The Shock Doctrine


Book Description

The bestselling author of No Logo shows how the global "free market" has exploited crises and shock for three decades, from Chile to Iraq In her groundbreaking reporting, Naomi Klein introduced the term "disaster capitalism." Whether covering Baghdad after the U.S. occupation, Sri Lanka in the wake of the tsunami, or New Orleans post-Katrina, she witnessed something remarkably similar. People still reeling from catastrophe were being hit again, this time with economic "shock treatment," losing their land and homes to rapid-fire corporate makeovers. The Shock Doctrine retells the story of the most dominant ideology of our time, Milton Friedman's free market economic revolution. In contrast to the popular myth of this movement's peaceful global victory, Klein shows how it has exploited moments of shock and extreme violence in order to implement its economic policies in so many parts of the world from Latin America and Eastern Europe to South Africa, Russia, and Iraq. At the core of disaster capitalism is the use of cataclysmic events to advance radical privatization combined with the privatization of the disaster response itself. Klein argues that by capitalizing on crises, created by nature or war, the disaster capitalism complex now exists as a booming new economy, and is the violent culmination of a radical economic project that has been incubating for fifty years.







Christian Economic Ethics


Book Description

What does the history of Christian views of economic life mean for economic life in the twenty-first century? Here Daniel Finn reviews the insights provided by a large number of texts, from the Bible and the early church, to the Middle Ages and the Protestant Reformation, to treatments of the subject in the last century. Relying on both social science and theology, Finn then turns to the implications of this history for economic life today. Throughout, the book invites the reader to engage the sources and to develop an answer to the volume's basic question.







A Research Agenda for Critical Political Economy


Book Description

Forward thinking and provocative, this Research Agenda demonstrates different approaches to the field from experts focusing on global and local, and historical and contemporary issues. Eminent global scholars examine a diverse selection of interdisciplinary themes, raising questions surrounding future research, offering examples and linking the theory to its implications for practice and policy.




General Theory Of Employment , Interest And Money


Book Description

John Maynard Keynes is the great British economist of the twentieth century whose hugely influential work The General Theory of Employment, Interest and * is undoubtedly the century's most important book on economics--strongly influencing economic theory and practice, particularly with regard to the role of government in stimulating and regulating a nation's economic life. Keynes's work has undergone significant revaluation in recent years, and "Keynesian" views which have been widely defended for so long are now perceived as at odds with Keynes's own thinking. Recent scholarship and research has demonstrated considerable rivalry and controversy concerning the proper interpretation of Keynes's works, such that recourse to the original text is all the more important. Although considered by a few critics that the sentence structures of the book are quite incomprehensible and almost unbearable to read, the book is an essential reading for all those who desire a basic education in economics. The key to understanding Keynes is the notion that at particular times in the business cycle, an economy can become over-productive (or under-consumptive) and thus, a vicious spiral is begun that results in massive layoffs and cuts in production as businesses attempt to equilibrate aggregate supply and demand. Thus, full employment is only one of many or multiple macro equilibria. If an economy reaches an underemployment equilibrium, something is necessary to boost or stimulate demand to produce full employment. This something could be business investment but because of the logic and individualist nature of investment decisions, it is unlikely to rapidly restore full employment. Keynes logically seizes upon the public budget and government expenditures as the quickest way to restore full employment. Borrowing the * to finance the deficit from private households and businesses is a quick, direct way to restore full employment while at the same time, redirecting or siphoning




Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium, and the Renewal of the Church


Book Description

Focuses exclusively on Evangelii Gaudium as interpreted from a variety of interdisciplinary and denominational perspectives, with a sharper focus on the ecclesiological as well as the ecumenical potentialities for the reform and renewal of the church contained within this reorientation and reappreciation of the church’s primary mission to evangelization in the modern world.




