the origin of capitalism: a longer view (second edition)

Buy Cheap The Origin of Capitalism: A Longer View (Second Edition)

The author reminds us that capitalism is not a natural and inevitable consequence of human nature, nor is it simply an extension of age-old practices of trade and commerce.

In this original and provocative book Ellen Meiksins Wood reminds us that capitalism is not a natural and inevitable consequence of human nature, nor is it simply an extension of age-old practices of trade and commerce. Rather, it is a late and localized product of very specific historical conditions, which required great transformations in social relations and in the human interaction with nature.

This new edition is substantially revised and expanded, with extensive new material on imperialism, anti-Eurocentric history, capitalism and the nation-state, and the differences between capitalism and non-capitalist commerce. The author traces links between the origin of capitalism and contemporary conditions such as 'globalization', ecological degradation, and the current agricultural crisis.

.......
Readmore

Technical Details

See more technical details

the origin of capitalism: a longer view (second edition)

Buy Cheap The Origin of Capitalism: A Longer View (Second Edition)

The author reminds us that capitalism is not a natural and inevitable consequence of human nature, nor is it simply an extension of age-old practices of trade and commerce.

In this original and provocative book Ellen Meiksins Wood reminds us that capitalism is not a natural and inevitable consequence of human nature, nor is it simply an extension of age-old practices of trade and commerce. Rather, it is a late and localized product of very specific historical conditions, which required great transformations in social relations and in the human interaction with nature.

This new edition is substantially revised and expanded, with extensive new material on imperialism, anti-Eurocentric history, capitalism and the nation-state, and the differences between capitalism and non-capitalist commerce. The author traces links between the origin of capitalism and contemporary conditions such as 'globalization', ecological degradation, and the current agricultural crisis.

.......
Readmore

Technical Details

See more technical details

historical capitalism with capitalist civilization (third edition)

Buy Cheap Historical Capitalism with Capitalist Civilization (Third Edition)

A succinct introduction to the history of capitalism by the renowned political theorist.

In this short, highly readable book, the master of world-systems theory provides a succinct anatomy of capitalism over the past five hundred years. Considering the way capitalism has changed and evolved over the centuries, and what has remained constant, he outlines its chief characteristics. In particular, he looks at the emergence and development of a world market, and of labor; in doing so, he argues that capitalism has brought about immiseration in the Global South. As long as they remain within a framework of world capitalism, Wallerstein concludes, the economic and social problems of developing countries will remain unresolved.

Historical Capitalism, published here with its companion essay Capitalist Civilization, is a concise, compelling beginners’ guide to one of the most challenging and influential assessments of capitalism as a world-historic mode of production.

.......
Readmore

Technical Details

See more technical details

historical capitalism with capitalist civilization (third edition)

Buy Cheap Historical Capitalism with Capitalist Civilization (Third Edition)

A succinct introduction to the history of capitalism by the renowned political theorist.

In this short, highly readable book, the master of world-systems theory provides a succinct anatomy of capitalism over the past five hundred years. Considering the way capitalism has changed and evolved over the centuries, and what has remained constant, he outlines its chief characteristics. In particular, he looks at the emergence and development of a world market, and of labor; in doing so, he argues that capitalism has brought about immiseration in the Global South. As long as they remain within a framework of world capitalism, Wallerstein concludes, the economic and social problems of developing countries will remain unresolved.

Historical Capitalism, published here with its companion essay Capitalist Civilization, is a concise, compelling beginners’ guide to one of the most challenging and influential assessments of capitalism as a world-historic mode of production.

.......
Readmore

Technical Details

See more technical details

introducing capitalism: a graphic guide

Buy Cheap Introducing Capitalism: A Graphic Guide


Capitalism now dominates the globe, both in economics and ideology, shapes every aspect of our world and influences everything from laws, wars and government to interpersonal relationships. "Introducing Capitalism" tells the story of its remarkable and often ruthless rise, evolving through strife and struggle as much as innovation and enterprise. Tracing capitalism from its beginning to the present day, Dan Cryan and Sharron Shatil, alongside Piero's brilliant graphics, look at its practical and theoretical impact. They cover the major economic, social and political developments that shaped the world we live in, such as the rise of banking, the founding of America and the Opium Wars.This book explores the leading views for and against, including thinkers like Adam Smith, Karl Marx, Theodor Adorno and Milton Friedman, together with the connections between them and their historical context. Capitalism has influenced everything in the 21st-century world. For anyone who wants to gain a broad understanding of this fascinating subject, this book cuts across narrow academic lines to analyse an all-encompassing feature of modern life........
Readmore

