating assumptions of market theory that now govern the world’s economy. He diagnoses the malaise as a pathologist would a biological cancer, tracking the delinked circuits of the global system’s monetised growth as a carcinogenic disorder at the social level of life-organization. In the wide-lensed tradition of Adam Smith, Marx and Keynes, McMurtry cuts across academic disciplines and boundaries to penetrate the inner logic of the system’s problems. Far from pessimistic, he argues that the way out of the global crisis is to be found in an evolving substructure of history which provides a common ground of resolution across ethnic and national divisions. Reaching beyond conventional textbooks, this fascinating study offers a new paradigm which is accessible to intelligent citizens the world over.
Publisher: Pluto Press
ISBN: 9780745313474
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 328
Book Description
In this bold new look at the recent uncontrolled spread of global capitalism, John McMurtry, professor of philosophy at the University of Guelph, develops the metaphor of modern capitalism as a cancer. Its invasive growth, he argues, threatens to break down our society's immune system and--if not soon restrained--could reverse all the progress that has been made toward social equity and stability. On every continent, in every state, there are indicators of profound economic and environmental collapse. From the lands of indigenous communities to the currency markets of Asia, from the ocean floors to the ozone layer, the collapse is all-encompassing and deep-reaching. John McMurtry traces the causes of this global disorder back to the mutating assumptions of market theory that now govern the world’s economy. He diagnoses the malaise as a pathologist would a biological cancer, tracking the delinked circuits of the global system’s monetised growth as a carcinogenic disorder at the social level of life-organization. In the wide-lensed tradition of Adam Smith, Marx and Keynes, McMurtry cuts across academic disciplines and boundaries to penetrate the inner logic of the system’s problems. Far from pessimistic, he argues that the way out of the global crisis is to be found in an evolving substructure of history which provides a common ground of resolution across ethnic and national divisions. Reaching beyond conventional textbooks, this fascinating study offers a new paradigm which is accessible to intelligent citizens the world over.
State of Crisis
Author: Zygmunt Bauman
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0745685293
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 151
Book Description
Today we hear much talk of crisis and comparisons are often made with the Great Depression of the 1930s, but there is a crucial difference that sets our current malaise apart from the 1930s: today we no longer trust in the capacity of the state to resolve the crisis and to chart a new way forward. In our increasingly globalized world, states have been stripped of much of their power to shape the course of events. Many of our problems are globally produced but the volume of power at the disposal of individual nation-states is simply not sufficient to cope with the problems they face. This divorce between power and politics produces a new kind of paralysis. It undermines the political agency that is needed to tackle the crisis and it saps citizens’ belief that governments can deliver on their promises. The impotence of governments goes hand in hand with the growing cynicism and distrust of citizens. Hence the current crisis is at once a crisis of agency, a crisis of representative democracy and a crisis of the sovereignty of the state. In this book the world-renowned sociologist Zygmunt Bauman and fellow traveller Carlo Bordoni explore the social and political dimensions of the current crisis. While this crisis has been greatly exacerbated by the turmoil following the financial crisis of 2007-8, Bauman and Bordoni argue that the crisis facing Western societies is rooted in a much more profound series of transformations that stretch back further in time and are producing long-lasting effects. This highly original analysis of our current predicament by two of the world’s leading social thinkers will be of interest to a wide readership.
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0745685293
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 151
Book Description
Today we hear much talk of crisis and comparisons are often made with the Great Depression of the 1930s, but there is a crucial difference that sets our current malaise apart from the 1930s: today we no longer trust in the capacity of the state to resolve the crisis and to chart a new way forward. In our increasingly globalized world, states have been stripped of much of their power to shape the course of events. Many of our problems are globally produced but the volume of power at the disposal of individual nation-states is simply not sufficient to cope with the problems they face. This divorce between power and politics produces a new kind of paralysis. It undermines the political agency that is needed to tackle the crisis and it saps citizens’ belief that governments can deliver on their promises. The impotence of governments goes hand in hand with the growing cynicism and distrust of citizens. Hence the current crisis is at once a crisis of agency, a crisis of representative democracy and a crisis of the sovereignty of the state. In this book the world-renowned sociologist Zygmunt Bauman and fellow traveller Carlo Bordoni explore the social and political dimensions of the current crisis. While this crisis has been greatly exacerbated by the turmoil following the financial crisis of 2007-8, Bauman and Bordoni argue that the crisis facing Western societies is rooted in a much more profound series of transformations that stretch back further in time and are producing long-lasting effects. This highly original analysis of our current predicament by two of the world’s leading social thinkers will be of interest to a wide readership.