Contribution To The Critique Of The Concept Of Underdevelopment Of ECLAC


Book Description

Of Panamanian nationality, Dr. José E. Torres Ábrego, is a master's degree in Economics on Universidad de la Amistad de los Pueblos (Patricio Lumumba) from Moscow, a doctoral candidate for specialty in Theory of Development and History of Economics of University of Paris, and doctor in Political Sciences of Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (U.N.A.M). Among other charges employed in Mexico, he has been professor of the Faculty of Economy of the U.N.A.M. and the Division of Higher Studies of the Faculty of Political Sciences. Since 1983 he is a full professor at the Faculty of Economics of the Universidad de Panama where he teaches the subjects national economic problems, Economic policy, Public finance, Economic fundamentals and social sciences in Latin America, Research methodology, etc. He has been director of the Research and Postgraduate Department of the Faculty of Economics of the Universidad de Panama. In his non-teaching experience, it is important to note that he has been an Expert in Administrative and Financial Matters of the Banco Interamericano de (B.I.D) to advise small and medium enterprises; and advisor trade union organizations and professions. Has delivered and participated in multiple conferences and round tables, and has published countless articles and works in various national and international journals. Among his main works are Population, Economy and Society in Panama (Contribution to the critique of Panamanian historiography), in two volumes, Volume 2 of the Panamanian Culture Library; Editorial Universitaria, 2nd. edition, Panama, 2014; The major challenges posed by the reversal of Canal and its Adjacent Areas to Panama and World Trade; Editorial. edition, Panama, 1999; Contribution to the study of underdevelopment (from monoproduction to modern oligarchy), Editorial Universitaria, 3rd. edition, Panama, 1995. In the process of awareness of the objective reality arise certain concepts through which man fixate and express the proprieties, characteristics and links of the objects and phenomena’s of the outside world. The concepts that reflect the most important aspects, links and or characteristics of a field of phenomena’s constitute its categories. Each science possesses its own categories. In the case of the field of Theory of underdevelopment its categories arise during the first postwar period. After the Second World War, in publications of the United Nations began the utilization of the category underdeveloped to designate the specific-historical reality of the peripheral countries linked to the capitalist system. It was expressed, with this category, the set of properties, characteristics, links and relationships, generally-essential and specific, of the new phenomena that reached in the process of its evolution the point of its full maturity. It was the way, to say it in a different manner, that the thought was taking ownership of this new historical reality. To such a point did society become aware of the underdevelopment that innumerable dependencies arose state, international, academically and university wide by those overseeing the phenomenon.




Crisis System


Book Description

This book throws light onto the nature and causes of three different but strongly interconnected crises in contemporary societies worldwide: an economic crisis, an ecological crisis and a normative (moral and political) crisis. These crises are reflected in the profoundly inequitable distribution of wealth, resources and life opportunities around the world. If we follow the causal roots of these crises, we are led back to an inherent dynamic in the capitalist economic system itself, discursively expressed as neoclassical, mainstream economics. For instance, by conflating human needs with market demand, mainstream economics disregards the needs of those who do not have sufficient purchasing power, as well as any needs that cannot be quantified or monetised in some way. Mainstream economics also ignores the notion of natural limits. Furthermore, it seems that everything that is quantifiable is potentially for sale and this results in the substitution of nature, indigenous cultural traditions and various life forms with commodities and ‘human capital’. The latter is defined as the skills instrumental for continual economic growth. Besides critiquing the academic discipline of economics, this book also points to a number of dysfunctional and crisis-prone structures and practices of substantive economic life. It will be of interest to students and scholars working in philosophy, economics and environmental studies.




In the Days of Caesar


Book Description

In the Days of Caesar is a constructive political theology formulated in sustained dialogue with the Pentecostal and charismatic renewal one of the most vibrant religious movements at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Amos Yong here argues that the many tongues, practices, and gifts of renewal Christianity offer up new resources for thinking about how Christian community can engage and transform the social, political, and economic structures of the world. Yong has three goals here. First he seeks to correct stereotypes of Pentecostalism, both political and theological. Secondly he aims to provoke Pentecostals to reflect theologically from out of the depths of their own Pentecostalism rather than merely to adopt some framework for theological or political self-understanding. Finally Yong shows that a distinctively Pentecostal form of theological reflection is not a parochial activity but has constructive potential to illuminate Christian belief and practice. This book s engagement with political theology from a Pentecostal perspective is the first of its kind.