Economic Democracy

Many blame today's economic inequality, stagnation, and political instability on the free market. The solution is to rein in the market, right? Radical Markets turns this thinking - and pretty much all conventional thinking about markets, both for and against - on its head. The book reveals bold new ways to organize markets for the good of everyone.

The United States has two separate banking systems today - one serving the well-to-do and another exploiting everyone else. How the Other Half Banks contributes to the growing conversation on American inequality by highlighting one of its prime causes: unequal credit. Mehrsa Baradaran examines how a significant portion of the population, deserted by banks, is forced to wander through a Wild West of payday lenders and check-cashing services to cover emergency expenses and pay for necessities - all thanks to deregulation that began in the 1970s.

Our current democratic capitalist system is close to imploding. This book is the first to reveal the secret financial system dominating capitalism today and shows how we can create accountability to restore our democracy.

As former Prime Minister and our longest-serving Chancellor, Gordon Brown has been a guiding force for Britain and the world over three decades. This is his candid, poignant and deeply relevant story. In describing his upbringing in Scotland as the son of a minister, the near loss of his eyesight as a student and the death of his daughter within days of her birth, he shares the passionately held principles that have shaped and driven him, reminding us that politics can and should be a calling to serve.

Every facet of American life is being overtaken by big platform monopolists like Facebook, Google, and Bayer (which has merged with the former agricultural giant Monsanto), resulting in a greater concentration of wealth and power than we've seen since the Gilded Age. They are evolving into political entities that often have more influence than the actual government, bending state and federal legislatures to their will and even creating arbitration courts that circumvent the US justice system.

In the first half of the twentieth century the Keynesian brand of economics, which saw government spending as a necessary spur to economic growth, prevailed. Then in the 1970s, conservatives fought back. Once they got people to believe a few simple ideas instead—that only the free market could produce growth, that taxes and regulation stifle growth—the battle was won.

Our economy is designed by the 1 percent, for the 1 percent. This audiobook offers a compelling vision of an equitable, ecologically sustainable alternative that meets the essential needs of all people. At a time when competing political visions are at stake the world over, this audiobook urges a move beyond tinkering at the margins to address the systemic crisis of our economy.

With a Senate career that has spanned more than four decades, Edward M. Kennedy has become one of the strongest voices in American politics. In America Back on Track, he argues that America is at a crossroads, having reached a point where it has departed more deeply from its fundamental ideals than at any time in its modern history.

Capitalism v. Democracy offers the key to understanding why corporations are now citizens, money is political speech, limits on corporate spending are a form of censorship, democracy is a free market, and political equality and democratic integrity are unconstitutional constraints on money in politics. Supreme Court opinions have dictated these conditions in the name of the Constitution, as though the Constitution itself required the privatization of democracy.

Since the New Deal in the 1930s, there have been two eras in our political history: the liberal era, stretching up to the 1970s, followed by the neoliberal era of privatization and austerity ever since. In each period, the dominant ideology was so strong that it united even partisan opponents. But the neoliberal era is collapsing, and the central question of our time is what comes next. As acclaimed legal scholar and policy expert Ganesh Sitaraman argues, two political visions now contend for the future.

We are told that, when we vote and elect representatives, we gain a voice in government and its policies. Yet, it hasn't translated our preferences into higher living standards for the majority of us. In America, the wealthy few have built a system that works in their favor, while maintaining the illusion of democracy. American voters have little influence on policies engineered by lawmakers. Political scientists call it the "income bias", causing lawmakers to compete to satisfy preferences of donors from the top one percent instead of the middle class.

This audiobook explains based on science and facts how you can be the solution to the big crises we will face to cover our basic needs (food, water, health). It’s just a question of time before the next economic crisis. In the coming years, we will all directly suffer from climate change in one way or another including our kids and grandkids. The rich get richer, banks steal from us, while so many don’t even have decent food or health care.... There is an alternative system in which you can lead toward a solution to these crises.

The Panic of 1819 tells the story of the first nationwide economic collapse to strike the United States. Much more than a banking crisis or real estate bubble, the Panic was the culmination of an economic wave that rolled through the United States, forming before the War of 1812, cresting with the land and cotton boom of 1818, and crashing just as the nation confronted the crisis over slavery in Missouri.

The idea of voting is simple, but the administration of elections in ways that ensure access and integrity is complex. In How We Vote, Kathleen Hale and Mitchell Brown explore how election officials work, how ballots are cast and counted, and how jurisdictions try to innovate while also protecting the security of the voting process.

Intelligente Mülleimer, Kühe mit Schrittzählern, selbstfahrende Autos: Einst Fiktion, heute Fakt. Noch dazu Symptome größerer Umwälzungen, die alle Lebensbereiche betreffen und sich im Tempo geradezu überschlagen. Wer soll sich da noch auskennen? New York Times-Kolumnist Thomas L. Friedman weiß Rat.

In this newly revised second edition, offering 50% entirely new material, The Panic of 1907: Heralding a New Era of Finance, Capitalism, and Democracy, delivers a groundbreaking examination of one of the most consequential crises in financial history. Deftly weaving historical evidence, insightful analysis, and compelling narrative, The Panic of 1907 explains how and why a financial panic unfolds, with lessons that can be applied to our understanding of present-day financial and monetary systems.

"Generation X" grew up with Star Wars, prepared to deal with the problems of a fantasy universe. They also grew up during the longest period of economic growth in American history. Rob Stam argues that Generation X is assuming leadership of a very different country than the one they grew up in. Even so, if the Star Wars generation will learn and apply classic American principles, they can defeat the "Debt Star" and other real-world problems and pass on a better nation to their children.

Behind every financial crisis lurks a "political bubble" - policy biases that foster market behaviors leading to financial instability. Rather than tilting against risky behavior, political bubbles - arising from a potent combination of beliefs, institutions, and interests - aid, abet, and amplify risk.

Robert B. Reich urges Americans to get beyond mere outrage about the nation’s increasingly concentrated wealth and corrupt politics in order to mobilize and to take back our economy and democracy. Americans can’t rely only on getting good people elected, Reich argues, because nothing positive happens in Washington unless good people outside Washington are organized to help make those things happen after the election. But in order to be effectively mobilized, we need to see the big picture.

Authoritarian regimes in many countries, and the men that lead them, depend on the international management of licit and illicit funds under their control. Frank Vogl shows that curbing their activities for their kleptocratic clients is critical to secure democracy, enhance national security, and ensure international financial stability.