The Politics Of Plunder

This book provides an insight to the cultural work involved in violence at sea in this period of maritime history. It is the first to consider how 'piracy' and representations of 'pirates' both shape and were shaped by political, social and religious debates, showing how attitudes to 'piracy' and violence at sea were debated between 1550 and 1650.

"This book does genuinely fill a significant gap . . . and will serve as a reliable guide to the sources and scholarship on Greece in the third century."—Stanley Burstein "The Aetolians of the 3rd cent. BCE (even more than the Macedonians, if not quite at the level of the Gauls) were the bogey-men and whipping-boys for every Greek state, from Athens to Achaea, that considered itself more civilized. Polybius in particular couldn't stand them. Primitive, treacherous, murderous, piratical—the epithets pile up like snow on Helicon. Yet, paradoxically, these sub-Homeric ruffians also instituted a remarkably modern-sounding democratic federation, which even (despite Greek ethnic exclusiveness) offered membership to non-Aetolian groups. Resolving the paradox has stimulated Scholten to produce a really wonderful book. He has reinforced the scanty literary sources with some of the most thorough epigraphical and numismatic work I have ever seen in a work of scholarship. Best of all, he has walked every inch of Aetolia and knows its geography backwards. His research (while not palliating the Aetiolians' "predatory economic self-service," a nice phrase) sets their federation in its political context as never before, and, what's more, does so in elegant and drily ironic prose. The Politics of Plunder invites comparison with N.G.L. Hammond's Epirus, and will, I suspect, in the long run prove a more durable and substantial achievement."—Peter Green

From Angola and Iraq to Liberia and the Democratic Republic of Congo, resource-rich countries with high incidences of poverty are prone to devastating outbreaks of war. The character of these conflicts is highly idiosyncratic, and the response of the international community is fascinatingly complex. Philippe Le Billon traces the specific burden of owning the world's most precious resources and the effect of resource politics on the development of war. He also takes a frank look at the international context surrounding such conflicts and its possible underlying motives. Le Billon focuses on three key resources----oil, diamonds, and timber----and the circumstances that link their abundance to war. He discusses the role of resource revenue in financing belligerent forces, a trend that has grown more conspicuous with the withdrawal of Cold War foreign sponsorship. While the War on Terror has altered the terms of military assistance and the nature of war's internationalization, many belligerent actors continue to rely on the profits of conflict resources to survive. Le Billon also examines the exploitation of resources and its creation of unrest.

This slashing critique charges that the federal government and interest groups have badly mismanaged the political process for private ends. Transcending conventional ideologies, Bandow sees the root of the problem as our failure to honor the Founding Fathers' intention to establish a limited government with severely circumscribed powers in all areas. People abuse power; it is human nature. Only limited state authority will keep the political process from disintegrating into petty fighting among factions, each competing for its own limited self-interest. The demise of the original restraints has created an overgrown federal government that is ever more wasteful, inefficient, and unjust. Doug Bandow spares no sacred cows. He considers state interference in the free market responsible for an ethic of legalized theft, which allows interest groups to use the state to enrich themselves through subsidies, competitive restrictions, and other protectionist measures. He sees a judiciary that has aided the other branches of government in manipulating human conduct and restricting personal freedom for both liberal and conservative reasons. And in foreign policy he sees the development of an interventionist consensus, whereby Washington attempts to remake foreign nations in its image through military intervention and foreign aid, with disastrous results. "The Politics of Plunder "is written by an insider who combines theoretical and analytical skill with practical political experience. Bandow served in the most conservative administration of recent years yet freely criticizes the nostrums of the Right. He is an evangelical Christian yet dislikes the tactics of the Religious Right. His unique background--campaign worker, lawyer, presidential aide, magazine editor, policy analyst, and journalist--enables him to go far beyond the usual Washington commentary. Bandow's objective is to develop a new political perspective that transcends both conservative and liberal boundaries and emphasizes individual liberty, skepticism of state power, and tolerance of others. Those interested in the world of ideas will find this an accessible, practical guide to libertarian thought. Those interested in the world of public policy will find here a detailed discussion of scores of recent controversies.

Plunder examines the dark side of the Rule of Law and explores how it has been used as a powerful political weapon by Western countries in order to legitimize plunder – the practice of violent extraction by stronger political actors victimizing weaker ones. Challenges traditionally held beliefs in the sanctity of the Rule of Law by exposing its dark side Examines the Rule of Law's relationship with 'plunder' – the practice of violent extraction by stronger political actors victimizing weaker ones – in the service of Western cultural and economic domination Provides global examples of plunder: of oil in Iraq; of ideas in the form of Western patents and intellectual property rights imposed on weaker peoples; and of liberty in the United States Dares to ask the paradoxical question – is the Rule of Law itself illegal?

'One of the most important books I've read in years' Brian Eno We are losing the commons. Austerity and neoliberal policies have depleted our shared wealth; our national utilities have been sold off to foreign conglomerates, social housing is almost non-existent, our parks are cordoned off for private events and our national art galleries are sponsored by banks and oil companies. This plunder deprives us all of our common rights, recognized as far back as the Magna Carta and the Charter of the Forest of 1217, to share fairly and equitably in our public wealth. Guy Standing leads us through a new appraisal of the commons, stemming from the medieval concept of common land reserved in ancient law from marauding barons, to his modern reappraisal of the resources we all hold in common - a brilliant new synthesis that crystallises quite how much public wealth has been redirected to the 1% in recent decades through the state-approved exploitation of everything from our land to our state housing, health and benefit systems, to our justice system, schools, newspapers and even the air we breathe. Plunder of the Commons proposes a charter for a new form of commoning, of remembering, guarding and sharing that which belongs to us all, to slash inequality and soothe our current political instability.