The Invisible Hook
The Invisible Hook

Author: Peter Leeson

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2009-03-31

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 1400829860

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Pack your cutlass and blunderbuss--it's time to go a-pirating! The Invisible Hook takes readers inside the wily world of late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century pirates. With swashbuckling irreverence and devilish wit, Peter Leeson uncovers the hidden economics behind pirates' notorious, entertaining, and sometimes downright shocking behavior. Why did pirates fly flags of Skull & Bones? Why did they create a "pirate code"? Were pirates really ferocious madmen? And what made them so successful? The Invisible Hook uses economics to examine these and other infamous aspects of piracy. Leeson argues that the pirate customs we know and love resulted from pirates responding rationally to prevailing economic conditions in the pursuit of profits. The Invisible Hook looks at legendary pirate captains like Blackbeard, Black Bart Roberts, and Calico Jack Rackam, and shows how pirates' search for plunder led them to pioneer remarkable and forward-thinking practices. Pirates understood the advantages of constitutional democracy--a model they adopted more than fifty years before the United States did so. Pirates also initiated an early system of workers' compensation, regulated drinking and smoking, and in some cases practiced racial tolerance and equality. Leeson contends that pirates exemplified the virtues of vice--their self-seeking interests generated socially desirable effects and their greedy criminality secured social order. Pirates proved that anarchy could be organized. Revealing the democratic and economic forces propelling history's most colorful criminals, The Invisible Hook establishes pirates' trailblazing relevance to the contemporary world.

The Dynamics and Evolution of Social Systems
The Dynamics and Evolution of Social Systems

Author: Jürgen Klüver

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2013-03-09

Total Pages: 297

ISBN-13: 9401595704

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When I started with this book several years ago I originally intended to write an introduction to mathematical systems theory for social scientists. Yet the more I thought about systems theory on the one side and theoretical sociology on the other the more I became convinced that the classical mathematical tools are not very well suited for the problems of sociology. Then I became acquainted with the researches on complex systems by the Santa Fe Institute and in particular with cellular automata, Boolean networks and genetic algorithms. These mathematically very simple but extremely efficient tools are, in my opinion, very well appropriate for modeling social dynamics. Therefore I tried to reformulate several classical problems of theoretical sociology in terms of these formal systems and outline new possibilities for a mathematical sociology which is able to join immediately on the great traditions of theoretical sociology. The result is this book; whether I succeeded with it is of course up to the readers. As the readers will perceive, the book could not have been written by me alone but only by the joint labors of the computer group at the Interdisciplinary Center of Research in Higher Education at the University of Essen. The members of the group, Christina Stoica, Jom Schmidt and Ralph Kier, are named in several subchapters as co-authors. Yet even more important than their contributions to this book were the permanent discussions with them and their patience with my new and very speculative ideas. Many thanks.

Complexity, Science and Society
Complexity, Science and Society

Author: Jan Bogg

Publisher: CRC Press

Published: 2017-11-22

Total Pages: 189

ISBN-13: 1498791220

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'The following sections are a very good representation of the core developments of complexity thinking in a number of major fields. Our intention is to provide an accessible interdisciplinary introduction to the wonderful intellectual breadth that complexity can offer.' - Jan Bogg and Robert Geyer in the Introduction. Complexity is a new and exciting interdisciplinary approach to science and society that challenges traditional academic divisions, frameworks and paradigms. This book helps the expert, student or policy practitioner have a better understanding of the enormous potential of complexity, and how it relates to their particular area of interest or expertise. It provides excellent representations of the core developments of complexity thinking in a number of major fields. "Complexity, Science and Society" brings together an unrivalled selection of new applications of complexity from leading experts across subjects including medicine and healthcare, education, public policy and social theory, ecology, philosophy, international politics, the arts, modelling and design, and others. Together they offer an unprecedented review of the latest developments. This book is an accessible interdisciplinary introduction to the wonderful intellectual breadth that complexity can offer.

