Capitalism and Its Alternatives

Capitalism and Its Alternatives
Author: Chris Rogers
Publisher: Zed Books Ltd.
Total Pages: 194
Release: 2014-08-14
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1780327390

The global economic crisis has catalysed debates about the merits of capitalism as a system for organizing production, distribution and exchange. Political elites have argued that capitalism is not fundamentally pernicious or crisis-prone and can be successfully reformed with the right set of policies. Conversely, many have argued that a wholesale change of attitude towards the status and creation of wealth in contemporary society is required if crises of this kind are to be prevented in the future. In Capitalism and Its Alternatives, Chris Rogers provides a critical introduction to theories of capitalism and to the forms of its crises in historical and contemporary contexts, as well as reflecting on the practice of anti-capitalism and the ways that economic and social relations are shaped, reshaped and resisted. Crucially, the book asks two key questions: What alternatives to capitalism exist? And by what processes and through what institutions might they be achieved?

Capitalism, Alone

Capitalism, Alone
Author: Branko Milanovic
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 305
Release: 2021-09-07
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0674260309

For the first time in history, the globe is dominated by one economic system. Capitalism prevails because it delivers prosperity and meets desires for autonomy. But it also is unstable and morally defective. Surveying the varieties and futures of capitalism, Branko Milanovic offers creative solutions to improve a system that isn’t going anywhere.

Alternatives to Capitalism

Alternatives to Capitalism
Author: Robin Hahnel
Publisher: Verso Books
Total Pages: 189
Release: 2016-05-24
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1784785067

What would a viable free and democratic society look like? Poverty, exploitation, instability, hierarchy, subordination, environmental exhaustion, radical inequalities of wealth and power—it is not difficult to list capitalism’s myriad injustices. But is there a preferable and workable alternative? Alternatives to Capitalism: Proposals for a Democratic Economy presents a debate between two such possibilities: Robin Hahnel’s “participatory economics” and Erik Olin Wright’s “real utopian” socialism. It is a detailed and rewarding discussion that illuminates a range of issues and dilemmas of crucial importance to any serious effort to build a better world.

Capitalism and the Alternatives

Capitalism and the Alternatives
Author: Julius H. Grey
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
Total Pages: 297
Release: 2019-04-05
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0773557172

Thirty years after its global triumph, neo-liberalism is an abject failure. While its advocates have succeeded in convincing citizens that no other way is possible, that no left turn can be made without an economic collapse, they have not fulfilled their promises of a better world and the result has been more inequality, insecurity, and speculation. Many have sought solace in collective goals – nationalism, narrow religion, and gender politics – while notions of universal solidarity, idealism, and humanism have all but disappeared. In Capitalism and the Alternatives Julius H. Grey seeks to rehabilitate economic equality as a fundamental social goal built on universal values such as individualism, liberty, and even romanticism. To achieve this, he argues, it is necessary to move away from national, ethnic, religious, and even gender loyalties. The importance in each society of common culture and widely accepted moral values, Grey suggests, cannot be overstated. With its rampant political correctness, the modern left seems to have lost sight of morality and individual freedom. While most commentators stake out a partisan position in their criticism, Grey's notion of individual romanticism as the basis of a socially progressive society and his stress on free will, culture, classical education, and the right to dissent demand an overhaul of both the right and the left. A fundamental rethinking of the social, political, and economic foundations of modern industrial society, Capitalism and the Alternatives proposes freedom from identity, instead of communitarianism and tradition, as a condition for liberty and justice.

Socialism, Capitalism and Alternatives

Socialism, Capitalism and Alternatives
Author: Peter J. S. Duncan
Publisher: UCL Press
Total Pages: 254
Release: 2019-10-14
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1787353834

In 1989 the Berlin Wall came down. Two years later the Soviet Union disintegrated. The collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union discredited the idea of socialism for generations to come. It was seen as representing the final and irreversible victory of capitalism. This triumphal dominance was barely challenged until the 2008 financial crisis threw the Western world into a state of turmoil. Through analysis of post-socialist Russia and Central and Eastern Europe, as well as of the United Kingdom, China and the United States, Socialism, Capitalism and Alternatives confronts the difficulty we face in articulating alternatives to capitalism, socialism and threatening populist regimes. Beginning with accounts of the impact of capitalism on countries left behind by the planned economies, the volume moves on to consider how China has become a beacon of dynamic economic growth, aggressively expanding its global influence. The final section of the volume poses alternatives to the ideological dominance of neoliberalism in the West. Since the 2008 financial crisis, demands for social change have erupted across the world. Exposing the failure of neoliberalism in the United Kingdom and examining recent social movements in Europe and the United States, the closing chapters identify how elements of past ideas are re-emerging, among them Keynesianism and radical socialism. As those chapters indicate, these ideas might well have potential to mobilise support and challenge the dominance of neoliberalism.

