The Trajectory of Change: Activist Strategies for Social Transformation

Book Description

The Trajectory of Change charts a course for the growing, international movement against corporate globalization. Michael Albert, a longtime activist and analyst of popular struggles, challenges the movement to reach out to "ordinary people" by demonstrating how their lives are negatively affected by creeping corporatism.

Albert connects issues confronting working people in the United States (such as access to health care, workplace rights and safety, declining wages, and unemployment) to a critique of institutions that currently dominate the global economy. And he offers a compelling argument for a strategy based on civil disobedience and protest rather than individual acts of vandalism or violence.

Albert also suggests reasons for the recent revival of political protest, from the Battle in Seattle to the demonstrations in Quebec,Canada, and Genoa, Italy. At the same time, he argues that it isn't enough for protesters to stand against global economic injustice. To be effective, Albert argues that we need to develop a clear vision of what we stand for. He makes the case for collectively creating a vision of a participatory, democratic, and egalitarian society.

Michael Albert is a founder of Z Magazine and Z Net, a web site and electronic commentary service based in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. He also co-founded South End Press. He is the author of Looking Forward (with Robert Hahnel) and Stop the Killing Trade, among other books on economics and social change.

Customer Reviews:

not communism.......2006-03-13

This is an excellent book by a well read, thoughtful activist who is, by the way, not a communist. Many of Albert's other works, along with Robin Hahnel, describe an alternative economic system to both capitalism and communism called a participatory economy - parecon for short. The Trajectory of Change is written to point out tools and activities that we can use so that we will some day achieve it.

Contrary to what the other reviewer says, this alternative system would not destroy incentive, take away peoples dreams, place everyone under State rule or take away anything from the vast majority of people. Albert and Hahnel describe a system that would give people real incentive by compensating everyone for their effort and sacrifice; that would empower people's dreams through eliminating the limitations of a system based in private ownership of productive property, corporate hierarchies, disempowering jobs and an unfair, inefficient market; that would eliminate the State as we've known it by replacing it with a bottom-up federation of democratic councils in which everyone would participate at the base; and in which no one, rather than the State or capitalists, would own the productive property, thus allowing everyone to benefit from it. As well, less than 20% of the population owns these things now and subsequently use them to exploit the other 80 plus percent. The only people that need fear parecon are the corporate CEOs and VPs, Presidents, Prime Ministers, and the rest of the ruling elite.

Check out:
Parecon by Michael Albert
Economic Justice and Democracy by Robin Hahnel
www.zmag.org

Communism.......2005-03-02

This Michael Albert is a Communist. Period! The problem with his logic is there is no logic. A system which destroys the incentive to go beyond others and excel is a system of medieval lunacy. The world economies over the last 250 years are based on men and women pursuing their dreams. Socialism takes this away from people who want more in life. To place everyone under State Rule would be disastrous for all on earth.
Again these left wing people can't see beyond their front yard.
They fail to see the consequences of their actions.They are simply communist and thieves who want to take away from you and me and give to the state to be distributed equally. Now tell me why work hard if their is no reward. These people should scare everyone.

strategy for revolution.......2002-05-18

In The Trajectory of Change, Michael Albert offers his criticisms and suggestions for the left, a movement that has yet to live up to its potential. He begins from the assumption that mass mobilization is the only way to force fundamental social change. Elites and other privileged groups don't respond to well-reasoned calls for equality, only to popular and militant demands for change -- as seen in the struggles for labor rights, civil rights, women's rights, and against the Vietnam war. Yet activists frequently forget the need to mobilize and concentrate instead on refining their own tactics, distancing themselves from the people they need to actually win change.

If we accept the need to organize ever greater numbers of people with ever greater militancy, where do go then? According to Albert we first have to reach out beyond social barriers like race and class (leftist university students need to talk to people in sports bars), and then we have to give a lot of thought to the "stickiness problem". That is, why do so few people stick with left activism after being exposed to it?

The two key issues Albert brings up are a lack of vision and a culture of personal criticism. If the movement can offer incisive critiques of social inequality but has no idea what institutions it wants to put in place, isn't activism literally pointless? And if interpersonal relations in the left have more to do with castigating activists who eat at McDonald's, wear Nikes, or watch TV than with making friends and partying, who would want to stay?

