Toward a Reasonable Society
Toward a Reasonable Society

Author: C. E. Ayres

Publisher: University of Texas Press

Published: 2014-06-23

Total Pages: 310

ISBN-13: 0292769660

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Those who despair of our age will find in this stimulating book heartening answers to their questions about the fate of Western civilization and indications of the course humanity should follow if it is to save itself and the world. The course is not new. According to Ayres, it is the same course that humanity has taken from the dawn of history, but with too many detours in pursuit of false values. It is the course that has brought us to the point of civilization where we now stand—the course of developing knowledge and expanding truth, of our increasing ability to exploit nature for our own welfare. From the earliest stick tool—through the invention of the wheel, the Industrial Revolution, and the marvelous scientific and technological developments of the space age—science and technology, knowledge and skill, have enabled humankind to create for itself an increasingly better life. But with this development has come a sense of conflict between our secular culture and our traditional values, a conflict requiring a reevaluation of values. This reevaluation is the subject of Ayres' book. His theme is that the abiding values are those relating to the common human experience shared by all peoples, those values deriving from the quest for knowledge, from the never-ending struggle to harness the forces of nature to human use. They are measured in terms of a standard of value that has the same meaning for all people. And they have their validity in the cause-and-effect relationship basic to all human reasoning and to the oneness and interrelatedness of all life. Toward a Reasonable Society is a defense of industrial culture. It is a creative work, drawing upon numerous areas of knowledge—ethics, sociology, economics, anthropology, history, philosophy, psychology, biology, music, the graphic arts, mathematics, the physical sciences—to show the uniformities and the unchangeables in the oneness of human life. It is an attack upon nostalgia and a defense of current arts, crafts, knowledge, wisdom, and individual character. It is an inspiring definition of freedom, equality, security, abundance, and other values of a democratic society. In being all these things it assumes a point of view that looks toward the future. And it is exciting reading. The author's closely reasoned discourse leads with inevitable progress from one chapter to the next, with something like the suspense of a detective story. Each chapter is an intellectual episode leaving the reader with an eagerness to see what the next development will be. The concreteness of the numerous examples enhances the clarity of the prose. The compelling note is optimism for the future in further development of the industrial society that has achieved the most successful way of life humankind has ever known.

Toward a Just Society
Toward a Just Society

Author: Martin Guzman

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2018-08-28

Total Pages: 548

ISBN-13: 0231546807

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Joseph Stiglitz is one of the world’s greatest economists. He has made fundamental contributions to economic theory in areas such as inequality, the implications of imperfect and asymmetric information, and competition, and he has been a major figure in policy making, a leading public intellectual, and a remarkably influential teacher and mentor. This collection of essays influenced by Stiglitz’s work celebrates his career as a scholar and teacher and his aspiration to put economic knowledge in the service of creating a fairer world. Toward a Just Society brings together a range of essays whose breadth reflects how Stiglitz has shaped modern economics. The contributions to this volume, all penned by high-profile authors who have been guided by or collaborated with Stiglitz over the last five decades, span microeconomics, macroeconomics, inequality, development, law and economics, and public policy. Touching on many of the central debates and discoveries of the field and providing insights on the directions that academic economics could take in the future, Toward a Just Society is an extraordinary celebration of the many paths Stiglitz has opened for economics, politics, and public life.

Toward a Good Society
Toward a Good Society

Author: Tian-jia Dong

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2021-11-05

Total Pages: 170

ISBN-13: 149859316X

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In Toward a Good Society: A Relational Lens, authors Tian-jia Dong and Dongxiao Qin theorize a mutually empowering and growth-fostering society. The authors first demonstrate the feasibility of this society by grounding it in the framework of relational psychology. Departing from there, they travel along nine paths reconstructed from nine classic social science theories. In each chapter, they respectively reconstruct and find ways to move beyond Durkheimian structural-functionalism, de Tocqueville’s communalism, Mead’s symbolic interactionism, Freud’s psychoanalytic perspective, Simmel’s network theory, Smith’s “invisible hand”, Marx’s class theory, Hobbes’s contractarianism, and Weber’s rational-legal formulation. This leads them to propose a new Golden Rule that is as simple as it is profound and foundational to what makes a good society.