As China Goes, So Goes the World
Author: Karl Gerth
Publisher: Hill and Wang
ISBN: 1429962461
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 346
Book Description
In this revelatory examination of the most overlooked force that is changing the face of China, the Oxford historian and scholar of modern Asia Karl Gerth shows that as the Chinese consumer goes, so goes the world. While Americans and Europeans have become increasingly worried about China's competition for manufacturing jobs and energy resources, they have overlooked an even bigger story: China's rapid development of an American-style consumer culture, which is revolutionizing the lives of hundreds of millions of Chinese and has the potential to reshape the world. This change is already well under way. China has become the world's largest consumer of everything from automobiles to beer and has begun to adopt such consumer habits as living in large single-occupancy homes, shopping in gigantic malls, and eating meat-based diets served in fast-food outlets. Even rural Chinese, long the laggards of consumerism, have been buying refrigerators, televisions, mobile phones, and larger houses in unprecedented numbers. As China Goes, So Goes the World reveals why we should all care about the everyday choices made by ordinary Chinese. Taken together, these seemingly small changes are deeper and more profound than the headline-grabbing stories on military budgets, carbon emissions, or trade disputes.
Publisher: Hill and Wang
ISBN: 1429962461
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 346
Book Description
In this revelatory examination of the most overlooked force that is changing the face of China, the Oxford historian and scholar of modern Asia Karl Gerth shows that as the Chinese consumer goes, so goes the world. While Americans and Europeans have become increasingly worried about China's competition for manufacturing jobs and energy resources, they have overlooked an even bigger story: China's rapid development of an American-style consumer culture, which is revolutionizing the lives of hundreds of millions of Chinese and has the potential to reshape the world. This change is already well under way. China has become the world's largest consumer of everything from automobiles to beer and has begun to adopt such consumer habits as living in large single-occupancy homes, shopping in gigantic malls, and eating meat-based diets served in fast-food outlets. Even rural Chinese, long the laggards of consumerism, have been buying refrigerators, televisions, mobile phones, and larger houses in unprecedented numbers. As China Goes, So Goes the World reveals why we should all care about the everyday choices made by ordinary Chinese. Taken together, these seemingly small changes are deeper and more profound than the headline-grabbing stories on military budgets, carbon emissions, or trade disputes.
Solidarity Economics
Author: Manuel Pastor
Publisher: Polity
ISBN: 9781509544073
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 208
Book Description
Traditional economics is built on the assumption of self-interested individuals seeking to maximize personal gain. This is far from the whole story, however: sharing, caring and a desire to uphold the collective good are also powerful individual motives. In a world wracked by inequality, social divisions, and ecological destruction, can we build an alternative economics based on our mutual co-operation? In this book Chris Benner and Manuel Pastor invite us to imagine and create a new sort of solidarity economics – an approach grounded in our instincts for connection and community – and in so doing, actually build a more robust, sustainable, and equitable economy. They argue that our current economy is already deeply dependent on mutuality, but that the inequality and fragmentation created by the status quo undermines this mutuality and with it our economic wellbeing. They outline the theoretical framing, policy agenda, and social movements we need to revive solidarity and apply it to whole societies. Solidarity Economics is an essential read for anyone who longs for an economy that can generate prosperity, provide for all, and preserve the planet.
