Teaching Against Global Capitalism And The New Imperialism

This book will address a number of urgent themes in education today that include multiculturalism, the politics of whiteness, the globalization of capital, neoliberalism, postmodernism, imperialism, and current debates in Marxist social theory. The above themes will be linked to critical educational praxis, particularly to teaching activities within urban schools. Finally, the book will develop the basis for a wider political project directed at resisting and transforming economic exploitation, cultural homogenization, political repression, and gender inequality. Recent and widespread scholarly attention has been given to the unabated mercilessness of global capitalism. Little opposition exists as capital runs amok, unhampered and undisturbed by the tectonic upheaval that is occurring in the geopolitical landscape that has recently witnessed the collapse of the Soviet Union and the regimes of the Eastern Bloc. As we examine education policies within the context of economic globalization, we attempt to address the extent to which the pedagogy and politics of everyday life has fallen under the sway of what we identify as cultural and economic imperialism. Finally, the book raises a number of urgent questions: What are the current limitations to educational reform efforts among the educational left? What are some of the problems associated with certain developments within postmodern education? How can a return to Marxist theory and revolutionary politics revitalize the educational left at a time when capitalism appears to be unstoppable? What actions need to be taken in both local and global arenas to overcome the exploitation that the globalization of capital has wreaked upon the world?

Capitalists and Conquerors is a series of path-breaking essays in the political sociology of education on topics hotly debated within the educational community. In this volume Peter McLaren addresses some of the most daunting political challenges of the current times, including the globalization of capitalism, the United States' drive towards world domination, strategies, tactics and models of resistance to neoliberalism and the ravages of empire-building, the role of the educator as a social agent and public citizen, the purposes and possibilities of public schooling, and the struggle for socialism. As a Marxist-humanist philosopher and social theorist, McLaren is able to offer new philosophical premises and socialist principles for building an alternative to capitalism. The passion, poetry and fierce political conviction for which McLaren is known is very much present in this volume.

People around the world are confused and concerned. Is it a sign of strength or of weakness that the US has suddenly shifted from a politics of consensus to one of coercion on the world stage? What was really at stake in the war on Iraq? Was it all about oil and, if not, what else was involved? What role has a sagging economy played in pushing the US into foreign adventurism and what difference does it make that neo-conservatives rather than neo-liberals are now in power? What exactly is the relationship between US militarism abroad and domestic politics? These are the questions taken up in this compelling and original book. Closely argued but clearly written, 'The New Imperialism' builds a conceptual framework to expose the underlying forces at work behind these momentous shifts in US policies and politics. The compulsions behind the projection of US power on the world as a 'new imperialism' are here, for the first time, laid bare for all to see. This new paperback edition contains an Afterword written to coincide with the result of the 2004 American presidental election.

In today’s vernacular, Marx ‘outed’ capitalism well over a century ago; however, his explanation has been both ignored and misinterpreted by not only his detractors but also by many socialists and even a considerable number of Marxists as well. Today we are experiencing the full impact and suffering the repercussions of capitalism’s inherent need to grow and become, more than ever before, a fully internationalized and integrated system of socioeconomic control and domination—the global system that many commentators have suddenly remembered Marx and Engels (1848) presciently forecasted in the Communist Manifesto.

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This volume seeks to deepen our understanding of the complex and constantly evolving ways in which modern capitalism, in the age of globalisation, works. It explains and illuminates the processes, institutions and policies involved.

Capitalism makes possible a new form of domination by purely economic means, argues Ellen Meiksins Wood. So, surely, even the most seasoned White House hawk would prefer to exercise global hegemony in this way, without costly colonial entanglements. Yet, as Wood powerfully demonstrates, the economic empire of capital has also created a new unlimited militarism. By contrasting the new imperialism to historical forms such as the Roman and Spanish empire, and by tracing the development of capitalist imperialism back to the English domination of Ireland and on the British Empire in America and India, Wood shows how today's capitalist empire, a global economy administered by local states, has come tom spawn a new military doctrine of war without end, in purpose or time.

The Destructive Path of Neoliberalism: An International Examination, a compilation of twelve essays by leading scholars and educators, sheds light on the social, political, economic, and historical forces behind the rise of neoliberalism, the dominant ideological doctrine impacting developments in schools and other social contexts across the globe for over thirty years.