The Great Wave, Price Revolutions and the Rhythm of History
David Hackett Fischer
Oxford University Press: Records of prices are more abundant than any other quantifiable data, and span the entire range of history, from tables of medieval grain prices to the overabundance of modern statistics. Fischer studies this wealth of data, creating a narrative that encompasses all of Western culture. He describes four waves of price revolutions, each beginning in a period of equilibrium: the High Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and finally the Victorian Age. Each revolution is marked by continuing inflation, a widening gap between rich and poor, increasing instability, and finally a crisis at the crest of the wave that is characterized by demographic contraction, social and political upheaval, and economic collapse. The most violent of these climaxes was the catastrophic fourteenth century, in which war, famine, and the Black Death devastated the continent--the only time in Europe's history that the population actually declined.
Fischer also brilliantly illuminates how these long economic waves are closely intertwined with social and political events, affecting the very mindset of the people caught in them. The long periods of equilibrium are marked by cultural and intellectual movements--such as the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and the Victorian Age-- based on a belief in order and harmony and in the triumph of progress and reason. By contrast, the years of price revolution created a melancholy culture of despair.
Fischer suggests that we are living now in the last stages of a price revolution that has been building since the turn of the century. The destabilizing price surges and declines and the diminished expectations the United States has suffered in recent years--and the famines and wars of other areas of the globe--are typical of the crest of a price revolution. He does not attempt to predict what will happen, noting that "uncertainty about the future is an inexorable fact of our condition." Rather, he ends with a brilliant analysis of where we might go from here and what our choices are now. This book is essential reading for anyone concerned about the state of the world today.
Amazon: The Great Wave: Price Revolutions and the Rhythm of History [Paperback—1999]
Saturday, November 10, 2012
The End of Work
The End of Work: The Decline of the Global Labor Force and the Dawn of the Post-Market Era
Jeremy Rifkin
Wikipedia: In 1995, Rifkin contended that worldwide unemployment would increase as information technology eliminated tens of millions of jobs in the manufacturing, agricultural and service sectors. He predicted devastating impact of automation on blue-collar, retail and wholesale employees. While a small elite of corporate managers and knowledge workers would reap the benefits of the high-tech world economy, the American middle class would continue to shrink and the workplace become ever more stressful.
As the market economy and public sector decline, Rifkin predicted the growth of a third sector—voluntary and community-based service organizations—that would create new jobs with government support to rebuild decaying neighborhoods and provide social services. To finance this enterprise, he advocated scaling down the military budget, enacting a value added tax on nonessential goods and services and redirecting federal and state funds to provide a "social wage" in lieu of welfare payments to third-sector workers.
Amazon: The End of Work: The Decline of the Global Labor Force and the Dawn of the Post-Market Era [Paperback—1996, 2004]
An analysis of the potentially catastrophic implications of the growing worldwide unemployment crisis explains how we can avoid economic collapse, create conditions for a new more humane social order, and redefine the role of the individual in the new society. Reprint.
Jeremy Rifkin
Wikipedia: In 1995, Rifkin contended that worldwide unemployment would increase as information technology eliminated tens of millions of jobs in the manufacturing, agricultural and service sectors. He predicted devastating impact of automation on blue-collar, retail and wholesale employees. While a small elite of corporate managers and knowledge workers would reap the benefits of the high-tech world economy, the American middle class would continue to shrink and the workplace become ever more stressful.
As the market economy and public sector decline, Rifkin predicted the growth of a third sector—voluntary and community-based service organizations—that would create new jobs with government support to rebuild decaying neighborhoods and provide social services. To finance this enterprise, he advocated scaling down the military budget, enacting a value added tax on nonessential goods and services and redirecting federal and state funds to provide a "social wage" in lieu of welfare payments to third-sector workers.
Amazon: The End of Work: The Decline of the Global Labor Force and the Dawn of the Post-Market Era [Paperback—1996, 2004]
An analysis of the potentially catastrophic implications of the growing worldwide unemployment crisis explains how we can avoid economic collapse, create conditions for a new more humane social order, and redefine the role of the individual in the new society. Reprint.
Silent Spring
Silent Spring
Rachel Carson
Wikipedia: Silent Spring is a book written by Rachel Carson and published by Houghton Mifflin on September 27, 1962. The book is widely credited with helping launch the contemporary American environmental movement.
