Unjust Deserts

Unjust Deserts
Author: Gar Alperovitz
Publisher:
Total Pages: 248
Release: 2008
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN:

Warren Buffett is worth nearly $50 billion. Does he “deserve†all this money? Buffett himself will tell you that “society is responsible for a very significant percentage of what I’ve earned.†Unjust Deserts offers an entirely new approach to the wealth question. In a lively synthesis of modern economic, technological, and cultural research, Gar Alperovitz and Lew Daly demonstrate that up to 90 percent (and perhaps more) of current economic output derives not from individual ingenuity, effort, or investment but from our collective inheritance of scientific and technological knowledge: an inheritance we all receive as a “free lunch.†Alperovitz and Daly then pursue the implications of this research, persuasively arguing that there is no reason any one person should be entitled to that inheritance. Recognizing the true dimensions of our unearned inheritance leads inevitably to a new and powerful moral case for wealth redistribution—and to a series of practical policies to achieve it in an era when the disparities have become untenable.

Take Back the Center

Take Back the Center
Author: Peter S. Wenz
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 309
Release: 2012-08-24
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 026230502X

Reality-based arguments against right-wing fantasies: the case for reducing income inequality, rebuilding our infrastructure, investing in education, and putting people back to work. Midcentury America was governed from the center, a bipartisan consensus of politicians and public opinion that supported government spending on education, the construction of a vast network of interstate highways, healthcare for senior citizens, and environmental protection. These projects were paid for by a steeply progressive tax code, with a top tax rate at one point during the Republican Eisenhower administration of 91 percent. Today, a similar agenda of government action (and progressive taxation) would be portrayed as dangerously left wing. At the same time, radically anti-government and anti-tax opinions (with no evidence to support them) are considered part of the mainstream. In Take Back the Center, Peter Wenz makes the case for a sane, reality-based politics that reclaims the center for progressive policies. The key, he argues, is taxing the wealthy at higher rates. The tax rate for the wealthiest Americans has declined from the mid-twentieth-century high of 91 percent to a twenty-first-century low of 36 percent—even as social programs are gutted and the gap betweeen rich and poor widens dramatically. Ever since Ronald Reagan famously declared that government was the problem and not the solution, conservatives have had an all-purpose answer to any question: smaller government and lower taxes. Wenz offers an impassioned counterargument. He explains the justice of raising the top tax rates significantly, making a case for less income inequality (and countering society's worship of the wealthy), and he offers suggestions for how to spend the increased tax revenues: K-12 education, tuition relief, transportation and energy infrastructure, and universal health care. Armed with Wenz's evidence-driven arguments, progressives can position themselves where they belong: in the mainstream of American politics and at the center of American political conversations, helping their country address a precipitous decline in equality and quality of life.

Political Economy, Neoliberalism, and the Prehistoric Economies of Latin America

Political Economy, Neoliberalism, and the Prehistoric Economies of Latin America
Author: Ty Matejowsky
Publisher: Emerald Group Publishing
Total Pages: 346
Release: 2012-10-24
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1781900582

Continues on-going presentation of highly engaging anthropological research. This title contains a range of broad based and localized topics economic anthropologists that explore from various critical perspectives. It addresses questions of how political economy is articulated through processes of consumption, production, and evolution.

Nino and Me

Nino and Me
Author: Bryan A. Garner
Publisher: Threshold Editions
Total Pages: 384
Release: 2019-05-21
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1501181513

From legal expert and veteran author Bryan Garner comes a unique, intimate, and compelling memoir of his friendship with the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. For almost thirty years, Antonin Scalia was arguably the most influential and controversial Justice on the United States Supreme Court. His dynamic and witty writing devoted to the Constitution has influenced an entire generation of judges. Based on his reputation for using scathing language to criticize liberal court decisions, many people presumed Scalia to be gruff and irascible. But to those who knew him as “Nino,” he was characterized by his warmth, charm, devotion, fierce intelligence, and loyalty. Bryan Garner’s friendship with Justice Scalia was instigated by celebrated writer David Foster Wallace and strengthened over their shared love of language. Despite their differing viewpoints on everything from gun control to the use of contractions, their literary and personal relationship flourished. Justice Scalia even officiated at Garner’s wedding. In this humorous, touching, and surprisingly action-packed memoir, Garner gives a firsthand insight into the mind, habits, and faith of one of the most famous and misunderstood judges in the world.

The Tierra Solution

The Tierra Solution
Author: Frans C. Verhagen
Publisher: Cosimo, Inc.
Total Pages: 374
Release: 2012-05-01
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1616407328

"A visionary and immensely practical approach to reforming today's bubble finance and taming its global casino. Verhagen [...] illuminates the win-win solutions possible when we combine monetary transformation with low-carbon, renewable resource strategies and equitable approaches to sustainable development." -Hazel Henderson, President of Ethical Markets Media, author and creator of The Green Transition Scoreboard As climate change continues to threaten the earth and as the global financial crisis lingers, governments and communities need to take charge of their own and global monetary systems. Sustainability sociologist Frans Verhagen proposes a solution-the Tierra Solution-to repair the present global monetary, financial, and economic systems that enrich the few, impoverish the many, and imperil the planet. Verhagen calls for transformational changes in order to advance climate-resilient economic development. The Tierra Solution proposes: -A credit-based financial system governed by a Global Central Bank, -A banking system without the privilege of money creation, and most importantly, -A carbon standard for the international monetary system with the Tierra as the unit of account. The Tierra Solution is an in-depth and thought-provoking read that shows an innovative path for global citizens who want to combat climate change, the economic crisis and poverty, and for public officials, economists, international development experts, and climate scientists who want to be part of an integrated solution to the dual challenges of climate change and financial crises. "Whether you agree or disagree, The Tierra Solution challenges us with an innovative proposal. No tinkering here. Verhagen is out to lay a new foundation for environmental and climate justice, with an overhaul of the international monetary system that builds the cost of environmental degradation into economic calculations." -Rev. Arthur Simon, President Emeritus and founder of Bread for the World "This plan for a carbon-based international monetary standard that addresses both climate change and global economic inequities is bold, visionary, and truly transformative. It is a must-read for everyone who cares about the fate of the earth." -Sheila D. Collins, Professor of Political Science Emerita, William Paterson University FRANS C. VERHAGEN is a sustainability sociologist with a Ph.D. in the sociology of international development from Columbia University. He founded the Queens Green Party, the Riverside Church Ecology Task Force, and the Ecolinguistics Commission. He has worked around the world and online teaching environmental policies and sustainability.

