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From Financial Crisis to Social Change
This edited collection critically engages with a range of contemporary issues in the aftermath of the North Atlantic financial crisis that began in 2007. From challenging the erosion of academic authority to the myth that parliamentary democracy is not worth engaging with, it addresses three interrelated questions facing young people today: how to reclaim our universities, how to revitalise our democracy and how to recast politics in the 21st century. This book emphasises the crucial importance of generational experience as a wellspring for progressive social change. For it is the young generations who have come of age in a world marred by crises that are at the forefront of challenging the status quo. With insight into new social movements and protests in the UK, Canada, Greece and Ukraine, this stimulating collection of works will be invaluable for those teaching, studying and campaigning for alternatives. It will also be of relevance to scholars in social movement studies, the sociology and anthropology of economic life, the sociology of education, social and political theory, and political sociology.
Alternative Societies
In a time of great gloom and doom internationally and of major global problems, this book offers an invaluable contribution to our understanding of alternative societies that could be better for humans and the environment. Bringing together a wide range of approaches and new strands of economic and social thinking from across the US, Mexico, Latin America, Europe, Asia, Middle East and Africa, Luke Martell critically assesses contemporary alternatives and shows the ways forward with a convincing argument of pluralist socialism. Presenting a much-needed introduction to the debate on alternatives to capitalism, this ambitious book is not about how things are but how they can be!
European Trade Unions in the 21st Century
Trade unions in Europe face a range of cross-cutting challenges. This includes the near-universal contraction in union membership; the related decline of traditionally highly unionised blue-collar industries; and the rise of automation, microprocessing, and digitalisation, which can make it cheaper for employers to invest in machines than to pay humans to work. The breakdown of the standard contract of employment and increasing rates of precarious work have further transformed the world of work. Taken together, this makes any collectivist vision of society, and the notion of solidarity upon which trade unionism is built, difficult to sustain. All this raises tough questions for trade unionis...
Prefiguring Utopia
Auroville in Tamil Nadu, South India, is an internationally recognized endeavour in prefiguring an alternative society: the largest, most diverse, dynamic and enduring of intentional communities worldwide. This book is a critical and insightful analysis of the utopian practice of this unique spiritual township, by a native scholar. The author explores how Auroville’s founding spiritual and societal ideals are engaged in its communal political and economic organization, as well as various cultural practices and what enables and sustains this prefiguratively utopian practice. This in-depth, autoethnographic case study is an important resource for understanding prefigurative and utopian experiments – their challenges, potentialities and significance for the advancement of human society.
Remaking Money for a Sustainable Future
Engaging imaginatively with the future of money, this book examines the real-life efforts of grassroots movements and activists from across the world who are reclaiming power by designing, organising and implementing complementary currencies. It will be of interest to all who are interested in constructing a more sustainable and just world.
The Future Is Now: An Introduction to Prefigurative Politics
This edited collection analyses the unique characteristics of urban gardens, worker-owned coops, ecological communities, occupied factories and other social movements to demonstrate what we can learn from them in order to rethink our economies and societies.
From Capital to Commons
In this stimulating analysis, Hannes Gerhardt outlines the potentials and challenges of a technology-enabled, commons-focused transition out of capitalism. The book shows that openness and cooperation are more beneficial in today's economies and societies than competition and profit-seeking. Driven by this conviction, Gerhardt identifies key imperatives for overcoming capitalism, from democratizing our digital, material, and financial economies to maintaining a robust, political mobilization. Using clear examples, he explores tactical openings through the lens of 'compeerism', a newly constructed framework that highlights the latent counter-capitalist possibilities, but also limits, of our emerging technological landscape. This is an accessible contribution to counter-capitalist discourse that is both inspiring and pragmatic for academics and activists alike.
Politics of the Gift
Drawing on French sociologist Marcel Mauss' influential theory of 'the gift', this book shows that trust is the only glue that holds societies together, and people are giving beings and they who can cooperate for the benefit of all when the logic of maximizing utility personal gain in capitalism is broken.
Revolution of Things
An exploration of the ways that shifting relations between materiality and language bring about different forms of politics in Tehran In Revolution of Things, Kusha Sefat traces a dynamism between materiality and language that sheds light on how the merger of the two permeates politics. To show how shifting relations between things and terms form the grounds for different modes of action, Sefat reconstructs the political history of postrevolutionary Iran at the intersection of everyday objects and words. Just as Islamism fashioned its own objects in Tehran during the 1980s, he explains, tyrannical objects generated a distinct form of Islamism by means of their material properties; everyday t...
Exit, Voice, and Solidarity
"Work has become more insecure and unequal. Corporate restructuring strategies hold a good share of the blame, as managers seek to cut costs and shift risk through downsizing, outsourcing, and intensifying performance management. Under what conditions do companies take alternative approaches to restructuring, that balance market demands for profits with social demands for high quality jobs? In Exit, Voice, and Solidarity, Doellgast argues that labor unions can play a central role in encouraging high road practices. But they face steep challenges where they lack strong and inclusive social institutions, based on high minimum standards and worker rights to participate in management decisions. ...
