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Varieties of Alternative Economic Systems : Practical Utopias for an Age of Global Crisis and Austerity.

By: Contributor(s): Material type: TextSeries: Publisher: Oxford : Taylor & Francis Group, 2017Copyright date: ©2017Edition: 1st edDescription: 1 online resource (239 pages)Content type:
  • text
Media type:
  • computer
Carrier type:
  • online resource
ISBN:
  • 9781315397337
Subject(s): Genre/Form: DDC classification:
  • 335
Online resources:
Contents:
Cover -- Half Title -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Table of Contents -- List of illustrations -- Notes on contributors -- Preface -- Acknowledgements -- Chapter 1: Introduction to practical utopias -- Capitalism in crisis -- Socialism and environmentalism -- Notes -- References -- Part I: Socialism and ecology -- Chapter 2: Radical social democracy: a phase of transition to democratic socialism -- Post-capitalist society -- A different socialism -- Modes of transition -- Agents of transformation -- Preparing for the transition -- Notes -- References -- Chapter 3: Ecosocialism for a new era -- A new era? -- A new organic crisis? -- An ecosocialist society: sketch of a future utopia -- Acknowledgements -- References -- Chapter 4: The practical utopia of ecological community -- Introduction -- Method: historical institutionalism -- History -- Impact of financial vision -- Periodization -- New vision: one earth -- Context of existing global compacts -- Vision -- New model for "economic development" -- New model for the state -- New communities, new values -- Reintegration of household, agriculture, and commodity production -- Redesign of human settlement patterns -- New economic knowledge -- New state forms and global governance -- Conclusion -- References -- Chapter 5: Soviet planning and the labor-time calculation model: implications for 21st-century socialism -- Introduction -- Marx's planning based on labor-time calculation -- Lenin's Concept of Planning -- Trial of labor-time calculation planning during War Communism -- New Economic Policy and the struggle for planning -- Suppression of Marxian planning under the Stalinist administrative command economy -- Practices of planning based on labor-time calculation: material balances and input-output tables -- Implications for socialism for the 21st century -- Notes -- References.
Part II: Positive practicalities: leaping ahead -- Chapter 6: Provisioning under austerity: an evolutionary strategy for meeting human needs through the next millennium -- Care work as a necessary impurity in capitalism and post-capitalism -- Provisioning and post-familialism -- Notes -- References -- Chapter 7: World government is a necessity -- Introduction -- Some problems that require global attention -- A world of peaceful nation-states? -- High finance creates low life -- Basic incomes and property -- Conclusions -- Notes -- References -- Chapter 8: Alternative principles of labor: liberation from labor and liberation through work -- Introduction -- Marx's labor and estranged labor -- Two alternatives -- Alternative principles of labor -- Conclusion -- Notes -- References -- Chapter 9: Building a (very) new road to socialism? Cuba in the 21st century -- Why the updating was necessary -- Central changes in how the Cuban economy operates as a result of the reforms -- Relation of Cuba's economic reforms to its process of building socialism -- Conclusion -- Notes -- References -- Chapter 10: South African commoning of medicines and water beyond human rights rhetoric -- Introduction -- Rights with neoliberal and liberal framings -- Commoning medicines during the AIDS pandemic -- The right to the city and to the water commons in South Africa -- References -- Part III: New thinking towards a new future -- Chapter 11: Foundations and pathways to a progressive, socialist, eco-sustainable future -- Rethinking Marxism and socialism for the 21st century -- Ontology of socialism and economic principles for socialist material reproduction -- Debating pathways to practical socialist utopia -- References -- Chapter 12: Towards a posthumanist economics: the end of self-possession and the disappearance of Homo oeconomicus.
Introduction: bringing posthumanist thinking into economics -- Beyond established dichotomies: overcoming the fiction of self-ownership -- Deconstructing the Homo oeconomicus: expanding feminist economics -- Becoming other: transgressing anthropocentrism and human exceptionalism -- Towards a posthumanist economics: the possibility of a practical utopia -- Conclusion -- Notes -- References -- Index.
Summary: In this age of overlapping and mutually reinforcing deep global crises (global warming, mass migrations, militarism, inequality, selfish nation-states, etc.) there needs to be more realistic dialogue about radical alternatives to the status quo. Most literature produced heretofore has focused on the surface causes of these crises without much attention given to the sorts of major societal changes needed in order to deal with the crises we face. This book moves the debate beyond the critiques and the false or not fully-realised alternatives, to focus on what can be termed "practical utopias". The contributors to this book outline a range of practical proposals for constructing pathways out of the global economic, ecological and social crisis. Varieties of Alternative Economic Systems eschews a single blueprint but insists on dealing directly with the deep structural problems and contradictions of contemporary global capitalism. It provides a diverse array of complementary proposals and perspectives that can inform both theoretical thinking and practical action.
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Cover -- Half Title -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Table of Contents -- List of illustrations -- Notes on contributors -- Preface -- Acknowledgements -- Chapter 1: Introduction to practical utopias -- Capitalism in crisis -- Socialism and environmentalism -- Notes -- References -- Part I: Socialism and ecology -- Chapter 2: Radical social democracy: a phase of transition to democratic socialism -- Post-capitalist society -- A different socialism -- Modes of transition -- Agents of transformation -- Preparing for the transition -- Notes -- References -- Chapter 3: Ecosocialism for a new era -- A new era? -- A new organic crisis? -- An ecosocialist society: sketch of a future utopia -- Acknowledgements -- References -- Chapter 4: The practical utopia of ecological community -- Introduction -- Method: historical institutionalism -- History -- Impact of financial vision -- Periodization -- New vision: one earth -- Context of existing global compacts -- Vision -- New model for "economic development" -- New model for the state -- New communities, new values -- Reintegration of household, agriculture, and commodity production -- Redesign of human settlement patterns -- New economic knowledge -- New state forms and global governance -- Conclusion -- References -- Chapter 5: Soviet planning and the labor-time calculation model: implications for 21st-century socialism -- Introduction -- Marx's planning based on labor-time calculation -- Lenin's Concept of Planning -- Trial of labor-time calculation planning during War Communism -- New Economic Policy and the struggle for planning -- Suppression of Marxian planning under the Stalinist administrative command economy -- Practices of planning based on labor-time calculation: material balances and input-output tables -- Implications for socialism for the 21st century -- Notes -- References.