The Fair Society
The Fair Society

Author: Peter Corning

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2011-04

Total Pages: 253

ISBN-13: 0226116271

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We've been told, again and again, that life is unfair. But what if we're wrong simply to resign ourselves to this situation? Drawing on the evidence from our evolutionary history and the emergent science of human nature, this title shows that we have an innate sense of fairness.

Ethical Asset Valuation and the Good Society
Ethical Asset Valuation and the Good Society

Author: Christian Gollier

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2017-10-31

Total Pages: 242

ISBN-13: 0231545924

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For all of their focus on asset prices, financial economists rarely ask if assets are priced ethically—that is, if their prices are compatible with the public good. Yet in a world facing major, possibly catastrophic problems—global warming, for instance, and growing inequality—it is now more important than ever that we allocate capital to projects that will benefit society as a whole, not just today but far into the future. In this book, Christian Gollier develops a powerful method for transforming our societal goals of collective prosperity into the cornerstone of our financial decision making. Ethical Asset Valuation and the Good Society starts by stating transparent moral principles and, from these, derives simple rules that can be used to evaluate saving and investment decisions in terms of the public good. Rather than trying to explain observed asset prices, Gollier derives what these prices ought to be in order to direct capital toward socially desirable investments. He focuses especially on the two prices that drive most financial decisions—the price of time as reflected in the interest rate and the price of risk—and explores the role these play in our long-term planning. If investment projects in renewable energy could be financed at a lower interest rate than those linked to fossil fuels, for instance, the energy transition would be easier to accomplish. Building on criticism of the short-term thinking of financial markets, Gollier suggests ways to shift investment toward the future through the discounting of the valuation of assets and investments with long-term benefits. In this sophisticated but accessible work, Gollier builds a bridge between welfare economics and finance theory to provide a framework for ethical valuation capable of establishing what asset prices should be on the basis of our shared moral values.

Toward a Good Society in the Twenty-First Century
Toward a Good Society in the Twenty-First Century

Author: N. Karagiannis

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2013-05-14

Total Pages: 264

ISBN-13: 1137313625

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Having previously defined a good society as a sustainable society with a high level of development, significant provision of meaningful jobs, and low levels of inequality and social ills, Toward a Good Society in the Twenty-first Century provides a wide range of principles and policies that would be necessary if we are to achieve a good society.

Capitalism and Democracy
Capitalism and Democracy

Author: Thomas A. Spragens, Jr.

Publisher: University of Notre Dame Pess

Published: 2021-03-01

Total Pages: 319

ISBN-13: 0268200157

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This book serves as an introduction to the ongoing political debate about the relationship of capitalism and democracy. In recent years, the ideological battles between advocates of free markets and minimal government, on the one hand, and adherents of greater democratic equality and some form of the welfare state, on the other hand, have returned in full force. Anyone who wants to make sense of contemporary American politics and policy battles needs to have some understanding of the divergent beliefs and goals that animate this debate. In Capitalism and Democracy, Thomas A. Spragens, Jr., examines the opposing sides of the free market versus welfare state debate through the lenses of political economy, moral philosophy, and political theory. He asks: Do unchecked markets maximize prosperity, or do they at times produce wasteful and damaging outcomes? Are market distributions morally appropriate, or does fairness require some form of redistribution? Would a society of free markets and minimal government be the best kind of society possible, or would it have serious problems? After leading the reader through a series of thought experiments designed to compare and clarify the thought processes and beliefs held by supporters of each side, Spragens explains why there are no definitive answers to these questions. He concludes, however, that some answers are better than others, and he explains why his own judgement is that a vigorous free marketplace provides great benefits to a democratic society, both economically and politically, but that it also requires regulation and supplementation by collective action for a society to maximize prosperity, to mitigate some of the unfairness of the human condition, and to be faithful to important democratic purposes and ideals. This engaging and accessible book will interest students and scholars of political economy, democratic theory, and theories of social justice. It will also appeal to general readers who are seeking greater clarity and understanding of contemporary debates about government's role in the economy.

