Politics, Money, and Persuasion

Politics, Money, and Persuasion
Author: John Russon
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Total Pages: 227
Release: 2021-09-14
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0253057698

In Politics, Money, and Persuasion, distinguished philosopher John Russon offers a new framework for interpreting Plato's The Republic. For Russon, Plato's work is about the distinctive nature of what it is to be a human being and, correspondingly, what is distinctive about the nature of human society. Russon focuses on the realities of our everyday experience to come to profoundly insightful assessments of our human realities: the nature of the city, the nature of knowledge, and the nature of human psychology. Russon's argument concentrates on the ambivalence of logos, which includes reflections on politics and philosophy and their place in human life, how humans have shaped the environment, our interactions with money, the economy, and the pursuit of the good in social and political systems. Politics, Money, and Persuasion offers a deeply personal but also practical kind of philosophical reading of Plato's classic text. It emphasizes the tight connection between the life of city and the life of the soul, demonstrating both the crucial role that human cognitive excellence and psychological health play in political and social life.

Theology of Money

Theology of Money
Author: Philip Goodchild
Publisher: Duke University Press
Total Pages: 315
Release: 2009-06-22
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0822392550

Theology of Money is a philosophical inquiry into the nature and role of money in the contemporary world. Philip Goodchild reveals the significance of money as a dynamic social force by arguing that under its influence, moral evaluation is subordinated to economic valuation, which is essentially abstract and anarchic. His rigorous inquiry opens into a complex analysis of political economy, encompassing markets and capital, banks and the state, class divisions, accounting practices, and the ecological crisis awaiting capitalism. Engaging with Christian theology and the thought of Carl Schmitt, Georg Simmel, Karl Marx, Adam Smith, and many others, Goodchild develops a theology of money based on four contentions, which he elaborates in depth. First, money has no intrinsic value; it is a promise of value, a crystallization of future hopes. Second, money is the supreme value in contemporary society. Third, the value of assets measured by money is always future-oriented, dependent on expectations about how much might be obtained for those assets at a later date. Since this value, when realized, will again depend on future expectations, the future is forever deferred. Financial value is essentially a degree of hope, expectation, trust, or credit. Fourth, money is created as debt, which involves a social obligation to work or make profits to repay the loan. As a system of debts, money imposes an immense and irresistible system of social control on individuals, corporations, and governments, each of whom are threatened by economic failure if they refuse their obligations to the money system. This system of debt has progressively tightened its hold on all sectors and regions of global society. With Theology of Money, Goodchild aims to make conscious our collective faith and its dire implications.

Extortion

Extortion
Author: Peter Schweizer
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Total Pages: 261
Release: 2013
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0544103343

A major new expose of financial outrages in Washington, by the best-selling author and investigative journalist.

Bootleggers & Baptists

Bootleggers & Baptists
Author: Adam Smith
Publisher: Cato Institute
Total Pages: 215
Release: 2014-09-07
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1939709377

In Bootleggers & Baptists: How Economic Forces and Moral Persuasion Interact to Shape Regulatory Politics, economists Bruce Yandle and Adam Smith explain how money and morality are often combined in politics to produce arbitrary regulations benefiting cronies, while constraining productive economic activities by the general public. Yandle’s theory asserts that regulatory “bootleggers” are parties taking political action in pursuit of economic gain. Regulatory “Baptists” are parties participating in group action driven by an avowed higher moral purpose or desire to serve the public interest. By examining major regulatory activities including Obamacare, the recent financial crisis bailouts, climate change legislation, and rules governing “sinful” substances, Bootleggers & Baptists reveals that lasting regulations require moral and financial advocacy to survive the American political process. With countless regulatory initiatives on the horizon, this book is a must-read for all who are concern about over-regulation and government intrusion in our daily lives.

Win Bigly

Win Bigly
Author: Scott Adams
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 306
Release: 2017-10-31
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 0735219729

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER The New York Times bestseller that explains one of the most important perceptual shifts in the history of humankind Scott Adams was one of the earliest public figures to predict Donald Trump’s election. The mainstream media regarded Trump as a lucky clown, but Adams – best known as “the guy who created Dilbert” -- recognized a level of persuasion you only see once in a generation. We’re hardwired to respond to emotion, not reason, and Trump knew exactly which emotional buttons to push. The point isn’t whether Trump was right or wrong, good or bad. Adams goes beyond politics to look at persuasion tools that can work in any setting—the same ones Adams saw in Steve Jobs when he invested in Apple decades ago. Win Bigly is a field guide for persuading others in any situation—or resisting the tactics of emotional persuasion when they’re used on you. This revised edition features a bonus chapter that assesses just how well Adams foresaw the outcomes of Trump’s tactics with North Korea, the NFL protesters, Congress, and more.