Part II: Positive practicalities: leaping ahead -- Chapter 6: Provisioning under austerity: an evolutionary strategy for meeting human needs through the next millennium -- Care work as a necessary impurity in capitalism and post-capitalism -- Provisioning and post-familialism -- Notes -- References -- Chapter 7: World government is a necessity -- Introduction -- Some problems that require global attention -- A world of peaceful nation-states? -- High finance creates low life -- Basic incomes and property -- Conclusions -- Notes -- References -- Chapter 8: Alternative principles of labor: liberation from labor and liberation through work -- Introduction -- Marx's labor and estranged labor -- Two alternatives -- Alternative principles of labor -- Conclusion -- Notes -- References -- Chapter 9: Building a (very) new road to socialism? Cuba in the 21st century -- Why the updating was necessary -- Central changes in how the Cuban economy operates as a result of the reforms -- Relation of Cuba's economic reforms to its process of building socialism -- Conclusion -- Notes -- References -- Chapter 10: South African commoning of medicines and water beyond human rights rhetoric -- Introduction -- Rights with neoliberal and liberal framings -- Commoning medicines during the AIDS pandemic -- The right to the city and to the water commons in South Africa -- References -- Part III: New thinking towards a new future -- Chapter 11: Foundations and pathways to a progressive, socialist, eco-sustainable future -- Rethinking Marxism and socialism for the 21st century -- Ontology of socialism and economic principles for socialist material reproduction -- Debating pathways to practical socialist utopia -- References -- Chapter 12: Towards a posthumanist economics: the end of self-possession and the disappearance of Homo oeconomicus.

Introduction: bringing posthumanist thinking into economics -- Beyond established dichotomies: overcoming the fiction of self-ownership -- Deconstructing the Homo oeconomicus: expanding feminist economics -- Becoming other: transgressing anthropocentrism and human exceptionalism -- Towards a posthumanist economics: the possibility of a practical utopia -- Conclusion -- Notes -- References -- Index.

In this age of overlapping and mutually reinforcing deep global crises (global warming, mass migrations, militarism, inequality, selfish nation-states, etc.) there needs to be more realistic dialogue about radical alternatives to the status quo. Most literature produced heretofore has focused on the surface causes of these crises without much attention given to the sorts of major societal changes needed in order to deal with the crises we face. This book moves the debate beyond the critiques and the false or not fully-realised alternatives, to focus on what can be termed "practical utopias". The contributors to this book outline a range of practical proposals for constructing pathways out of the global economic, ecological and social crisis. Varieties of Alternative Economic Systems eschews a single blueprint but insists on dealing directly with the deep structural problems and contradictions of contemporary global capitalism. It provides a diverse array of complementary proposals and perspectives that can inform both theoretical thinking and practical action.

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