Capitalist Globalization

Capitalist Globalization
Author: Martin Hart-Landsberg
Publisher: NYU Press
Total Pages: 223
Release: 2013-06
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1583673539

“Globalization,” surely one of the most used and abused buzzwords of recent decades, describes a phenomenon that is typically considered to be a neutral and inevitable expansion of market forces across the planet. Nearly all economists, politicians, business leaders, and mainstream journalists view globalization as the natural result of economic development, and a beneficial one at that. But, as noted economist Martin Hart-Landsberg argues, this perception does not match the reality of globalization. The rise of transnational corporations and their global production chains was the result of intentional and political acts, decisions made at the highest levels of power. Their aim – to increase profits by seeking the cheapest sources of labor and raw materials – was facilitated through policy-making at the national and international levels, and was largely successful. But workers in every nation have paid the costs, in the form of increased inequality and poverty, the destruction of social welfare provisions and labor unions, and an erratic global economy prone to bubbles, busts, and crises. This book examines the historical record of globalization and restores agency to the capitalists, policy-makers, and politicians who worked to craft a regime of world-wide exploitation. It demolishes their neoliberal ideology – already on shaky ground after the 2008 financial crisis – and picks apart the record of trade agreements like NAFTA and institutions like the WTO. But, crucially, Hart- Landsberg also discusses alternatives to capitalist globalization, looking to examples such as South America’s Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA) for clues on how to build an international economy based on solidarity, social development, and shared prosperity.

A World without Capitalism?

A World without Capitalism?
Author: Christian W. Chun
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 194
Release: 2021-12-15
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1000484467

In this book, Christian W. Chun examines the ways in which identities, discourses, and topographies of both capitalist and anti-capitalist imaginaries and realities are embodied in the everyday practices of people. A World without Capitalism? is a sociolinguistic ethnography that explores the heretofore limited research in applied linguistics and sociolinguistics on the discursive and materialized representations and enactments of capitalism. Engaging across disciplinary fields, including applied linguistics, ethnography, political economy, philosophy, and cultural studies, Chun investigates in ethnographic detail how capitalism does and does not pervade people’s everyday experiences. This book aims to further contribute to a much-needed understanding of how discourses operate in the co-constructions of capitalist and anti-capitalist imaginaries and instantiated realities and practices as narrated, lived, and embodied by people and material artifacts. This book is vital reading for students and researchers working in the fields of applied linguistics, discourse analysis, and cultural studies, as well as those interested in understanding capitalism and questioning how to live beyond it.

The Future of Capitalism

The Future of Capitalism
Author: Paul Collier
Publisher: HarperCollins
Total Pages: 369
Release: 2018-12-04
Genre: History
ISBN: 0062748661

Bill Gates's Five Books for Summer Reading 2019 From world-renowned economist Paul Collier, a candid diagnosis of the failures of capitalism and a pragmatic and realistic vision for how we can repair it. Deep new rifts are tearing apart the fabric of the United States and other Western societies: thriving cities versus rural counties, the highly skilled elite versus the less educated, wealthy versus developing countries. As these divides deepen, we have lost the sense of ethical obligation to others that was crucial to the rise of post-war social democracy. So far these rifts have been answered only by the revivalist ideologies of populism and socialism, leading to the seismic upheavals of Trump, Brexit, and the return of the far-right in Germany. We have heard many critiques of capitalism but no one has laid out a realistic way to fix it, until now. In a passionate and polemical book, celebrated economist Paul Collier outlines brilliantly original and ethical ways of healing these rifts—economic, social and cultural—with the cool head of pragmatism, rather than the fervor of ideological revivalism. He reveals how he has personally lived across these three divides, moving from working-class Sheffield to hyper-competitive Oxford, and working between Britain and Africa, and acknowledges some of the failings of his profession. Drawing on his own solutions as well as ideas from some of the world’s most distinguished social scientists, he shows us how to save capitalism from itself—and free ourselves from the intellectual baggage of the twentieth century.