Capitalism S Hidden Worlds

A dynamic social history of shadow capitalism spanning the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries Observers see free markets, the relentless pursuit of profit, and the unremitting drive to commodify everything as capitalism's defining characteristics. These most visible economic features, however, obscure a range of other less evident, often unmeasured activities that occur on the margins and in the concealed corners of the formal economy. The range of practices in this large and diverse hidden realm encompasses traders in recycled materials and the architects of junk bonds and shadow banking. It includes the black and semi-licit markets that allow wealthy elites to avoid taxes and the unmeasured domestic and emotional labor of homemakers and home care workers. By some estimates, the unmeasured economic activity that occurs within the household, informal market, and underground economy amounts to a substantial portion of all economic activity in the world, as much as 30 percent in some countries. Capitalism's Hidden Worlds sheds new light on this shadowy economic landscape by reexamining how we think about the market. In particular, it scrutinizes the missed connections between the official, visible realm of exchange and the uncounted and invisible sectors that border it. While some hidden markets emerged in opposition to the formal economy, much of the obscured economy described in this volume operates as the other side of the legitimate, state-sanctioned marketplace. A variety of historical actors—from fortune tellers and forgers to tax lawyers and black market consumers—have constructed this unseen world in tandem with the observable public world of transactions. Others, such as feminist development economists and government regulators, have worked to bring the darkened corners of the economy to light. The essays in Capitalism's Hidden Worlds explore how the capitalist marketplace sustains itself, how it acquires legitimacy and even prestige, and how the marginalized and the dispossessed find ways to make ends meet. Contributors: Bruce Baker, Eileen Boris, Eli Cook, Hannah Frydman, James Hollis, Owen Hyman, Anna Kushkova, Christopher McKenna, Kenneth Mouré, Philip Scranton, Bryan Turo.

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.

When one has a purpose in life, he shall find the means to achieve it and will not lose time to dream. It requires determination. God is the only who knows the destiny of each individual, and we are very grateful to Him for creating me with a black skin, and having filled me with His Spirit of truth and judgement to avoid doubt and fear, which are the basis of all the troubles. This Spirit has lived throughout our research and training in general. That life has no draft. Our research was painful because it is comparable to the pilgrimage of Jews on their way to the Promised Land. The rains that fell on me are similar to the deluge. Without realising it, the distance I travelled across countries in search of knowledge before writing this book can be compared to a world tour on foot. Writing a book is always the work of many hands and minds besides that of the authors. This book is dedicated to the Lord God, the Almighty source of all life. Special thanks to my lovely wife and children for their amazing contributions to make part of the hidden worlds visible to everyone. Thanks to the brothers and sisters in the Lord for their prayers, to friends, and to the extended family, near and far, for their valuable contributions to make the hidden worlds possible. Special thanks to Hannah Cordle, Ray Russell, Miles Cole, Sam Pochen, Wanza Maya, and Dr Milwood PhD., who have given me valuable suggestions throughout my book. In particular, thanks to the Kongolese diaspora interviewed and authors for their copyrights. To my uncles, it is time for me to say a big thank you. To my parents, with regret, Marie Pady and Simon Ngangoma, who sowed joy but are not alive to reap the harvest. May their souls rest in eternal peace! Vibrant tribute to all Kongolese heroes who died and continue to die for the nation: in memory of so many years we shared together in Kongo, we love and miss them deeply and will carry their spirit with us until the time we meet again.

Early in the twenty-first century, a quiet revolution occurred. For the first time, the major developed economies began to invest more in intangible assets, like design, branding, and software, than in tangible assets, like machinery, buildings, and computers. For all sorts of businesses, the ability to deploy assets that one can neither see nor touch is increasingly the main source of long-term success. But this is not just a familiar story of the so-called new economy. Capitalism without Capital shows that the growing importance of intangible assets has also played a role in some of the larger economic changes of the past decade, including the growth in economic inequality and the stagnation of productivity. Jonathan Haskel and Stian Westlake explore the unusual economic characteristics of intangible investment and discuss how an economy rich in intangibles is fundamentally different from one based on tangibles. Capitalism without Capital concludes by outlining how managers, investors, and policymakers can exploit the characteristics of an intangible age to grow their businesses, portfolios, and economies.

Through these two books I want to show you as much as possible the completely blueprint where I've worked on for years. It's my library, a collection from which I work, and the many documents that I now use as evidence. This book is a collection of quotations from many books, magazines, newspapers, internet documents and reports from others. Therefore I see this book as a manual / reference book for those interested. It's important to me that finally there is a book where everything that is concealed for us for centuries, is at a glance. What you do with the information and how much it is worth to you to know these things is up to you. Here I simply put those pieces that in my eyes came closest to the truth, and which fitted together like a puzzle. The past has big secrets which still are carefully concealed in the present. By putting the many citations and articles at a glance we see a strong message: Wake up people.

Monte Carlo and Las Vegas have become synonymous with casino gambling. Both destinations featured it as part of a broad variety of leisure and consumption opportunities that normalized games of chance and created emotional atmospheres that supported the hedonistic aspects of gambling. Urban spaces and architecture were carefully designed to enable a rapid growth of the casino industry and produce experiences on previous unimaginable scale. Feeling Lucky, is a “making of story,” about cities which acquired a strange and captivating allure of mystery around them. It is more than a mere descriptive account, however. Combining urban history, the history of consumption, and sociological approaches it presents a compelling comparative history of Monte Carlo and the Las Vegas Strip between the 1860s and 1970s. Paul Franke takes the reader on a journey from arriving at the cities, through the carefully planned urban environments and into the famous casinos. The analysis follows the paths contemporary gamblers would have taken, right to the gambling tables and to the shifting gambling practices across a century. Franke shows that casino entrepreneurs succeeded in producing and selling gambling experiences by controlling spaces, adapt leisure practices and appeal to specific markets. Gamblers on the other hand regarded Monte Carlo and Las Vegas as places to engage in games of chance that would allow them to preserve their political, cultural, and moral identities.

In the 1870s, approximately 18,000 Mennonites migrated from the southern steppes of Imperial Russia (present-day Ukraine) to the North American grasslands. They brought with them an array of cultural and institutional features that indicated they were a "transplanted" people. What is less frequently noted, however, is that they created in their everyday lives a world that ensured their cultural longevity and social cohesiveness in a new land.Their adaptation to the New World required new concepts of social boundary and community, new strategies of land ownership and legacy, new associations, and new ways of interacting with markets. In Hidden Worlds, historian Royden Loewen illuminates some of these adaptations, which have been largely overshadowed by an emphasis on institutional history, or whose sources have only recently been revealed. Through an analysis of diaries, wills, newspaper articles, census and tax records, and other literature, an examination of inheritance practices, household dynamics, and gender relations, and a comparison of several Mennonite communities in the United States and Canada, Loewen uncovers the multi-dimensional and highly resourceful character of the 1870s migrants.

This comprehensive textbook, first published in 1985, on the world economic, written specifically for non-specialists, compares neo-classical, neo-Ricardian and Marxist theories and policies in international economics. Theories of trade and money, and issues such as international debt crisis, the rise of the newly industrializing countries and the demands for a New International Economic Order, and explained clearly and concisely. A wide range of political economics across the political spectrum are discussed. This accessible book will be of interest to anyone who wants to make sense of the complexities of international economy and the competing theories on trade, money and crisis.