Make 'Em Laugh & Take Their Money

Make 'Em Laugh & Take Their Money
Author: Dan S. Kennedy
Publisher: Morgan James Publishing
Total Pages: 267
Release: 2010-04-27
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 098285904X

A successful entrepreneur, speaker, and marketing copywriter shows you how to wield the persuasive, profit-making power of humor. People buy more and buy more happily when in good humor. Understanding humor and being able to effectively use it for your sales and persuasion purposes is a powerful advantage. Drawn from thirty years' experience as a popular professional speaker, author of thirteen books, columnist and advertising copywriter, Dan Kennedy looks at humor as an instrument of influence. Anyone who must speak or write to a public audience will find fodder here. Whether you deliver speeches, seminars, or group sales presentations; serve as toastmaster at events; or write advertisements, sales letters, or newsletters, this book offers thoughtful insight, practical strategies, and simple shortcuts to help you be confident and adept at being funny with a purpose. (Even if you're not all that funny.) Note: this book contains adult material and may not be suitable for minors. Or for the easily offended.

Pre-Suasion

Pre-Suasion
Author: Robert Cialdini
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 469
Release: 2016-09-06
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1501109812

The acclaimed New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller from Robert Cialdini—“the foremost expert on effective persuasion” (Harvard Business Review)—explains how it’s not necessarily the message itself that changes minds, but the key moment before you deliver that message. What separates effective communicators from truly successful persuaders? With the same rigorous scientific research and accessibility that made his Influence an iconic bestseller, Robert Cialdini explains how to prepare people to be receptive to a message before they experience it. Optimal persuasion is achieved only through optimal pre-suasion. In other words, to change “minds” a pre-suader must also change “states of mind.” Named a “Best Business Books of 2016” by the Financial Times, and “compelling” by The Wall Street Journal, Cialdini’s Pre-Suasion draws on his extensive experience as the most cited social psychologist of our time and explains the techniques a person should implement to become a master persuader. Altering a listener’s attitudes, beliefs, or experiences isn’t necessary, says Cialdini—all that’s required is for a communicator to redirect the audience’s focus of attention before a relevant action. From studies on advertising imagery to treating opiate addiction, from the annual letters of Berkshire Hathaway to the annals of history, Cialdini outlines the specific techniques you can use on online marketing campaigns and even effective wartime propaganda. He illustrates how the artful diversion of attention leads to successful pre-suasion and gets your targeted audience primed and ready to say, “Yes.” His book is “an essential tool for anyone serious about science based business strategies…and is destined to be an instant classic. It belongs on the shelf of anyone in business, from the CEO to the newest salesperson” (Forbes).

Economic Persuasions

Economic Persuasions
Author: Stephen Gudeman
Publisher: Berghahn Books
Total Pages: 238
Release: 2009-06-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1845459261

As the transition from socialism to a market economy gathered speed in the early 1990s, many people proclaimed the final success of capitalism as a practice and neoliberal economics as its accompanying science. But with the uneven achievements of the “transition”—the deepening problems of “development,” persistent unemployment, the widening of the wealth gap, and expressions of resistance—the discipline of economics is no longer seen as a mirror of reality or as a unified science. How should we understand economics and, more broadly, the organization and disorganization of material life? In this book, international scholars from anthropology and economics adopt a rhetorical perspective in order to make sense of material life and the theories about it. Re-examining central problems in the two fields and using ethnographic and historical examples, they explore the intersections between these disciplines, contrast their methods and epistemologies, and show how a rhetorical approach offers a new mode of analysis while drawing on established contributions.

Why We're Polarized

Why We're Polarized
Author: Ezra Klein
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 208
Release: 2020-01-28
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1476700397

ONE OF BARACK OBAMA’S FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2022 One of Bill Gates’s “5 books to read this summer,” this New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller shows us that America’s political system isn’t broken. The truth is scarier: it’s working exactly as designed. In this “superbly researched” (The Washington Post) and timely book, journalist Ezra Klein reveals how that system is polarizing us—and how we are polarizing it—with disastrous results. “The American political system—which includes everyone from voters to journalists to the president—is full of rational actors making rational decisions given the incentives they face,” writes political analyst Ezra Klein. “We are a collection of functional parts whose efforts combine into a dysfunctional whole.” “A thoughtful, clear and persuasive analysis” (The New York Times Book Review), Why We’re Polarized reveals the structural and psychological forces behind America’s descent into division and dysfunction. Neither a polemic nor a lament, this book offers a clear framework for understanding everything from Trump’s rise to the Democratic Party’s leftward shift to the politicization of everyday culture. America is polarized, first and foremost, by identity. Everyone engaged in American politics is engaged, at some level, in identity politics. Over the past fifty years in America, our partisan identities have merged with our racial, religious, geographic, ideological, and cultural identities. These merged identities have attained a weight that is breaking much in our politics and tearing at the bonds that hold this country together. Klein shows how and why American politics polarized around identity in the 20th century, and what that polarization did to the way we see the world and one another. And he traces the feedback loops between polarized political identities and polarized political institutions that are driving our system toward crisis. “Well worth reading” (New York magazine), this is an “eye-opening” (O, The Oprah Magazine) book that will change how you look at politics—and perhaps at yourself.