Climate change, biodiversity loss, pollution of land and water, land-use changes, lack of equality and other problems at local, national and global levels represent a challenge for economics as a social science. Mainstream neoclassical economics may be able to contribute to a more sustainable society but it has also played a dominant role in a period where problems have been aggravated. A pluralist and democratic view of economics is therefore very much warranted. This book presents a mult...

Ecological economics seeks to socially construct a political economics which will deal successfully with environmental problems and make the individual more visible in economic analysis. The author describes the principles, strategies and instruments of social change for key players - governmental agencies, business corporations, environmental and religious organizations and universities - and underlines their responsibilities in the market economy. Peter Soderbaum emphasizes the need to a...

This book is an authoritative and accessible guide to the pluralist movement threatening to revolutionise mainstream economics. Leading figures in the field explain why pluralism is a required virtue in economics, how it came to be blocked and what it means for the way we think about, research and teach economics.The first part of the book looks at how neoclassical economics gained its stranglehold, particularly in the United States, and how the social and intellectual underpinning...

This highly readable yet challenging book provides a critical examination of the failings of mainstream economics and the resultant environmental problems we are facing. Most importantly, it articulates what an alternative economics for sustainability would look like in both theory and practice.The book provides a brief history of economics and looks at the intersection between politics and the often hidden values embedded in economics. Also covered are the roles of individuals and...

Eliot Freidson has written the first systematic account of professionalism as a method of organizing work. In ideal-typical professionalism, specialized workers control their own work, while in the free market consumers are in command, and in bureaucracy managers dominate. Freidson shows how each method has its own logic requiring different kinds of knowledge, organization, career, education and ideology. He also discusses how historic and national variations in state policy, professional ...

Resilience has become a central concept in government policy understandings over the last decade. In our complex, global and interconnected world, resilience appears to be the policy ‘buzzword’ of choice, alleged to be the solution to a wide and ever-growing range of policy issues. This book analyses the key aspects of resilience-thinking and highlights how resilience impacts upon traditional conceptions of governance.This concise and accessible book investigates how resilience-thi...

"A comprehensive and highly readable review of the conceptual underpinnings of economic geography. Students and professional scholars alike will find it extremely useful both as a reference manual and as an authoritative guide to the numerous theoretical debates that characterize the field."- Allen J. Scott, University of California"Guides readers skilfully through the rapidly changing field of economic geography... The key concepts used to structur...

Work is, and always will be, a central institution of society. What makes a capitalist society unique is that it treats the human capacity to engage in labor as a basic commodity. This can be a source of dynamism, as when innovative firms raise wages to attract the best and brightest. But it can also be a source of misery, as when one’s skills are suddenly rendered obsolete by forces beyond one’s control.Jeffrey J. Sallaz asks us to rethink our basic assumptions about work. Drawing...

The primary aim of the text is to introduce the reader to the relationship between economics and ethics and to the application of economic ethics in the evaluation of the market. The reader will gain insight into:The ethical and methodological strategy of economics and criticism of the core assumptions that underpin the economic defence of free market operation.The characteristics of different ethical theories (utilitarianism, duty and rights ethics, justice and vir...

The Handbook of Economic Sociology, Second Edition is the most comprehensive and up-to-date treatment of economic sociology available. The first edition, copublished in 1994 by Princeton University Press and the Russell Sage Foundation as a synthesis of the burgeoning field of economic sociology, soon established itself as the definitive presentation of the field, and has been widely read, reviewed, and adopted. Since then, the field of economic sociology has continued to grow by ...

"Brilliant... explains how the rhetoric of competition has invaded almost every domain of our existence."- Evgeny Morozov, author of To Save Everything, Click Here"A sparkling, original, and provocative analysis of neoliberalism... a distinctive account of the diverse, sometimes contradictory, conventions and justifications that lend authority to the extension of the spirit of competitiveness to all spheres of social life."- Profe...

The imperative of the twenty-first century is sustainability: to raise the living standards of the world's poor and to achieve and maintain high levels of social health among the affluent nations while simultaneously reducing and reversing the environmental damage wrought by human activity. Scholars and practitioners are making progress toward environmental and economic sustainability, but we have very little understanding of the social dimension of sustainability.This volume is an...