The New Yorker started serializing Silent Spring in June 1962, and it was published in book form (with illustrations by Lois and Louis Darling) by Houghton Mifflin on Sept. 27. When the book Silent Spring was published, Rachel Carson was already a well-known writer on natural history, but had not previously been a social critic. The book was widely read—especially after its selection by the Book-of-the-Month Club and the New York Times best-seller list—and inspired widespread public concerns with pesticides and pollution of the environment. Silent Spring facilitated the ban of the pesticide DDT in 1972 in the United States.
The book documented detrimental effects of pesticides on the environment, particularly on birds. Carson accused the chemical industry of spreading disinformation, and public officials of accepting industry claims uncritically.
Amazon: Silent Spring [Paperback—2002]
Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring was first published in three serialized excerpts in the New Yorker in June of 1962. The book appeared in September of that year and the outcry that followed its publication forced the banning of DDT and spurred revolutionary changes in the laws affecting our air, land, and water. Carson’s passionate concern for the future of our planet reverberated powerfully throughout the world, and her eloquent book was instrumental in launching the environmental movement. It is without question one of the landmark books of the twentieth century.
In 2012 we invite you to join us in celebrating the 50th anniversary of the publication of this great work.
Rachel Carson
Wikipedia: Silent Spring is a book written by Rachel Carson and published by Houghton Mifflin on September 27, 1962. The book is widely credited with helping launch the contemporary American environmental movement.
The New Yorker started serializing Silent Spring in June 1962, and it was published in book form (with illustrations by Lois and Louis Darling) by Houghton Mifflin on Sept. 27. When the book Silent Spring was published, Rachel Carson was already a well-known writer on natural history, but had not previously been a social critic. The book was widely read—especially after its selection by the Book-of-the-Month Club and the New York Times best-seller list—and inspired widespread public concerns with pesticides and pollution of the environment. Silent Spring facilitated the ban of the pesticide DDT in 1972 in the United States.
The book documented detrimental effects of pesticides on the environment, particularly on birds. Carson accused the chemical industry of spreading disinformation, and public officials of accepting industry claims uncritically.
Amazon: Silent Spring [Paperback—2002]
Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring was first published in three serialized excerpts in the New Yorker in June of 1962. The book appeared in September of that year and the outcry that followed its publication forced the banning of DDT and spurred revolutionary changes in the laws affecting our air, land, and water. Carson’s passionate concern for the future of our planet reverberated powerfully throughout the world, and her eloquent book was instrumental in launching the environmental movement. It is without question one of the landmark books of the twentieth century.
In 2012 we invite you to join us in celebrating the 50th anniversary of the publication of this great work.
The Limits to Growth
The Limits to Growth
Donella H. Meadows, Dennis L. Meadows, Jørgen Randers, William W. Behrens III
Wikipedia: The Limits to Growth is a 1972 book about the computer modeling of unchecked economic and population growth with finite resource supplies.[1] It was commissioned by the Club of Rome and was first presented at the 3. St. Gallen Symposium. Its authors were Donella H. Meadows, Dennis L. Meadows, Jørgen Randers, and William W. Behrens III. The book used the World3 model to simulate[2] the consequence of interactions between the Earth's and human systems. The book echoes some of the concerns and predictions of Thomas Malthus in An Essay on the Principle of Population (1798).
The Club of Rome: 40 years 'Limits to Growth'
Limits to Growth is a study about the future of our planet. On behalf of the Club of Rome, Donnella Meadows, Dennis Meadows, Jorgen Randers and their team worked on systems analysis at Jay W. Forrester’s institute at MIT. They created a computing model which took into account the relations between various global developments and produced computer simulations for alternative scenarios. Part of the modelling were different amounts of possibly available resources, different levels of agricultural productivity, birth control or environmental protection. 12 million copies were distributed in 37 languages.
Most scenarios resulted in an ongoing growth of population and of the economy until to a turning point around 2030. Only drastic measures for environmental protection proved to be suitable to change this systems behaviour, and only under these circumstances, scenarios could be calculated in which both world population and wealth could remain at a constant level. However, so far the necessary political measures were not taken.
Amazon: The Limits to Growth: A Report for the Club of Rome's Project on the Predicament of Mankind [Paperback—1974]
Amazon: Beyond the Limits: Confronting Global Collapse, Envisioning a Sustainable Future [Paperback—1993]
Twenty years after their influential book, The Limits to Growth, was published to worldwide acclaim, the authors revise several scenarios of growth, concluding that the global industrial system has already overshot some of the Earth's vital ecological limits.