Technical Details

See more technical details

nature unbound: conservation, capitalism and the future of protected areas

Buy Cheap Nature Unbound: Conservation, Capitalism and the Future of Protected Areas


This groundbreaking volume is the first comprehensive, critical examination of the rise of protected areas and their current social and economic position in our world. It examines the social impacts of protected areas, the conflicts that surround them, the alternatives to them and the conceptual categories they impose. The book explores key debates on devolution, participation and democracy; the role and uniqueness of indigenous peoples and other local communities; institutions and resource management; hegemony, myth and symbolic power in conservation success stories; tourism, poverty and conservation; and the transformation of social and material relations which community conservation entails. For conservation practitioners and protected area professionals not accustomed to criticisms of their work, or students new to this complex field, the book will provide an understanding of the history and current state of affairs in the rise of protected areas. It introduces the concepts, theories and writers on which critiques of conservation have been built, and provides the means by which practitioners can understand problems with which they are wrestling. For advanced researchers the book will present a critique of the current debates on protected areas and provide a host of jumping off points for an array of research avenues.......

Readmore

Technical Details

See more technical details

introducing capitalism: a graphic guide

Buy Cheap Introducing Capitalism: A Graphic Guide


Capitalism now dominates the globe, both in economics and ideology, shapes every aspect of our world and influences everything from laws, wars and government to interpersonal relationships. "Introducing Capitalism" tells the story of its remarkable and often ruthless rise, evolving through strife and struggle as much as innovation and enterprise. Tracing capitalism from its beginning to the present day, Dan Cryan and Sharron Shatil, alongside Piero's brilliant graphics, look at its practical and theoretical impact. They cover the major economic, social and political developments that shaped the world we live in, such as the rise of banking, the founding of America and the Opium Wars.This book explores the leading views for and against, including thinkers like Adam Smith, Karl Marx, Theodor Adorno and Milton Friedman, together with the connections between them and their historical context. Capitalism has influenced everything in the 21st-century world. For anyone who wants to gain a broad understanding of this fascinating subject, this book cuts across narrow academic lines to analyse an all-encompassing feature of modern life........
Readmore

Technical Details

See more technical details

nature unbound: conservation, capitalism and the future of protected areas

Buy Cheap Nature Unbound: Conservation, Capitalism and the Future of Protected Areas


This groundbreaking volume is the first comprehensive, critical examination of the rise of protected areas and their current social and economic position in our world. It examines the social impacts of protected areas, the conflicts that surround them, the alternatives to them and the conceptual categories they impose. The book explores key debates on devolution, participation and democracy; the role and uniqueness of indigenous peoples and other local communities; institutions and resource management; hegemony, myth and symbolic power in conservation success stories; tourism, poverty and conservation; and the transformation of social and material relations which community conservation entails. For conservation practitioners and protected area professionals not accustomed to criticisms of their work, or students new to this complex field, the book will provide an understanding of the history and current state of affairs in the rise of protected areas. It introduces the concepts, theories and writers on which critiques of conservation have been built, and provides the means by which practitioners can understand problems with which they are wrestling. For advanced researchers the book will present a critique of the current debates on protected areas and provide a host of jumping off points for an array of research avenues.......

Readmore

Technical Details

See more technical details

the new spirit of capitalism

Buy Cheap The New Spirit of Capitalism

A century after the publication of Max Weber’s The Protestant Ethic and the “Spirit” of Capitalism a major new work examines network-based organization, employee autonomy and post-Fordist horizontal work structures.

Why is the critique of capitalism so ineffective today? In this major work, the sociologists Eve Chiapello and Luc Boltanski suggest that we should be addressing the crisis of anticapitalist critique by exploring its very roots.

Via an unprecedented analysis of management texts which influenced the thinking of employers and contributed to reorganization of companies over the last decades, the authors trace the contours of a new spirit of capitalism. From the middle of the 1970s onwards, capitalism abandoned the hierarchical Fordist work structure and developed a new network-based form of organization which was founded on employee initiative and relative work autonomy, but at the cost of material and psychological security.

This new spirit of capitalism triumphed thanks to a remarkable recuperation of the “artistic critique”—that which, after May 1968, attacked the alienation of everyday life by capitalism and bureaucracy. At the same time, the “social critique” was disarmed by the appearance of neocapitalism and remained fixated on the old schemas of hierarchical production.