Running through each of Albert's arguments is the idea that we have to start paying attention to class. The left is now highly sensitive to race and gender inequality, both within and without the movement. So why is class inequality ignored in society and reproduced in our organizations? Albert has his own highly original explanation for why attention to class, once the preeminent target, virtually disappeared from the left (pp. 87-103), but the ultimate point is that classlessness needs to become a priority again -- both because the left opposes oppression and because working people won't find the left attractive until it stops reproducing the hierarchical forms of organization they suffer from every day in their work lives.

Book Description

North America is steering a new course, with the United States, Canada, and Mexico moving toward continental economic, integration. This book examines basic value changes that are' transforming economic, social, and political life in these three countries, demonstrating that they are gradually adopting an increasingly compatible cultural perspective. A narrow nationalism, dominant since the 19th century, has slowly been giving way to a more cosmopolitan sense of identity. As old economic boundaries become outmoded, a North American perspective makes greater sense. To what extent, then, do the three North American publics - I each with its own heterogeneities and tensions - share a common culture? That question can only be answered if we have some yardstick by which to measure their cultural similarity. These societies are far from identical. But data from the 1990- 1991 World Values survey, drawn from 43 societies around the world, show that on crucial topics, the core values of the American public are significantly closer to those of the Canadians and (to a somewhat lesser extent) to those of the Mexicans, than they are to those of most other peoples in the world. Furthermore, time series evidence indicates that the values of the three North American publics have been converging. This book draws on a unique body of directly comparable cross-national and cross-temporal survey evidence to show that what Americans, Canadians, and Mexicans want out of life is changing in analogous ways. These changes, coupled with sociostructural transformations, are reshaping peoples' feelings about national identity, about trusting each other, and about the balance between economic and non-economic goals. North American economic integration is being reinforced by the gradual emergence of increasingly similar cultural values.

Customer Reviews:

A very good start.......2001-07-26

Those people looking for the distinctions and the cultural ties of Mexicans, American and Canadian people, this is a good start. ¿Why? Because is not about the origins of the three nations. We have enough about aztecs, cowboys, "rancheros" and french colonos.

Instead, this book is about the modern societies on each country.

Book Description

This book attempts to map the influence of early stressful experiences on later life outcomes, studying the trajectories of stressors over the life course. It examines the ramifications of stressful events at key life course transition points, and explores the diversity of outcomes for individuals who have suffered through trauma. Finally, the book suggests new methods for study of stress and adversity through the life course, where issues of timing, ordering, and sequencing of stressors are crucial.

Analysis of Healthcare Interventions That Change Patient Trajectories

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Analysis of Healthcare Interventions That Change Patient Trajectories

Manufacturer: Rand Corporation
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Health Care Delivery | Administration & Policy | Medicine | Subjects | Books

Public Health | Administration & Policy | Medicine | Subjects | Books

Corporate Governance in a Changing Economic and Political Environment: Trajectories of Institutional Change (Studies in Economic Transition)

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Corporate Governance in a Changing Economic and Political Environment: Trajectories of Institutional Change (Studies in Economic Transition)

Manufacturer: Palgrave Macmillan
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Organizational Behavior | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

Economic Conditions | Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

Economic Policy & Development | Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

General | Popular Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

General | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

Economic Conditions | International | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

Industrial | Management & Leadership | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

Organizational Behavior | Business Management | Professional & Technical | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 1403920761

Book Description

This collection provides exceptional descriptive and analytical insights into changes in corporate governance settings in ten Eastern and Western European countries. It demonstrates that there exist different varieties of capitalism and paths to transformation of economic institutions. In addition, it offers detailed discussions about national cases as well as the overall European Union effects. This book should be of great interest to scholars and students of comparative national systems, corporate governance and European studies.

Socioecological Transitions and Global Change: Trajectories of Social Metabolism and Land Use (Advances in Ecological Economics Series)

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Socioecological Transitions and Global Change: Trajectories of Social Metabolism and Land Use (Advances in Ecological Economics Series)
Helmut Haberl
Manufacturer: Edward Elgar Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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General | Evolution | Science | Subjects | Books

Willamette River Basin Planning Atlas: Trajectories of Environmental and Ecological Change

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Willamette River Basin Planning Atlas: Trajectories of Environmental and Ecological Change

Manufacturer: Oregon State University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Spiral-bound

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Book Description

Oregon's Willamette River Basin, which encompasses some of the nation's richest farm and forest land, is also home to most of Oregon's citizens. More than two million people live in the Willamette Basin today, and that number is expected to reach nearly four million by the year 2050.

