In this book Elmar Altvater, one of Germany’s leading radical economists, considers the discordant state of the capitalist world today, drawing on bpth green and socialist economics. The end of ‘actually existing socialism’ has been widely hailed as confirmation of the supremacy of market forces. Yet both the post-Communist societies of the East and large parts of the South face a protracted crisis to which the apparently victorious West offers no solution. Against this background Altvater explains why Soviet planning ended in failure, having reproduced many negative features of the Western model without being able to sustain a global challenge to it. Altvater examines the claims currently made for the market, both in the history of capitalism and in the globalized market economy today. Has a free market ever existed, in the sense of imposing itself on the will of political actors? Can the free market ever lead the debt-ridden societies of Africa or Latin America out of mass poverty? Can the world crisis of civilisation, in all its dimensions, be overcome by relying on market models of production and consumption? These questions are addressed in the context of an economic theory that puts human needs and capacities, and a sustainable model of development, at the centre of analysis.

The Future of the Market: An Essay on the Regulation of Money and Nature After the Collapse of 'Actually Existing Socialism'

Business & Money

Altvater, Elmar

Economics

Verso

The Future of the Market

The demise of Communism has not only affected Eastern Europe but also the countries of the West where a far-reaching examination of political and economic systems has begun. This collection of essays by internationally renowned scholars of political theory from Europe and the United States explores both the concept and the reality of civil society and its institutions.

Toward a Global Civil Society

Mouffe, Chantal

Sullivan, William

HOBSBAWM, Eric

Pinkard, Terry

Wolfe, Alan

Cohen, Mitchell

Selznick, Philip

Nardin, Terry

Faux, Jeff

Glotz, Peter

Nielsen, Jean

Galston, William

Elshtain, Jean

Kallscheuer, Otto

Strong, Tracy B. Strong

Hahn, Ottokar

Strasser, Johano

Hajek, Milos

Motchane, Didier

Ossorio, Julian Santamaria

Etzioni, Amitai

Cohen,Jean

History

Berghahn Books

The Earth has reached a tipping point. Runaway climate change, the sixth great extinction of planetary life, the acidification of the oceans—all point toward an era of unprecedented turbulence in humanity’s relationship within the web of life. But just what is that relationship, and how do we make sense of this extraordinary transition? Anthropocene or Capitalocene? offers answers to these questions from a dynamic group of leading critical scholars who challenge the conventional practice of dividing historical change and contemporary reality into “Nature” and “Society,” demonstrating the possibilities offered by a more nuanced and connective view of human environment-making, joined at every step with and within the biosphere. In distinct registers, the authors frame their discussions within a politics of hope that signal the possibilities for transcending capitalism, broadly understood as a “world-ecology” that joins nature, capital, and power as a historically evolving whole.

Anthropocene or Capitalocene?: Nature, History, and the Crisis of Capitalism (KAIROS)

Crist, Eileen C.

Haraway, Donna J.

Hartley, Daniel

Parenti, Christian

McBrien, Justin

Reference

PM Press

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Books by Altvater, Elmar