Seeking Security

Seeking Security
Author: G R Sullivan
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 370
Release: 2012-04-13
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1847319297

Many academic criminal lawyers and criminal law theorists seek to resolve the optimum conditions for a criminal law fit to serve a liberal democracy. Typical wish lists include a criminal law that intervenes against any given individual only when there is a reasonable suspicion that s/he has caused harm to the legally protected interests of another or was on the brink of doing so. Until there is conduct that gives rise to a reasonable suspicion of criminal conduct by an individual, s/he should be allowed to go about his or her business free from covert surveillance or other forms of intrusion. All elements of crimes should be proved beyond any reasonable doubt. Any punishment should be proportionate to the gravity of the wrongdoing and when the offender has served this punishment the account should be cleared and good standing recovered. Seeking Security explores the gap between the normative aspirations of liberal, criminal law scholarship and the current criminal law and practice of Anglophone jurisdictions. The concern with security and risk, which in large part explains the disconnection between theory and practice, seems set to stay and is a major challenge to the form and relevance of a large part of criminal law scholarship.

Handbook of Community Well-Being Research

Handbook of Community Well-Being Research
Author: Rhonda Phillips
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 610
Release: 2016-12-10
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9402408789

This Handbook brings together foundational and leading-edge research exploring dimensions of improving quality of life in communities of place. Social indicators and other assessment techniques will be explored, including from the framework of community perspectives which is concerned with enhancing quality of life for community members. As part of this trans-disciplinary work, participation, engagement, and empowerment will be key concepts presented. Along with capacity building and service provision, these elements influence community well-being and will be considered along with subjective and objective assessment approaches. Researchers from around the globe share their work on this important topic of community well-being, bringing together a diverse array of disciplinary perspectives. Those working in the areas of public policy, community development, community and social psychology, urban and regional planning, and sustainable development will find this volume particularly useful for the array of approaches presented.

Preventive Justice

Preventive Justice
Author: Andrew Ashworth
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Total Pages: 380
Release: 2014-03-27
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0191021059

This book arises from a three-year study of Preventive Justice directed by Professor Andrew Ashworth and Professor Lucia Zedner at the University of Oxford. The study seeks to develop an account of the principles and values that should guide and limit the state's use of preventive techniques that involve coercion against the individual. States today are increasingly using criminal law or criminal law-like tools to try to prevent or reduce the risk of anticipated future harm. Such measures include criminalizing conduct at an early stage in order to allow authorities to intervene; incapacitating suspected future wrongdoers; and imposing extended sentences or indefinate on past wrongdoers on the basis of their predicted future conduct - all in the name of public protection and security. The chief justification for the state's use of coercion is protecting the public from harm. Although the rationales and justifications of state punishment have been explored extensively, the scope, limits and principles of preventive justice have attracted little doctrinal or conceptual analysis. This book re-assesses the foundations for the range of coercive measures that states now take in the name of prevention and public protection, focussing particularly on coercive measures involving deprivation of liberty. It examines whether these measures are justified, whether they distort the proper boundaries between criminal and civil law, or whether they signal a larger change in the architecture of security. In so doing, it sets out to establish a framework for what we call 'Preventive Justice'.

Sentencing and the Legitimacy of Trial Justice

Sentencing and the Legitimacy of Trial Justice
Author: Ralph Henham
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 425
Release: 2013-03-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1136657436

This book discusses the under-researched relationship between sentencing and the legitimacy of punishment. It argues that there is an increasing gap between what is perceived as legitimate punishment and the sentencing decisions of the criminal courts. Drawing on a wide variety of empirical research evidence, the book explores how sentencing could be developed within a more socially-inclusive framework for the delivery of trial justice. In the international context, such developments are directly relevant to the future role of the International Criminal Court, especially its ability to deliver more coherent and inclusive trial outcomes that contribute to social reconstruction. Similarly, in the national context, these issues have a vital role to play in helping to re-position trial justice as a credible cornerstone of criminal justice governance where social diversity persists. In so doing the book should help policy-makers in appreciating the likely implications for criminal trials of ‘mainstreaming’ restorative forms of justice. Sentencing and the Legitimacy of Trial Justice firmly ties the issue of legitimacy to the relevant context for delivering ‘justice’. It suggests a need to develop the tools and methods for achieving this and offers some novel solutions to this complex problem. This book will be a valuable resource for graduate students, academics, practitioners and policy makers in the field of criminal justice as well as scholars interested in socio-legal and cross-disciplinary approaches to the analysis of criminal process and sentencing and the development of theory and comparative methodology in this area.

American Amnesia

American Amnesia
Author: Jacob S. Hacker
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 464
Release: 2017-02-14
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1451667833

Introduction : prosperity lost -- Coming up short -- The great divide -- The trouble with markets -- How America got rich -- "An established and useful reality" -- American amnesia -- We're not in Camelot anymore -- This is not your father's party -- The modern robber barons -- A crisis of authority -- Conclusion : the positive-sum society.