The "Willamette River Basin Planning Atlas" offers a valuable resource for anyone interested in the region's past, present, and future. Using a dazzling variety of color maps, charts, and photographs, the "Atlas" presents a vast amount of information intended to provide a long-term, large-scale view of changes in human and natural systems within the basin.

Five chapters provide information on current conditions and historical changes since 1850, focusing in turn on land forms and geology, water resources, plants and animals, land use, and human population.

Next, there is a detailed examination of how the basin may change between now and 2050 under three alternative scenarios for future land and water use: one assuming a continuation of current land use and management policies, the second assuming a loosening of current policies to allow freer development, and the third assuming greater emphasis on ecosystem protection and restoration.

The final chapter demonstrates how the information and analyses presented in the "Atlas" can be used to prioritize and design river restoration strategies. Although the focus is on the Willamette River and its floodplain, the book's approach provides a useful model that can be applied to other regions as well.

Intended for general readers and specialists alike, the "Atlas" provides information to help local citizens, policymakers, and scientists make better decisions about the Willamette River Basin and its future.

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Accession trajectories and convergence: endogenous growth perspective [An article from: Structural Change and Economic Dynamics]
M. Kejak , S. Seiter , and D. Vavra
Manufacturer: Elsevier
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

Elsevier | By Publisher | e-Docs | Formats | Books
ASIN: B000RQZUZC

Book Description

This digital document is a journal article from Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, published by Elsevier in 2004. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Media Library immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Description:
In this paper we analyze qualitatively and quantitatively the potential effect of the accession on the development of several Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries (specifically, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland). To achieve the task we design an endogenous growth model of an accession economy with special features. Since we perceive the process of accession as progressive opening of the economy in terms of trade and capital flows, on the one hand, and as a massive technological transfer that enables fast technological catch-up with the technological frontier of the advanced countries, on the other, we build a small open economy version of the two-sector endogenous growth model of the Uzawa-Lucas style with knowledge diffusion. The model is first calibrated to stylized facts of the economic development during the accession process in the EU periphery countries. In general, the experience of the EU peripheral countries fits the predictions of our model reasonably well. Using alternative scenarios in several dimensions we then calibrate the model according to the data on the CEE countries above and simulate their behavior. The interplay of various initial conditions and the parameters of the accession generate different accession patterns and also rather different speeds of convergence to the EU average. The model outcomes do not only provide us with these quantitative estimates but also improve our understanding of the economic mechanisms, which underpin those transitions.

Change trajectories and key biotopes-Assessing landscape dynamics and sustainability [An article from: Landscape and Urban Planning]

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Change trajectories and key biotopes-Assessing landscape dynamics and sustainability [An article from: Landscape and Urban Planning]
N. Kayhko , and H. Skanes
Manufacturer: Elsevier
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

Elsevier | By Publisher | e-Docs | Formats | Books
ASIN: B000RR53WG

Book Description

This digital document is a journal article from Landscape and Urban Planning, published by Elsevier in . The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Media Library immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Description:
This paper presents a methodological synthesis of two congruent approaches into a common landscape change trajectory analysis and the assessment of landscape dynamics and sustainability. The emphasis of the analysis is on the retrospective relationship between the past and the present-day landscape patterns and associated key biotopes. The example key biotopes, oak woodlands and grasslands, represent valuable habitats in the hemiboreal landscapes of Finland and Sweden. The paper presents a conceptual stepwise approach for change trajectory analysis utilising multiple spatio-temporal data and techniques available in image processing and geographical information systems (GIS) including the following steps: (I) specification of spatio-temporal data and their representation of target objects, (II) the choice of direct or indirect change trajectory analysis, (III) hierarchical structuring of landscape information, (IV) compilation of landscape information into a GIS database, and (V) identification of paths for landscape change trajectory analysis. In this case study, we have focused on three interlinked trajectory analysis approaches, and their role in the assessment of landscape sustainability from a potential biodiversity perspective. We conclude that proposed landscape change trajectory analysis can improve the assessment of the key biotopes as well as present-day landscape characteristics, in maintaining biodiversity and related ecological values by providing information on landscape stability, continuity, change processes and boundary dynamics. This approach can be useful in the assessment of natural capital, but requires data-specific and context sensitive data processing and analysis solutions. The results should be interpreted as an approximation and generalisation of the spatio-temporal complexity of landscape reality and therefore be used in conjunction with additional habitat function measures.

