The Many Faces Of Socialism

Dealing with topics and perspectives generally neglected by American sociologists, Hollander focuses on the nature of socialism and the reasons for Marxism's appeal among Western intellectuals. In his new introduction to updated essays, never before published in book form, he also addresses issues of enduring interest in both socialist and pluralistic societies. These include relationships between the private and the public, techniques of social and political control, the timeless tension between professed value and observed behavior, and the way systems struggle for a sense of purpose in the contemporary world.

A compelling case for why it's time for socialism Is socialism desirable? Is it even possible? In this concise book, one of the world's leading political philosophers presents with clarity and wit a compelling moral case for socialism and argues that the obstacles in its way are exaggerated. There are times, G. A. Cohen notes, when we all behave like socialists. On a camping trip, for example, campers wouldn't dream of charging each other to use a soccer ball or for fish that they happened to catch. Campers do not give merely to get, but relate to each other in a spirit of equality and community. Would such socialist norms be desirable across society as a whole? Why not? Whole societies may differ from camping trips, but it is still attractive when people treat each other with the equal regard that such trips exhibit. But, however desirable it may be, many claim that socialism is impossible. Cohen writes that the biggest obstacle to socialism isn't, as often argued, intractable human selfishness—it's rather the lack of obvious means to harness the human generosity that is there. Lacking those means, we rely on the market. But there are many ways of confining the sway of the market: there are desirable changes that can move us toward a socialist society in which, to quote Albert Einstein, humanity has "overcome and advanced beyond the predatory stage of human development."

The Faces of Capitalism and Socialism is the result of more than ten years of research and study into the changes in the public perceptions of capitalism, socialism, and the actual changes that have taken place with the evolution of capitalism and socialism since the 1950s. How the evolution of capitalism and socialism have affected human progress is reviewed based on the actual results produced in a number of countries. The book briefly introduces various economic systems, political ideologies, and their history; and goes on to examine in depth the present condition of capitalism and socialism in a number of countries around the world. How we have been deceived to believe what we think is right and ended up believing that black was white is covered in a chapter on propaganda. The numerous sources of information used in this book were obtained primarily through the internet, and many of these sights provide reliable and objective news and reports not available in commercial media. Democracy as it is perceived in a number of countries is reviewed in the last chapter. 179

A book to challenge the status quo, spark a debate, and get people talking about the issues and questions we face as a country!

Development is not a purely economic phenomenon; it also has a strong sociological element. The Many Faces of Socioeconomic Change explores how economic socio-cultural and political aspects of human progress have been studied since the time of Adam Smith. Surveying narratives of how development occurs, from early evolutionary models to recent types of development theory, it outlines the main long-term changes in how socioeconomic development has been envisaged through time. The Many Faces of Socioeconomic Change presents the argument that socioeconomic development emerged with the creation of grand evolutionary sequences of social progress that were the products of Enlightenment and mid-Victorian thinkers. By the middle of the twentieth century, when interest in accelerating development gave the topic a new impetus its scope narrowed to a set of economically based strategies. After 1960, however, faith in such strategies began to wane, in the face of indifferent results and a general faltering of confidence in economists' boasts of scientific expertise. In the twenty first century, development research is being pursued using research methods that generate disconnected results. As a result, it seems unlikely that any grand narrative will be created in the future and that Neo-liberalism will be the last of this particular kind of socioeconomic theory. With a broad scope of content and clear exposition of academic thinking this book guides the reader through the way in which the policy adopted as a consequence of modern theories has been less effective because of the neglect or a misunderstanding of the social context within which they operate.

During the Cold War it became a dirty word in the United States, but "socialism" runs like a red thread through the nation's history, an integral part of its political consciousness since the founding of the republic. In this unapologetic corrective to today's collective amnesia, John Nichols calls for the proud return of socialism in American life. He recalls the reforms lauded by Founding Father Tom Paine; the presence of Karl Marx's journalism in American letters; the left leanings of founders of the Republican Party; the socialist politics of Helen Keller; the progressive legacy of figures like Chaplin and Einstein. Now in an updated edition, The "S" Word makes a case for socialist ideas as an indispensable part of American heritage. A new final chapter considers the recent signs of a leftward sea change in American politics in the face of increasing and historic levels of inequality. Today, corporations-like other rich "individuals"-pay fewer taxes than they did in the 1950s, while our infrastructure crumbles and the seas rise. The "S" Wordaddresses a nation that can no longer afford to put capital before people.