|
RECOMMENDED READING
from Apex Press on Economic Reform
The following publications are recommended by The Light Party,
and are available from:
THE APEX PRESS
Council on International and Public Affairs
777 United Nations Plaza, Suite 3C
New York, NY 10017
1-800-316-APEX (2739)
Visa/MasterCard/American Express accepted
GREENING CITIES: Building Just and Sustainable Communities
by Joan Roelofs
This book is a treasure trove of practical ideas that embody Green values of social
and environmental justice and are actually working on the ground in small, medium,
and large cities, as well as some rural communities, all around the world. It shows
how these values can and are being incorporated in local government policy and how
they shape voluntary efforts by community groups.
Topics covered in separate chapters range from urban design, democracy and culture
to energy, water, transportation, food, waste, health, economy, and recreation. Originally
conceived as a workbook for students in urban and environment studies, public administration,
geography, and planning, Greening Cities is also must reading for community leaders,
activists, and indeed anyone concerned about and committed to building a more just
and sustainable society.
The Bootstrap Press (A TOES Book). 238pp. (8 1/2 x 11). illus. with index. 1996.
ISBN 0- 942850-35-1. $24.50. (I-351).
Also distributed by Fernwood Brooks (Canada) and Jon Carpenter (U.K.)
GREENWASH: The Reality Behind Corporate Environmentalism
by Jed Greer & Kenny Bruno
In recent years, transnational corporations (TNCs) have been preserving and expanding
their markets with "green-washing" by posing as friends of the environment
and leaders in the struggle to eradicate poverty. This new book provides an overview
of TNCs in the global economy and their impacts on the global environment. It gives
a general introduction to greenwashing and examines specific greenwashing claims
of twenty global corporations involved in the chemical, energy, logging, and fishing
industries. TNCs profiled in this book include DuPont, Royal Dutch/Shell, Mitsubishi,
Ciba, Asea Brown Boveri, Westinghouse, Norsk Hydro, and Solvay.
Drawing on a wealth of sources, and with numerous illustrations, this book contrasts
corporate greenwashing with the many damaging effects of TNCs' actual behavior, and
shows how TNCs remain the primary creators and peddlers of dirty, unsustainable technologies.
Additionally, to help citizens move from recognizing to challenging greenwashing
and the harm caused by corporate activities, the book offers guidelines and principles
that communities everywhere can use to hold TNCs to account and to regain control
of their lives and the environment.
Published by The Third World Network and The Apex Press. 256pp. 1996.
ISBN 0-945257-77- 5. $18.95. (A-775).
Also distributed by Fernwood Books (Canada) and Jon Carpenter (U.K.)
BUILDING SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES: Tools and Concepts for Self-Reliant Economic
Change. Second edition.
by C. George Benello, Robert Swann & Shann Turnbull; edited by Ward Morehouse
A revised edition of a classic work long out of print, this book is based on the
Schumacher Society Seminars on Community Economic Transformation. It presents the
underlying ideas and essential institutions for building sustainable communities.
The three major sections of the book deal with community land trusts and other forms
of community ownership of natural resources; worker-managed enterprises, and other
techniques of community self-management; and community currency and banking. Included
also are a lexicon of social capitalism and a bibliography of key works on self-reliant
economic change.
The Bootstrap Press (A TOES Book). Approx. 208pp. Spring 1997.
ISBN 0-942850-36-X. $16.95. (Softcover 1-36X).
ISBN 0-942850-37-8 $31.50. (Hardcover 1-378/H).
CORPORATE POWER AND THE AMERICAN DREAM: Toward an Economic Agenda for Working
People written and produced by The Labor Institute
Large corporations have increasingly come to dominate U.S. society, and having conquered
the United States, are now spreading corporate rule around the world in league with
giant global corporations from other countries. The results have been devastating
for working people everywhere.
Corporate Power and the American Dream provides the essential facts and figures
to understand the adverse impact of corporations on American workers, but there are
many parallels with working people in other countries. Designed for use in small
discussion groups, the workbook is organized around eight activities ranging from
"The Consequences of Rising Corporate Power" and "The Jobs Crunch"
to "Building an Agenda for Working People" and "Changing the Rules
of the Game."