Demand forecasting for multigenerational products combining discrete choice and dynamics of diffusion under technological trajectories [An article from: Technological Forecasting & Social Change]

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Demand forecasting for multigenerational products combining discrete choice and dynamics of diffusion under technological trajectories [An article from: Technological Forecasting & Social Change]
W.J. Kim , J.D. Lee , and T.Y. Kim
Manufacturer: Elsevier
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

Elsevier | By Publisher | e-Docs | Formats | Books
ASIN: B000RR5GJG

Book Description

This digital document is a journal article from Technological Forecasting & Social Change, published by Elsevier in . The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Media Library immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

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The discrete choice model generally captures consumers' valuation of the product's quality within the framework of a cross-sectional analysis, while the diffusion model captures the dynamics of demand within the framework of a time-series analysis. We propose an adjusted discrete choice model that incorporates the choice behavior of the consumer into the dynamics of product diffusion. In addition, a new estimation structure is proposed, within the framework of the time-series analysis, which enables the estimation of the discrete choice model on market-level data to be performed in such a way as to avoid the problem of price endogeneity and to obtain greater flexibility in forecasting demand. As an empirical application, the suggested model is applied to the case of the worldwide DRAM (dynamic random access memory) market. In forecasting future demand of DRAM generations, we integrate Moore's law and learning by doing to reflect the future technological trajectories of DRAM innovations, as well as consumers' consumption trends to reflect the dynamics of demand environments. As a result, the suggested model shows better performance in explaining the diffusion of new-generation product with limited number of data observations.

Book Description

This book traces the impact of structural adjustment policies upon the incomes and welfare of Africa's peasant farmers in five countries. The editors argue for a more targeted, project-specific approach to small farmer development.

Structural Adjustment and African Women Farmers (Center for African Studies, Carter Lecture Series)

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Structural Adjustment and African Women Farmers (Center for African Studies, Carter Lecture Series)

Manufacturer: Univ Pr of Florida
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Development & Growth | Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

Economic Policy & Development | Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

Labor & Industrial Relations | Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

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General | Agricultural Sciences | Science | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0813010632

Structural adjustment & the African farmer

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Structural adjustment & the African farmer

Manufacturer: Heinemann
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

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ASIN: 0435080717

Book Description

Microbiology: Diversity, Disease, and the Environment is an exciting new introductory level Microbiology text will serve the needs of lecturers and students in a wide variety of life science, health science, and applied science programs.

The recurrent theme in this text is the delicate balance between microbes and humans, and how recent changes in that balance may bring about changes that have adverse effects, such as emerging infectious diseases and micro-organisms resistant to antibiotics. The text does not, however, focus exclusively on microbes as causal agents, but also portrays them as life-givers responsible for the earth's ability to support higher forms of life. This new text will enable instructors to cover all the essential topics of classic and contemporary microbiology in a standard one-term course and will enthuse your students as they learn about the beauty and diversity, as well as the dangers, of the microbial world in which they live.

Each chapter contains study outlines and thought- provoking questions to help students master both the daunting vocabulary and key concepts of the field.
A list of useful websites is listed at the end of each chapter.
Focus boxes in all chapters recount fascinating historical highlights and point out provocative public policy issues.
A complete glossary is provided in the back of the book.
All of the art figures in the book are available to instructors in PowerPoint and a complete test bank with over 300 multiple-choice test questions is also provided on the Instructor's Digital Resource that will be available free in CD-ROM format to all adopters.
A website for the book will contain coverage of breakthroughs and updates to keep the book current. This website links to the important microbiology websites. For more information please check out the following website www.fitzscipress.com.

Microbiology Diversity, Disease, and the Environment with Immunology

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Microbiology Diversity, Disease, and the Environment with Immunology
Abigail A. Salyers
Manufacturer: John Wiley & Sons Inc
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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