This book, remarkable for its scope and ambition, seeks to lay the basis for a revival of these two complementary critiques........
Readmore

Technical Details

See more technical details

capitalism at risk: rethinking the role of business

Buy Cheap Capitalism at Risk: Rethinking the Role of Business

The spread of capitalism worldwide has made people wealthier than ever before. But capitalism’s future is far from assured. The global financial meltdown of 2008 nearly produced a great depression. Economies in Europe are still teetering. Income inequality, resource depletion, mass migrations from poor to rich countries, religious fundamentalism—these are just a few of the threats to continuing prosperity.

How can capitalism be sustained? And who should spearhead the effort? Critics turn to government. In Capitalism at Risk, Harvard Business School professors Joseph Bower, Herman Leonard, and Lynn Paine argue that while governments must play a role, businesses should take the lead. For enterprising companies—whether large multinationals, established regional players, or small start-ups—the current threats to market capitalism present important opportunities.

Capitalism at Risk draws on discussions with business leaders around the world to identify ten potential disruptors of the global market system. Presenting examples of companies already making a difference, the authors explain how business must serve both as innovator and activist—developing corporate strategies that effect change at the community, national, and international levels.

Filled with rich insights, Capitalism at Risk presents a compelling and constructive vision for the future of market capitalism.

.......
Readmore

Technical Details

See more technical details

the rise of islamic capitalism: why the new muslim middle class is the key to defeating extremism (council on foreign relations books (free press))

Buy Cheap The Rise of Islamic Capitalism: Why the New Muslim Middle Class Is the Key to Defeating Extremism (Council on Foreign Relations Books (Free Press))


Renowned Middle East expert Vali Nasr's bestselling The Shia Revival profoundly transformed the debate about the Iraq War by unveiling how the Sunni-Shia rift was driving the insurgency. Now, in Forces of Fortune, Nasr presents a paradigm-changing revelation that will transform the understanding of the Muslim world at large. He reveals that there is a vital but unseen rising force in the Islamic world -- a new business-minded middle class -- that is building a vibrant new Muslim world economy and that holds the key to winning the cold war against Iran and extremists.

His groundbreaking analysis will utterly rewrite the wisdom about how the West can best contend with the threat of Islamic extremism, as well as about what we can expect from the Muslim world in the future. The great battle for the soul of Iran, the Arab world, Pakistan, and the entire region will be fought not over religion, Nasr reveals, but over business and capitalism.

With a deft combination of historical narrative and eye-opening contemporary on-the-ground reporting from his constant trips to the region, Nasr takes us behind the news, so dominated by the struggle against extremists and the Taliban, to introduce a Muslim world we've not seen; a Muslim world in which the balance of power is being reshaped by an upwardly mobile middle class of entrepreneurs, investors, professionals, and avid consumers -- who can tip the scales away from extremist belligerence. His insights into the true situations in Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and the crucial bright spots of Dubai and Turkey provide a whole new way of thinking about the troubles and prospects in the region.

Drawing on his in-depth knowledge of the Muslim world's tortured history, he offers a powerful reassessment of why both extremism and anti-Americanism took hold in the region -- not because of an inevitable "clash of cultures" or the nature of Islam, but because of the failure of this kind of authentic middle class to develop in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, largely due to the insidious effects first of colonialism and then of top-down dictatorial regimes, often supported by the West. He then shows that the devoutly Islamic yet highly modern Muslims of what he calls the "critical middle" -- in Iran, Pakistan, Turkey, and the stealth force behind the extraordinary growth of aggressively capitalist Dubai -- are finally the middle class the region has desperately needed. They are building a whole new economy -- as the middle classes did in both India and China -- and their distinctive blending of Islam and capitalism is the key to bringing about lasting reform and to defeating fundamentalism. They are people in the region the West can and must do business with.

Forces of Fortune offers a transformative understanding of the Muslim world and its possible future that is sure to spark lively debate and to play a vital role in bringing about a sea change in thinking about the conflict with Islam........
Readmore

Technical Details

See more technical details

zombie capitalism: global crisis and the relevance of marx

Buy Cheap Zombie Capitalism: Global Crisis and the Relevance of Marx

"Zombie Capitalism is both timely and hugely valuable. . . . This book is an essential read."—Socialist Review

While for most mainstream commentators the financial crisis that opened in 2007 signaled the failure of regulation and accountability, Chris Harman describes the ongoing economic turmoil as a byproduct of capitalism's inability to consider anything but the bottom line.

Chris Harman (1942–2009) was the editor of International Socialism and the author of numerous books, including A People's History of the World (Verso Books).

.......
Readmore

Technical Details

See more technical details

capitalism and the jews

Buy Cheap Capitalism and the Jews

The unique historical relationship between capitalism and the Jews is crucial to understanding modern European and Jewish history. But the subject has been addressed less often by mainstream historians than by anti-Semites or apologists. In this book Jerry Muller, a leading historian of capitalism, separates myth from reality to explain why the Jewish experience with capitalism has been so important and complex--and so ambivalent.