Amazon: Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update [Paperback—2004]
Donella H. Meadows, Dennis L. Meadows, Jørgen Randers, William W. Behrens III
Wikipedia: The Limits to Growth is a 1972 book about the computer modeling of unchecked economic and population growth with finite resource supplies.[1] It was commissioned by the Club of Rome and was first presented at the 3. St. Gallen Symposium. Its authors were Donella H. Meadows, Dennis L. Meadows, Jørgen Randers, and William W. Behrens III. The book used the World3 model to simulate[2] the consequence of interactions between the Earth's and human systems. The book echoes some of the concerns and predictions of Thomas Malthus in An Essay on the Principle of Population (1798).
The Club of Rome: 40 years 'Limits to Growth'
Limits to Growth is a study about the future of our planet. On behalf of the Club of Rome, Donnella Meadows, Dennis Meadows, Jorgen Randers and their team worked on systems analysis at Jay W. Forrester’s institute at MIT. They created a computing model which took into account the relations between various global developments and produced computer simulations for alternative scenarios. Part of the modelling were different amounts of possibly available resources, different levels of agricultural productivity, birth control or environmental protection. 12 million copies were distributed in 37 languages.
Most scenarios resulted in an ongoing growth of population and of the economy until to a turning point around 2030. Only drastic measures for environmental protection proved to be suitable to change this systems behaviour, and only under these circumstances, scenarios could be calculated in which both world population and wealth could remain at a constant level. However, so far the necessary political measures were not taken.
Amazon: The Limits to Growth: A Report for the Club of Rome's Project on the Predicament of Mankind [Paperback—1974]
Amazon: Beyond the Limits: Confronting Global Collapse, Envisioning a Sustainable Future [Paperback—1993]
Twenty years after their influential book, The Limits to Growth, was published to worldwide acclaim, the authors revise several scenarios of growth, concluding that the global industrial system has already overshot some of the Earth's vital ecological limits.
Amazon: Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update [Paperback—2004]
Collapse
Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed: Revised Edition [Paperback]
Jared Diamond
Amazon: Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed: Revised Edition [2005, 2011]
In Jared Diamond’s follow-up to the Pulitzer-Prize winning Guns, Germs and Steel, the author explores how climate change, the population explosion and political discord create the conditions for the collapse of civilization
Environmental damage, climate change, globalization, rapid population growth, and unwise political choices were all factors in the demise of societies around the world, but some found solutions and persisted. As in Guns, Germs, and Steel, Diamond traces the fundamental pattern of catastrophe, and weaves an all-encompassing global thesis through a series of fascinating historical-cultural narratives. Collapse moves from the Polynesian cultures on Easter Island to the flourishing American civilizations of the Anasazi and the Maya and finally to the doomed Viking colony on Greenland. Similar problems face us today and have already brought disaster to Rwanda and Haiti, even as China and Australia are trying to cope in innovative ways. Despite our own society’s apparently inexhaustible wealth and unrivaled political power, ominous warning signs have begun to emerge even in ecologically robust areas like Montana.
Brilliant, illuminating, and immensely absorbing, Collapse is destined to take its place as one of the essential books of our time, raising the urgent question: How can our world best avoid committing ecological suicide?
Jared Diamond
Amazon: Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed: Revised Edition [2005, 2011]
In Jared Diamond’s follow-up to the Pulitzer-Prize winning Guns, Germs and Steel, the author explores how climate change, the population explosion and political discord create the conditions for the collapse of civilization
Environmental damage, climate change, globalization, rapid population growth, and unwise political choices were all factors in the demise of societies around the world, but some found solutions and persisted. As in Guns, Germs, and Steel, Diamond traces the fundamental pattern of catastrophe, and weaves an all-encompassing global thesis through a series of fascinating historical-cultural narratives. Collapse moves from the Polynesian cultures on Easter Island to the flourishing American civilizations of the Anasazi and the Maya and finally to the doomed Viking colony on Greenland. Similar problems face us today and have already brought disaster to Rwanda and Haiti, even as China and Australia are trying to cope in innovative ways. Despite our own society’s apparently inexhaustible wealth and unrivaled political power, ominous warning signs have begun to emerge even in ecologically robust areas like Montana.
Brilliant, illuminating, and immensely absorbing, Collapse is destined to take its place as one of the essential books of our time, raising the urgent question: How can our world best avoid committing ecological suicide?
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