The Challenge of Progress


Book Description

Globalization has accelerated the process of social, political, cultural, and especially economic transformations since the 1990s. Examining the choices of modern society, Dahms and contributors ask: what are the social costs of “progress”?




The End of Progress


Book Description

While post- and decolonial theorists have thoroughly debunked the idea of historical progress as a Eurocentric, imperialist, and neocolonialist fallacy, many of the most prominent contemporary thinkers associated with the Frankfurt School—Jürgen Habermas, Axel Honneth, and Rainer Forst—have defended ideas of progress, development, and modernity and have even made such ideas central to their normative claims. Can the Frankfurt School's goal of radical social change survive this critique? And what would a decolonized critical theory look like? Amy Allen fractures critical theory from within by dispensing with its progressive reading of history while retaining its notion of progress as a political imperative, so eloquently defended by Adorno. Critical theory, according to Allen, is the best resource we have for achieving emancipatory social goals. In reimagining a decolonized critical theory after the end of progress, she rescues it from oblivion and gives it a future.




Alfred Marshall's Last Challenge


Book Description

This text presents Alfred Marshallâ (TM)s final, unfinished, and unpublished book. His main volume, Principles of Economics, was first published in 1890, and was, for a long period of time, the textbook par excellence on which generations of economists were trained. Despite its success and its importance, the book, in its eight editions, testifies to some extent to the failure of Marshallâ (TM)s original editorial project which should have consisted of multiple volumes and culminated with the publication of a final work on economic progress. Marshallâ (TM)s death in 1924 made it impossible to realize his project, but many notes written for it have survived. These notes, collected here, constitute a fundamental element in fully understanding the thought and perspectives of this great economist and in appreciating his great modernity and wisdom.




My Last Eight Thousand Days


Book Description

As founding editor of Creative Nonfiction and architect of the genre, Lee Gutkind played a crucial role in establishing literary, narrative nonfiction in the marketplace and in the academy. A longstanding advocate of New Journalism, he has reported on a wide range of issues—robots and artificial intelligence, mental illness, organ transplants, veterinarians and animals, baseball, motorcycle enthusiasts—and explored them all with his unique voice and approach. In My Last Eight Thousand Days, Gutkind turns his notepad and tape recorder inward, using his skills as an immersion journalist to perform a deep dive on himself. Here, he offers a memoir of his life as a journalist, editor, husband, father, and Pittsburgh native, not only recounting his many triumphs, but also exposing his missteps and challenges. The overarching concern that frames these brave, often confessional stories, is his obsession and fascination with aging: how aging provoked anxieties and unearthed long-rooted tensions, and how he came to accept, even enjoy, his mental and physical decline. Gutkind documents the realities of aging with the characteristically blunt, melancholic wit and authenticity that drive the quiet force of all his work.




75 Hard


Book Description

Do you lack confidence, grit, endurance, fortitude, self-esteem and all the other things that don't just make someone great, but successful in everything they do?What if you could completely transform yourself into someone who could do anything? I'm not talking about the change that happens for a week or a month or a year...but for your whole life? What would that legitimately and realistically be worth to you?Everybody tries to tell themselves that they are "special" or "great"...but it's just talk. It's not reality.This book tells you how to do that. It doesn't cost anything to execute this program...but it ain't free.I guarantee if you do exactly as I tell you to do it with no compromises and zero substitutions...you and your life will never be the same.-Andy Frisella




The Gauntlet


Book Description

This is the first volume of a planned collection of works by Arthur Penty, one of the leading English socio-economic writers of the early to middle 20th century. In the first volume, Penty covers some of the basics of his thinking on social and economic questions. He rigorously and thoroughly, but dispassionately, examines the assumptions and preconceptions behind both of the dominant modern economic systems, capitalism and socialism. He exposes the flaws in both approaches to economics, and proposes his alternative vision: a system of guilds for both workers and management, and a scheme of widespread property ownership. This is the first time that this collection of Penty's thought has been made available to modern readers. It will be of interest to anyone dealing with the philosophical and logical foundations of economic theory.







Meeting the Challenge


Book Description




Time, Progress, Growth and Technology


Book Description

This book addresses the current challenges of sustainable development, including its social, economic and environmental components. The author argues that we need to develop a new concept of time based on inter-generational solidarity, which focuses both on the long- and the short term. The evolution of man's notions of time are analyzed from prehistory to modern times, showing how these concepts shape our worldviews, our ecological paradigms and our equilibrium with our planet. Practical approaches to dealing with the major medium- and long term sustainability challenges of the 21st century are presented and discussed. This is a thought provoking and timely book that addresses the main global socioeconomic and environmental challenges facing the current and future generations, using science-based analysis and perspectives. It presents an historical narrative of the advent of progress, economic growth and technology, and discusses the structural changes needed to co-create sustainable pathways. It provides hope for our future on Earth, mankind’s common home. António Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations This is an amazing, almost mind-boggling book. The author takes a look at the true whole, i.e., the development of the human enterprise since its very beginning. This enterprise is evidently a possibility under the boundary conditions of cosmological dynamics and natural evolution, but evidently also a highly improbable one. It is all but a miracle that the Earth system in its present form exists and happens to support a technical civilization. Will this civilization last long, will it transform itself into something even more exceptional, or will it perish in disgrace? Santos dares to address these grandest of all questions, equipped with a unique transdisciplinary wisdom drawing on physics, cybernetics, geology, biology, economics, anthropology, history, and philosophy. And he dares to dive into the deepest abysses of thinking, where categorial monsters like time and progress lurk. Thereby, he takes us on fascinating journey, during which we perceive and grasp things we have never seen and understood before. One of the best essays I have ever read. John Schellnhuber, founding director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) and former chair of the German Advisory Council on Global Change




Progress Report


Book Description