Drawing on economic, social, political, and intellectual history from medieval Europe through contemporary America and Israel, Capitalism and the Jews examines the ways in which thinking about capitalism and thinking about the Jews have gone hand in hand in European thought, and why anticapitalism and anti-Semitism have frequently been linked. The book explains why Jews have tended to be disproportionately successful in capitalist societies, but also why Jews have numbered among the fiercest anticapitalists and Communists. The book shows how the ancient idea that money was unproductive led from the stigmatization of usury and the Jews to the stigmatization of finance and, ultimately, in Marxism, the stigmatization of capitalism itself. Finally, the book traces how the traditional status of the Jews as a diasporic merchant minority both encouraged their economic success and made them particularly vulnerable to the ethnic nationalism of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Providing a fresh look at an important but frequently misunderstood subject, Capitalism and the Jews will interest anyone who wants to understand the Jewish role in the development of capitalism, the role of capitalism in the modern fate of the Jews, or the ways in which the story of capitalism and the Jews has affected the history of Europe and beyond, from the medieval period to our own.

.......
Readmore

Technical Details

See more technical details

how capitalism saved america: the untold history of our country, from the pilgrims to the present

Buy Cheap How Capitalism Saved America: The Untold History of Our Country, from the Pilgrims to the Present


Here’s the real history of our country. How Capitalism Saved America explodes the myths spun by Michael Moore, the liberal media, Hollywood, academia, and the rest of the anticapitalist establishment.

Whether it’s Michael Moore or the New York Times, Hollywood or academia, a growing segment in America is waging a war on capitalism. We hear that greedy plutocrats exploit the American public; that capitalism harms consumers, the working class, and the environment; that the government needs to rein in capitalism; and on and on. Anticapitalist critiques have only grown more fevered in the wake of corporate scandals like Enron and WorldCom. Indeed, the 2004 presidential campaign has brought frequent calls to re-regulate the American economy.

But the anticapitalist arguments are pure bunk, as Thomas J. DiLorenzo reveals in How Capitalism Saved America. DiLorenzo, a professor of economics, shows how capitalism has made America the most prosperous nation on earth—and how the sort of government regulation that politicians and pundits endorse has hindered economic growth, caused higher unemployment, raised prices, and created many other problems. He propels the reader along with a fresh and compelling look at critical events in American history—covering everything from the Pilgrims to Bill Gates.

And just as he did in his last book, The Real Lincoln, DiLorenzo explodes numerous myths that have become conventional wisdom. How Capitalism Saved America reveals:

• How the introduction of a capitalist system saved the Pilgrims from starvation
• How the American Revolution was in large part a revolt against Britain’s stifling economic controls
• How the so-called robber barons actually improved the lives of millions of Americans by providing newer and better products at lower prices
• How the New Deal made the Great Depression worse
• How deregulation got this country out of the energy crisis of the 1970s—and was not the cause of recent blackouts in California and the Northeast
• And much more

How Capitalism Saved America is popular history at its explosive best........
Readmore

Technical Details

See more technical details

how capitalism saved america: the untold history of our country, from the pilgrims to the present

Buy Cheap How Capitalism Saved America: The Untold History of Our Country, from the Pilgrims to the Present


Here’s the real history of our country. How Capitalism Saved America explodes the myths spun by Michael Moore, the liberal media, Hollywood, academia, and the rest of the anticapitalist establishment.

Whether it’s Michael Moore or the New York Times, Hollywood or academia, a growing segment in America is waging a war on capitalism. We hear that greedy plutocrats exploit the American public; that capitalism harms consumers, the working class, and the environment; that the government needs to rein in capitalism; and on and on. Anticapitalist critiques have only grown more fevered in the wake of corporate scandals like Enron and WorldCom. Indeed, the 2004 presidential campaign has brought frequent calls to re-regulate the American economy.

But the anticapitalist arguments are pure bunk, as Thomas J. DiLorenzo reveals in How Capitalism Saved America. DiLorenzo, a professor of economics, shows how capitalism has made America the most prosperous nation on earth—and how the sort of government regulation that politicians and pundits endorse has hindered economic growth, caused higher unemployment, raised prices, and created many other problems. He propels the reader along with a fresh and compelling look at critical events in American history—covering everything from the Pilgrims to Bill Gates.

