Philosophy and the Problems of Work brings together for the first time important philosophical perspectives on the subjects of labor and work, spanning analytical and Continental traditions. This comprehensive collection engages contemporary debates in political theory and the philosophy of economics, including the perspectives of classical and welfare liberals, anarchists, and feminists, about the nature and meaning of work in modern technological society, the issues of meaningfu...

Since first published in 2002, After Capitalism has offered students and political activists alike a coherent vision of a viable and desirable alternative to capitalism. David Schweickart calls this system Economic Democracy, a successor-system to capitalism which preserves the efficiency strengths of a market economy while extending democracy to the workplace and to the structures of investment finance. In the second edition, Schweickart recognizes that increased globalization of companie...

Aside from Post Modernism, probably the hottest topic today among socialist scholars world-wide is Market Socialism. In this book, four leading socialist scholars present both sides of the debate--two for, and two against--highlighting the different perspectives from which Market Socialism has been viewed. Arguing in favor of Market Socialism are the philosophers David Schweickart and James Lawler. While opposing them and Market Socialism are the political economist Hillel Ticktin and the ...

Capitalism is hegemonic today not because it is the best we fallible humans can do but because it supports, and is supported by, special interests of immense power. This book argues that Economic Democracy, a competitive economy of democratically run enterprises that replaces capitalist financial markets with more suitable institutions, will be more efficient than capitalism, more rational in its growth, more democratic, more egalitarian, and less alienating.Against Capitalism is an ambiti...

Taking Socialism Seriously raises essential questions about what socialism is and how socialists can reach it by addressing a long list of potential quandaries. The contributions compiled by Anatole Anton and Richard Schmitt describe how socialism differs from a reformed and more humane form of capitalism. Various chapters discuss suitable forms of love and family in a socialist society and economic arrangements within a socialist system. They also break important new paths by calling for ...

In his 1964 CBC Massey Lectures C. B. Macpherson examines the rival ideas of democracy - the communist, Third World, and Western-liberal variants - and their impact on one another. He suggests that the West need not fear any challenge to liberal democracy if it is prepared to re-examine and alter its own values.

“A good society,“ Michael Lebowitz tells us, “is one that permits the full development of human potential.” In this slim, lucid, and insightful book, he argues persuasively that such a society is possible. That capitalism fails his definition of a good society is evident from even a cursory examination of its main features. What comes first in capitalism is not human development but privately accumulated profits by a tiny minority of the population. When there is a ...

The central paradox of the contemporary world is the simultaneous presence of wealth on an unprecedented scale, and mass poverty. Liberal theory explains the relationship between capitalism and poverty as one based around the dichotomy of inclusion (into capitalism) vs exclusion (from capitalism). Within this discourse, the global capitalist system is portrayed as a sphere of economic dynamism and as a source of developmental opportunities for less developed countries and their populations...

Getting Past Capitalism begins with a critique of the impacts of capitalism on human society and the environment. It looks in new ways at what capitalism is and at how it is reproduced. That investigation opens the door to fresh ways of looking at how to challenge it. Cynthia Kaufman looks at some fundamental questions about how capitalism comes to look like a system that is unbeatable, and how people come to have desires that work to reinforce capitalism. Kaufman uses this analysis to dev...

In this major new book, André Gorz expands on the political implications of his prescient and influential Paths to Paradise and Critique of Economic Reason. Against the background of technological developments which have transformed the nature of work and the structure of the workforce, Gorz explores the new political agendas facing both left and right. Each is in disarray: the right, torn between the demands of capital and the ‘traditional values’ of its supporters, can ...

Recent years have seen a surge of interest in Marxian political economy and especially Marx's great work Capital. 150 years after the book's original publication, are there readings of Capital that can help us find new pathways to progressive or revolutionary change?In this wide-ranging new volume, leading thinkers reflect on Capital's legacy, its limitations and its continuing relevance for today, highlighting issues including ecology, gender, race, labour, communism, the 'Third W...

Can the ivory tower rise above capitalism? Or are the humanities and social sciences merely handmaids to the American imperial order? The Capitalist University surveys the history of higher education in the United States over the last century, revealing how campuses and classrooms have become battlegrounds in the struggle between liberatory knowledge and commodified learning.Henry Heller takes readers from the ideological apparatus of the early Cold War, through the revolts of the ...