Books

The Great Mindshift

Göpel, M. 2016. The Great Mindshift. How a New Economic Paradigmand Sustainability Transformations go Hand in Hand. Springer Sustainable development is the 21st Century’s wicked problem. After 40 years into this agenda have reversed only few unsustainable trends we hear the call for a paradigm shift, transformation, radical change or system innovations in order to finally change…

Organizing Hope

Ericsson, D. & Kostera, M. 2020. Organizing Hope. Narratives for a Better Future. Edward Elgar. Crumbling social institutions, disintegrating structures, and a profound sense of uncertainty are the signs of our time. In this book, this contemporary crisis is explored and illuminated, providing narratives that suggest how the notion of hope can be leveraged to…

Robotization of Work?

Czarniawska, B. & Jorges, B. 2020. Robotization of Work? Answers from Popular Culture, Media and Social Sciences. Edward Elgar. In this book, Barbara Czarniawska and Bernward Joerges examine the hopes and fears around work and job security inspired by automation, from the original coining of the term ‘robot’ to the present day media fascination. Have…

Better Business: How the B Corp Movement is Remaking Capitalism

CHRISTOPHER. MARQUIS. (2020). BETTER BUSINESS: How the B Corp Movement is Remaking Capitalism One Company at a Time. YALE University Press. Businesses have a big role to play in a capitalist society. They can tip the scales toward the benefit of the few, with toxic side effects for all, or they can guide us toward better,…

Imaginary Futures: From Thinking Machines to the Global Village

Barbrook, R. (2007). Imaginary futures: From thinking machines to the global village. Pluto Press. Author and University of Westminster lecturer Dr. Richard Barbrook demonstrates in Imaginary Futures how politics influenced the way the Internet is controlled today and calls upon all who are cyber-connected to use the Internet for taking revolutionary politics into their own hands, to create…

True Wealth: How and Why Millions of Americans are Creating a Time-rich, Ecologically Light, Small-scale, High-satisfaction Economy

Schor, J. B. (2011). True wealth: How and why millions of Americans are creating a time-rich, ecologically light, small-scale, high-satisfaction economy. Penguin. Sociologist Juliet B. Schor has thought for a long time about how we can leave the trap of working very long hours for paying the raising bills for things we do not really need…

Governing the Commons: The evolution of Institutions for Collective Action

Ostrom, E. (1990). Governing the commons: The evolution of institutions for collective action. Cambridge university press. “When individuals who have high discount rates and little mutual trust act independently, without the capacity to communicate, to enter into binding agreements, and to arrange for monitoring and enforcing mechanisms, they are not likely to choose jointly beneficial strategies…

The Public Value of the Social Sciences: An Interpretive Essay

Brewer, J. D. (2013). The public value of the social sciences: An interpretive essay. Bloomsbury. In The Public Value of the Social Sciences, the social sciences are under threat from two main sources. One is external, reflected in a global university crisis that imposes the marketization of higher education on the ancient practice of scholarship. The…

The Imaginary Institution of Society

Castoriadis, C. (1997). The imaginary institution of society. MIT Press. The Imaginary Institution of Society was first published in France in 1975. Castoriadis offers a brilliant and far-reaching analysis of the unique character of the social-historical world and its relations to the individual, to language, and to nature. He argues that most traditional conceptions of society and…

The Future We Choose: Surviving the Climate Crisis

Figueres, C., & Rivett-Carnac, T. (2020). The future we choose: Surviving the climate crisis. Knopf. In The Future We Choose, Christiana Figueres and Tom Rivett-Carnac–who led negotiations for the United Nations during the historic Paris Agreement of 2015–have written a cautionary but optimistic book about the world’s changing climate and the fate of humanity.The authors outline two…

Envisioning Real Utopias

Wright, E. O. (2010). Envisioning real utopias (Vol. 98). London: Verso. Rising inequality of income and power, along with recent convulsions in the finance sector, have made the search for alternatives to unbridled capitalism more urgent than ever. Yet few are attempting this task—most analysts argue that any attempt to rethink our social and economic relations is…

How Will Capitalism End?: Essays on a Failing System

Streeck, W. (2016). How will capitalism end?: Essays on a failing system. Verso Books. After years of ill health, capitalism is now in a critical condition. Growth has given way to stagnation; inequality is leading to instability; and confidence in the money economy has all but evaporated. In How Will Capitalism End?, the acclaimed analyst of contemporary…

Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think like a 21st-Century Economist

Raworth, K. (2017). Doughnut economics: seven ways to think like a 21st-century economist. Chelsea Green Publishing. Economics is the mother tongue of public policy. It dominates our decision-making for the future, guides multi-billion-dollar investments, and shapes our responses to climate change, inequality, and other environmental and social challenges that define our times. Pity then, or more…

Reimagining Capitalism in a World on Fire

Henderson, R. (2020). Reimagining Capitalism in a World on Fire. Hachette Book Group. Rebecca Henderson’s rigorous research in economics, psychology, and organizational behavior, as well as her many years of work with companies around the world, gives us a path forward. In Reimagining Capitalism in a World on Fire, she debunks the worldview that the…

Crises of Imagination, Crises of Power: Capitalism, Creativity and the Commons

Haiven, M. (2014). Crises of imagination, crises of power: Capitalism, creativity and the commons. Zed Books Ltd.. In this stirring call to arms, Max Haiven argues that capitalism has colonized how we all imagine and express what is valuable. Looking at the decline of the public sphere, the corporatization of education, the privatization of creativity, and…

The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time

Polanyi, K. (2001). The Great Transformation: The political and economic origins of our time. Beacon Press [1944]. The Great Transformation examines the social and political changes that took place in England during the rise of the market economy. One of the primary conclusions Karl Polanyi makes, and something that differentiates him from Keynes and Hayek, is that…

Oryx and Crake

Atwood, M. (2010). Oryx and Crake (Vol. 1). Vintage Canada. A dystopian book of fiction serving as a good wake up call on things to avoid/prevent as we move towards the future. Pigs might not fly but they are strangely altered. So, for that matter, are wolves and racoons.A man, once named Jimmy, now calls himself Snowman…

The 99 Percent Economy: How Democratic Socialism Can Overcome the Crises of Capitalism

Adler, P. S. (2019). The 99 Percent Economy: How Democratic Socialism can Overcome the Crises of Capitalism. Oxford University Press We live in a time of crises – economic turmoil, workplace disempowerment, unresponsive government, environmental degradation, social disintegration, and international rivalry. In The 99 Percent Economy, Paul S. Adler, a leading expert on business management, argues…

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