Debating the Good Society
Debating the Good Society

Author: Andrew Bard Schmookler

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 1999-05-13

Total Pages: 394

ISBN-13: 9780262264532

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Debating the Good Society probes two questions lying at the heart of the ongoing culture war incontemporary America: Where does goodness come from, and how is goodsocial order to be achieved? Through the ingenious means of a fictional Internet conversation among two dozen or so Americans from various walks of life and every shade of the ideological spectrum, Debating the Good Society probes two questions lying at the heart of the ongoing culture war in contemporary America: Where does goodness come from, and how is good social order to be achieved? Traditionalists and conservatives, who tend to view human nature as inherently sinful, argue that good order must be imposed from above, by parental authority and ruling powers, by the forces of law and tradition, and, ultimately, by God. Counterculturalists and liberals, who tend to believe in the inherent goodness of human nature, claim that well-supported children will develop into well-ordered adults and that adults empowered to make their own choices will form a healthy, well-ordered society. These opposing visions underlie a host of current controversies, including philosophies of child-rearing and education, social and political policy, sexual morality, and the evolution-creation debate. By exposing the limitations of both points of view, Andrew Bard Schmookler shows how the culture war presents a challenge to all Americans. This challenge is to integrate the half-truths advanced by both sides into a higher wisdom, one that promises to take the American experiment—to see whether humans can enjoy both the blessings of liberty and the fruits of good order—to the next level of its evolution, toward which it has been straining for the better part of a century.

The Coming Good Society
The Coming Good Society

Author: William F. Schulz

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2020-06-09

Total Pages: 142

ISBN-13: 0674245776

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“Challenge[s] all of us to think deeply about what kind of society we and our children and our children’s children will want to live in.” (Margaret L. Huang, former Executive Director, Amnesty International USA) A rights revolution is under way. Today the range of nonhuman entities thought to deserve rights is exploding. Changes in norms and circumstances require the expansion of rights: What new rights, for example, are needed if we understand gender to be nonbinary? Does living in a corrupt state violate our rights? When biotechnology is used to change genetic code, whose rights might be violated? What rights, if any, protect our privacy from the intrusions of sophisticated surveillance techniques? Drawing on their vast experience as human rights advocates, William Schulz and Sushma Raman challenge us to think hard about how rights evolve with changing circumstances, and what rights will look like ten, twenty, or fifty years from now. The Coming Good Society details the many frontiers of rights today and the debates surrounding them. Schulz and Raman equip us with the tools to engage the present and future of rights so that we understand their importance and know where we stand. “Thoughtful and provocative.” —Human Rights Quarterly “[A] trail-blazing map through the new frontiers of rights . . . downright riveting.” —Gloucester Times “An accessible primer for anyone who wishes to understand the current limitations in our notions of rights and the future challenges for which we must prepare.” —Kerry Kennedy, President, Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights “Schulz and Raman outline brilliantly where [human rights] growth may take rights in the generations to come.” ―Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights

Finance and the Good Society
Finance and the Good Society

Author: Robert J. Shiller

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2013-04-21

Total Pages: 312

ISBN-13: 140084617X

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Nobel Prize-winning economist explains why we need to reclaim finance for the common good The reputation of the financial industry could hardly be worse than it is today in the painful aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis. New York Times best-selling economist Robert Shiller is no apologist for the sins of finance—he is probably the only person to have predicted both the stock market bubble of 2000 and the real estate bubble that led up to the subprime mortgage meltdown. But in this important and timely book, Shiller argues that, rather than condemning finance, we need to reclaim it for the common good. He makes a powerful case for recognizing that finance, far from being a parasite on society, is one of the most powerful tools we have for solving our common problems and increasing the general well-being. We need more financial innovation—not less—and finance should play a larger role in helping society achieve its goals. Challenging the public and its leaders to rethink finance and its role in society, Shiller argues that finance should be defined not merely as the manipulation of money or the management of risk but as the stewardship of society's assets. He explains how people in financial careers—from CEO, investment manager, and banker to insurer, lawyer, and regulator—can and do manage, protect, and increase these assets. He describes how finance has historically contributed to the good of society through inventions such as insurance, mortgages, savings accounts, and pensions, and argues that we need to envision new ways to rechannel financial creativity to benefit society as a whole. Ultimately, Shiller shows how society can once again harness the power of finance for the greater good.