The distinguished sociologist Richard Sennett surveys major differences between earlier forms of industrial capitalism and the more global, more febrile, ever more mutable version of capitalism that ...is taking its place. He shows how these changes affect everyday life-how the work ethic is changing; how new beliefs about merit and talent displace old values of craftsmanship and achievement; how what Sennett calls "the specter of uselessness" haunts professionals as well as manual workers; how the boundary between consumption and politics is dissolving.
In recent years, reformers of both private and public institutions have preached that flexible, global corporations provide a model of freedom for individuals, unlike the experience of fixed and static bureaucracies Max Weber once called an "iron cage." Sennett argues that, in banishing old ills, the new-economy model has created new social and emotional traumas. Only a certain kind of human being can prosper in unstable, fragmentary institutions: the culture of the new capitalism demands an ideal self oriented to the short term, focused on potential ability rather than accomplishment, willing to discount or abandon past experience. In a concluding section, Sennett examines a more durable form of self hood, and what practical initiatives could counter the pernicious effects of "reform."
Immigrants Legrain, Philippe
2014., 20141128, 2014, 2007, 2007-01-01
eBook
Immigration divides our globalizing world like no other issue. We are swamped by illegal immigrants and infiltrated by terrorists, our jobs stolen, our welfare system abused, our way of life ...destroyed--or so we are told. At a time when National Guard units are deployed alongside vigilante Minutemen on the U.S.-Mexico border, where the death toll in the past decade now exceeds 9/11's, Philippe Legrain has written the first book about immigration that looks beyond the headlines. Why are ever-rising numbers of people from poor countries arriving in the United States, Europe, and Australia? Can we keep them out? Should we even be trying?
Combining compelling firsthand reporting from around the world, incisive socioeconomic analysis, and a broad understanding of what's at stake politically and culturally,Immigrantsis a passionate but lucid book. In our open world, more people will inevitably move across borders, Legrain says--and we should generally welcome them. They do the jobs we can't or won't do--and their diversity enriches us all. Left and Right, free marketeers and campaigners for global justice, enlightened patriots--all should rally behind the cause of freer migration, because They need Us and We need Them.
The book Glasba, politika, afekt: novo življenje partizanskih pesmi v Sloveniji ('Music, Politics, Affect: New Lives of Partisan Songs in Slovenia') explores the potentialities of music in imagining ...alternatives and establishing alliances, which introduce new senses of belonging and solidarity in global neoliberal capitalism. It examines the reactualization of partisan songs in post-Yugoslav Slovenia with an emphasis on the collective spirit, its rebelliousness and emancipatory potential. In researching the “new lives” of partisan songs, the book focuses on the self-organized female choir Kombinat, an emblematic example of thinking about the partisan art in Slovenia today. Just a part of Kombinat repertoire, partisan songs are discursively, sonically, spatially, ideologically and symbolically reloaded, challenging thus the various boundaries in thinking about this legacy in Slovenian context. Using theoretical framework of affect theory, and particularly theories of music materialism and sonic affect, the book provides an alternative perspective to our understanding of political capacity of music. It addresses four main issues: the role of music and sound in political mobilization and participation, the potentials of musical alliances and musical self-organization and self-education, referencing musical past as a way of political engagement, and finally, revitalization and reactualization of socialist ideas and values in the current moment of global transition.
Using Kosovo as a case study, the book illuminates the interplay of some of the most controversial concepts in postcolonial times, including humanitarian intervention, peacebuilding, nation-state ...building, and doing development in war torn states. A special focus is on development professionals, mandated to build peace and implement development projects in war-torn or failed states. The book seeks to uncover the complex nature of doing good for others, especially when development efforts are serving the political and economic interests of donor states and when the social status attained by the expatriate development workers tends to improve upon migrating to and working in war-torn states.