Publisher: Polity
ISBN: 9781509544073
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 208
Book Description
Traditional economics is built on the assumption of self-interested individuals seeking to maximize personal gain. This is far from the whole story, however: sharing, caring and a desire to uphold the collective good are also powerful individual motives. In a world wracked by inequality, social divisions, and ecological destruction, can we build an alternative economics based on our mutual co-operation? In this book Chris Benner and Manuel Pastor invite us to imagine and create a new sort of solidarity economics – an approach grounded in our instincts for connection and community – and in so doing, actually build a more robust, sustainable, and equitable economy. They argue that our current economy is already deeply dependent on mutuality, but that the inequality and fragmentation created by the status quo undermines this mutuality and with it our economic wellbeing. They outline the theoretical framing, policy agenda, and social movements we need to revive solidarity and apply it to whole societies. Solidarity Economics is an essential read for anyone who longs for an economy that can generate prosperity, provide for all, and preserve the planet.
Capitalism
Author: Arundhati Roy
Publisher: Haymarket Books
ISBN: 1608464296
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 121
Book Description
The “courageous and clarion” Booker Prize–winner “continues her analysis and documentation of the disastrous consequences of unchecked global capitalism” (Booklist). From the poisoned rivers, barren wells, and clear-cut forests, to the hundreds of thousands of farmers who have committed suicide to escape punishing debt, to the hundreds of millions of people who live on less than two dollars a day, there are ghosts nearly everywhere you look in India. India is a nation of 1.2 billion, but the country’s one hundred richest people own assets equivalent to one-fourth of India’s gross domestic product. Capitalism: A Ghost Story examines the dark side of democracy in contemporary India and shows how the demands of globalized capitalism have subjugated billions of people to the highest and most intense forms of racism and exploitation. “A highly readable and characteristically trenchant mapping of early-twenty-first-century India’s impassioned love affair with money, technology, weaponry and the ‘privatization of everything,’ and—because these must not be impeded no matter what—generous doses of state violence.” —The Nation “A vehement broadside against capitalism in general and American cultural imperialism in particular . . . an impassioned manifesto.” —Kirkus Reviews “Roy’s central concern is the effect on her own country, and she shows how Indian politics have taken on the same model, leading to the ghosts of her book’s title: 250,000 farmers have committed suicide, 800 million impoverished and dispossessed Indians, environmental destruction, colonial-like rule in Kashmir, and brutal treatment of activists and journalists. In this dark tale, Roy gives rays of hope that illuminate cracks in the nightmare she evokes.” —Publishers Weekly
Publisher: Haymarket Books
ISBN: 1608464296
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 121
Book Description
The “courageous and clarion” Booker Prize–winner “continues her analysis and documentation of the disastrous consequences of unchecked global capitalism” (Booklist). From the poisoned rivers, barren wells, and clear-cut forests, to the hundreds of thousands of farmers who have committed suicide to escape punishing debt, to the hundreds of millions of people who live on less than two dollars a day, there are ghosts nearly everywhere you look in India. India is a nation of 1.2 billion, but the country’s one hundred richest people own assets equivalent to one-fourth of India’s gross domestic product. Capitalism: A Ghost Story examines the dark side of democracy in contemporary India and shows how the demands of globalized capitalism have subjugated billions of people to the highest and most intense forms of racism and exploitation. “A highly readable and characteristically trenchant mapping of early-twenty-first-century India’s impassioned love affair with money, technology, weaponry and the ‘privatization of everything,’ and—because these must not be impeded no matter what—generous doses of state violence.” —The Nation “A vehement broadside against capitalism in general and American cultural imperialism in particular . . . an impassioned manifesto.” —Kirkus Reviews “Roy’s central concern is the effect on her own country, and she shows how Indian politics have taken on the same model, leading to the ghosts of her book’s title: 250,000 farmers have committed suicide, 800 million impoverished and dispossessed Indians, environmental destruction, colonial-like rule in Kashmir, and brutal treatment of activists and journalists. In this dark tale, Roy gives rays of hope that illuminate cracks in the nightmare she evokes.” —Publishers Weekly