Capitalism And Democracy In The Third World

Analyzes and interprets political development theory from a critical Marxist perspective. The central theme is the emergence of a separate doctrine for political development in the wake of disillusionment with the prospects of building a universal theory, interpreted by the author as a transitional program for the installation and consolidation of capitalist regimes in the Third World. Topics include capitalism and democracy in the post-war period; the search for a theory of development; functionalism; political culture; and the comparative historical approach. Distributed by Books International. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

This book offers a comparative and thematic introduction to third world politics, placing it in historical, social and international context. The second edition has been expanded with new sections on East and South East Asia added to revised and updated coverage of Africa, Latin America and the Middle East. The authors all have lengthy experience of living in and writing about different regions of the Third World.

This book looks at the emergence of capitalism and democracy as systems of economic and political governance and considers how these two systems may be both mutually supportive and antagonistic. In mapping out the balance between capitalism and democracy, the book includes chapters on the theory and history of these systems that challenge the assumption that their spread will bring about a convergence of incomes either among countries or within them. Inequalities of income and power emerge as a major societal issue alongside poverty, and the book develops alternative societal models based upon the degree of inequality in wealth and power. Since 1980, Anglo-American style capitalism has been a cause of increased inequality in a number of rich countries and threatens to duplicate itself in many developing countries. The book argues that the increasing integration of markets (globalization) will not solve these problems of inequality, they require political solutions. The EU attempts one such solution, but it is not clear whether it will remain competitively viable. Meanwhile, increasing inequality is causing two serious problems for democratic societies: a move to the left and/or political instability in many developing countries and a rising tide of immigrants seeking to move from poor countries to rich.

The challenges to humanity posed by the digital future, the first detailed examination of the unprecedented form of power called "surveillance capitalism," and the quest by powerful corporations to predict and control our behavior. In this masterwork of original thinking and research, Shoshana Zuboff provides startling insights into the phenomenon that she has named surveillance capitalism. The stakes could not be higher: a global architecture of behavior modification threatens human nature in the twenty-first century just as industrial capitalism disfigured the natural world in the twentieth. Zuboff vividly brings to life the consequences as surveillance capitalism advances from Silicon Valley into every economic sector. Vast wealth and power are accumulated in ominous new "behavioral futures markets," where predictions about our behavior are bought and sold, and the production of goods and services is subordinated to a new "means of behavioral modification." The threat has shifted from a totalitarian Big Brother state to a ubiquitous digital architecture: a "Big Other" operating in the interests of surveillance capital. Here is the crucible of an unprecedented form of power marked by extreme concentrations of knowledge and free from democratic oversight. Zuboff's comprehensive and moving analysis lays bare the threats to twenty-first century society: a controlled "hive" of total connection that seduces with promises of total certainty for maximum profit -- at the expense of democracy, freedom, and our human future. With little resistance from law or society, surveillance capitalism is on the verge of dominating the social order and shaping the digital future -- if we let it.

Capitalism and the Third World is the first comprehensive assessment of dependency and world systems scholarship, and questions whether such theories offer a scientific basis for the study of international relations. Wil Hout skilfully compares the theories of dependency and world systems with their theoretical predecessors and competitors. In the first part of the book comparisons are made with traditional economic and neo-Marxist theories of imperialism, the liberal theory of international free trade, Prebisch's structuralism and modernisation theories. The second part analyses the writings of Andre Gunder Frank, Samir Amin, Johan Galtung and Immanuel Wallerstein, and tests three causal models derived from the writings of these scholars using quantitative macro-political and macro-economic data. This valuable study will be widely used for courses on international political economy and development economics. It will be of particular interest to those studying the political economy of North-South relations.

This book is novel and innovative, offering guidelines for theadvancement of developing countries, in the context of aneo-humanistic global economic-political order, involving theestablishment of autonomously governed functionally sustainablecommunities (FSCs), and promoting collective capitalism, partylesssocio-economic democracy and people-centered governance at thegrass-roots level.

The development of industrial capitalism and democracy in Europe and in the contemporary Third World. -- Europe's colonial past and "artificially" constructed states. -- Nationalism, the aristocracy, and the state. -- The erroneous class succession thesis. -- Dependency and development in Europe. -- Between feudalism and capitalism: industrial development in Europe before the world ward. -- The myth of European democracy before the world wars. -- Conclusions: Industrial capitalist development in comparative-historical perspective.

In this original study, Abbas Pourgerami provides a comprehensive analysis of economic development and its relationship to political democracy. Evaluating statistical associations among social, economic, and political performance variables of 104 Third World countries, Pourgerami determines the prospects for democracy in the developing world. He demonstrates that economic well-being and political liberty are mutually reinforcing processes, challenging the traditional notion that economic progress necessitates sacrifices to democratic government.