And just as he did in his last book, The Real Lincoln, DiLorenzo explodes numerous myths that have become conventional wisdom. How Capitalism Saved America reveals:

• How the introduction of a capitalist system saved the Pilgrims from starvation
• How the American Revolution was in large part a revolt against Britain’s stifling economic controls
• How the so-called robber barons actually improved the lives of millions of Americans by providing newer and better products at lower prices
• How the New Deal made the Great Depression worse
• How deregulation got this country out of the energy crisis of the 1970s—and was not the cause of recent blackouts in California and the Northeast
• And much more

How Capitalism Saved America is popular history at its explosive best........
Readmore

Technical Details

See more technical details

the morality of capitalism: what your professors won\'t tell you

Buy Cheap The Morality of Capitalism: What Your Professors Won't Tell You


The second in the "What Your Professors Won't Tell You" series of essays on political economy, this collection includes thirteen essays. Authors include Nobel Prize winners Mario Vargas Llosa and Vernon Smith, Whole Foods Market CEO and founder John Mackey, and scholars from across the globe.
This book series is a project of the campus organization Students for Liberty and is intended to "offer the other side of the debate, the side that is rarely acknowledged to exist" in college courses on economics and political science. Students are encouraged to "read the best criticisms of free market capitalism ... Marx, Sombart, Rawls, Sandel" and then "wrestle with the arguments offered in this book, think about them, and make up your own mind."

The first book in this series The Economics of Freedom: Selected Works of Frederic Bastiat, includes a foreword by Nobel Prize economist F.A. Hayek........
Readmore

Technical Details

See more technical details

capitalism hits the fan: the global economic meltdown and what to do about it

Buy Cheap Capitalism Hits the Fan: The Global Economic Meltdown and What to Do About It


"With unerring coherence and unequaled breadth of knowledge, Rick Wolff offers a rich and much needed corrective to the views of mainstream economists and pundits. It would be difficult to come away from this... with anything but an acute appreciation of what is needed to get us out of this mess."
--Stanley Aronowitz, Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Urban Education, City University of New York

Capitalism Hits the Fan chronicles one economist's growing alarm and insights as he watched, from 2005 onwards, the economic crisis build, burst, and then dominate world events. The argument here differs sharply from most other explanations offered by politicians, media commentators, and other academics. Step by step, Professor Wolff shows that deep economic structures--the relationship of wages to profits, of workers to boards of directors, and of debts to income--account for the crisis. The great change in the US economy since the 1970s, as employers stopped the historic rise in US workers' real wages, set in motion the events that eventually broke the world economy. The crisis resulted from the post-1970s profit explosion, the debt-driven finance-industry expansion, and the sequential stock market and real estate booms and busts. Bailout interventions by the Federal Reserve and the US Treasury have thrown too little money too late at a problem that requires more than money to solve.

As this book shows, we must now ask basic questions about capitalism as a system that has now convulsed the world economy into two great depressions in 75 years (and countless lesser crises, recession, and cycles in between). The book's essays engage the long-overdue public discussion about basic structural changes and systemic alternatives needed not only to fix today's broken economy but to prevent future crises........
Readmore

Technical Details

See more technical details

global capitalism: its fall and rise in the twentieth century

Buy Cheap Global Capitalism: Its Fall and Rise in the Twentieth Century

"Magisterial history...one of the most comprehensive histories of modern capitalism yet written." —New York Times Book Review

In 1900 international trade reached unprecedented levels and the world's economies were more open to one another than ever before. Then as now, many people considered globalization to be inevitable and irreversible. Yet the entire edifice collapsed in a few months in 1914.

Globalization is a choice, not a fact. It is a result of policy decisions and the politics that shape them. Jeffry A. Frieden's insightful history explores the golden age of globalization during the early years of the century, its swift collapse in the crises of 1914-45, the divisions of the Cold War world, and the turn again toward global integration at the end of the century. His history is full of character and event, as entertaining as it is enlightening........
Readmore

Technical Details

See more technical details

global capitalism: its fall and rise in the twentieth century

Buy Cheap Global Capitalism: Its Fall and Rise in the Twentieth Century

"Magisterial history...one of the most comprehensive histories of modern capitalism yet written." —New York Times Book Review

In 1900 international trade reached unprecedented levels and the world's economies were more open to one another than ever before. Then as now, many people considered globalization to be inevitable and irreversible. Yet the entire edifice collapsed in a few months in 1914.

Globalization is a choice, not a fact. It is a result of policy decisions and the politics that shape them. Jeffry A. Frieden's insightful history explores the golden age of globalization during the early years of the century, its swift collapse in the crises of 1914-45, the divisions of the Cold War world, and the turn again toward global integration at the end of the century. His history is full of character and event, as entertaining as it is enlightening........

Readmore

Technical Details

See more technical details