For All the People
For All the People

Author: John Curl

Publisher: ReadHowYouWant.com

Published: 2010-07

Total Pages: 826

ISBN-13: 1458784908

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The survival of indigenous communities and the first European settlers alike depended on a deeply cooperative style of living and working, based around common lands, shared food and labor. Cooperative movements proved integral to the grassroots organizations and struggles challenging the domination of unbridled capitalism in America's formative years. Holding aloft the vision for an alternative economic system based on cooperative industry, they have played a vital, and dynamic role in the struggle to create a better world. Seeking to reclaim a history that has remained largely ignored by most historians, this dramatic and stirring account examines each of the definitive American cooperative movements for social change - farmer, union, consumer, and communalist - that have been all but erased from collective memory. Focusing far beyond one particular era, organization, leader, or form of cooperation, For All the People documents the multigenerational struggle of the American working people for social justice. With an expansive sweep and breathtaking detail, the chronicle follows the American worker from the colonial workshop to the modern mass-assembly line, ultimately painting a vivid panorama of those who built the United States and those who will shape its future. John Curl, with over forty years of experience as both an active member and scholar of cooperatives, masterfully melds theory, practice, knowledge and analysis, to present the definitive history from below of cooperative America.

The SAGE Handbook of Social Science Methodology
The SAGE Handbook of Social Science Methodology

Author: William Outhwaite

Publisher: SAGE

Published: 2007-10-18

Total Pages: 641

ISBN-13: 1446206459

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"An excellent guidebook through different approaches to social science measurement, including the all-important route-maps that show us how to get there." - Roger Jowell, City University "In this wide-ranging collection of chapters, written by acknowledged experts in their fields, Outhwaite and Turner have brought together material in one volume which will provide an extremely important platform for consideration of the full range of contemporary analytical and methodological issues." - Charles Crothers, Auckland University of Technology This is a jewel among methods Handbooks, bringing together a formidable collection of international contributors to comment on every aspect of the various central issues, complications and controversies in the core methodological traditions. It is designed to meet the needs of those disciplinary and nondisciplinary problem-oriented social inquirers for a comprehensive overview of the methodological literature. The text is divided into 7 sections: Overviews of methodological approaches in the social sciences Cases, comparisons and theory Quantification and experiment Rationality, complexity and collectivity Interpretation, critique and postmodernity Discourse construction Engagement. Edited by two leading figures in the field, the Handbook is a landmark work in the field of research methods. More than just a ′cookbook′ that teaches readers how to master techniques, it will give social scientists in all disciplines an appreciation for the full range of methodological debates today, from the quantitative to the qualitative, giving them deeper and sharpen insights into their own research questions. It will generate debate, solutions and a series of questions for researchers to exploit and develop in their research and teaching.

The Dynamic Perspective in Personality and Social Psychology
The Dynamic Perspective in Personality and Social Psychology

Author: Robin R. Vallacher

Publisher: Psychology Press

Published: 2002-11-01

Total Pages: 130

ISBN-13: 1135589704

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Recent years have witnessed the ascendance of a new way to conceptualize and investigate the nature of dynamism at different levels of psychological reality. Areas of inquiry as diverse as cognitive neuroscience, developmental psychology, organizational behavior, and political sociology are being reframed in terms that allow rigorous and precise insight into basic dynamic processes. There are signs that this new approach to dynamics is emerging as a potentially integrative paradigm for personality and social psychology as well. This special issue highlights this new paradigm and illustrates its relevance to a broad spectrum of topics in personality and social psychology.

Cooperative Systems Design
Cooperative Systems Design

Author: Mireille Blay-Fornarino

Publisher: IOS Press

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 312

ISBN-13: 9781586032449

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Annotation The main goal of the COOP conferences is to contribute to the solution of problems related to the design of cooperative systems, and to the integration of these systems in organizational settings. The main assumption behind the COOP conferences is that cooperative design requires a deep understanding of cooperative work in groups and organizations, involving both artifacts and social practices. The COOP 2002 conference is mainly devoted to the following issues: the gap between 'virtual' and 'material' artifacts in human collaboration; collaboration among mobile actors; the WWW as a platform for cooperative systems and changing practices and organizations in the wake of the cooperative systems.

Coordination, Organizations, Institutions, and Norms in Agent Systems VI
Coordination, Organizations, Institutions, and Norms in Agent Systems VI

Author: Marina De Vos

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2011-05-26

Total Pages: 392

ISBN-13: 3642212670

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This book constitutes the thoroughly reviewed joint postprocessings of two international workshops on Coordination, Organization, Institutions and Norms in Agent Systems, COIN@AAMAS 2010, held in Toronto, Canada in May 2010 and COIN@MALLOW 2010, held in Lyon, France in August 2010. The 20 revised full papers presented went through several rounds of reviewing and revision and were carefully selected for presentations. The papers are organized in topical sections on normative systems design and modeling; social aspects; and norms at runtime: learning and enforcing.