Extensively tested with small groups of workers and still being revised, this
workbook is well suited for use not only in worker education programs but also with
community groups and school and college classes concerned with current issues. It
can also be used as a self-education tool by any person who wants to understand more
fully corporate power in today's world.
The Apex Press for The Labor Institute. 132pp. (8 1/2 x 11). Illus. 1995.
ISBN 0-945257-71- 6. Softcover with spiral binding, $9.00; 5 or more, $7 each. (A-716S)
THE UNDERBELLY OF THE U.S. ECONOMY: Joblessness and Pauperization of Work
by David Dembo & Ward Morehouse
This report, latest in a series, exposes myths about unemployment and poverty perpetrated
by the government. Using 1995 data, it shows that the real jobless rate is almost
twice the official unemployment rate. the report also shows how the government undercounts
the poor who constitute one out of every four Americans.
The report concludes by criticizing recent changes in collection of employment
data by the government and its continuing failure to track hardships facing working
Americans.
The Apex Press. 46pp. Illus. 1996. ISBN 0-945257-78-3. $5.00 (A-783)
ECOLOGICAL ECONOMICS: A Practical Programme For Global Reform
by The Group of Green Economists; preface by Sara Parkin
In this book, the Group of Green Economists argue that there are practical alternatives
to the vast inequalities and social and environmental dislocation caused by two centuries
of market- led industrialization and European colonial rule. These alternatives are
based on the principles of ecological balance, democracy, social equality, feminism,
non-violence, and respect for cultural identity and diversity.
In policy terms, this means that ecological and social reshaping of industrial
society and a policy toward the Third World that abandons the cul-de-sac of "development"
and instead considers the world economy as a whole.
The authors propose basic principles for a global ecological economy and produce
striking suggestions for restructuring international trade, reorganizing the global
financial system, controlling transnational corporations, and building both an all-European
economic order that transcends the EC and a global economy relevant to the needs
of all humanity.
Zed Books. 1992. 192pp. Illus. with Index. ISBN 1-85649-070-X. $17.50 (A-70X).
No discount.
ECONOMICS, CULTURE AND SOCIETY - ALTERNATIVE APPROACHES
Dissenting Views From Economic Orthodoxy
edited by Oscar Nudler & Mark A. Lutz
The essayists in this volume are united in their deep dissatisfaction with neoclassical
economics and the dominance of the market as they explore alternative approaches
to economics in its social and cultural context. Their essays cover a broad range
of ideas and schools of thought from the European cultural-historical approach, reflected
in the work of Karl Polanyi and Fernand Braudel, to the "human economy"
school in the United States and the 'green" view of economic development, with
roots in Northern Europe. The concluding essay reaches beyond economics to project
a "new heresy" in the "respiritualization of society=2E"
Provocative in their dissent from conventional economic thinking, these essays
offer food for thought to all who seek alternatives to rampant globalization, accelerating
environmental destruction, and a growing ocean of poverty and alienation dotted with
islands of unsustainable affluence.
Published by The Apex Press in cooperation with the United Nations University Press
and Fundacion Bariloche. 237pp. 1996. ISBN 0-945257-72-4. $18.50 (Softcover - A-724).
ISBN 0-945257-73-2. $39.50 (Hardcover - A-732).
Also distributed by Fernwood Books (Canada).
FUTURE WEALTH: A New Economics for the 21st Century
by James Robertson
The need for a greener economy is now widely accepted, but this book stresses the
need for a more fundamental revolution in the way the world thinks about economics
and organized economic life. We need a new economic order for the 21st century, geared
to the real needs of people as well as the Earth. We must establish in the public
mind worldwide that human beings are capable of something better than competitive
greed as the mainspring of economic life. We must replace our systematic wastefulness
and polluting with systematic conserving, reform the money system, and shift taxation
away from what people contribute to society and on to what they take out of it.
The Bootstrap Press (A TOES Book). 190pp. 1990. ISBN 0-942850-25-4. $14.50. (I-254).
HUMANISTIC ECONOMICS - The New Challenge
Mark A. Lutz & Kenneth Lux; forward by Amitai Etzioni
An excellent supplement to the standard textbooks. I would be tempted to rename it
"Descent Economics." - Kenneth E. Boulding, Distinguished Professor Emeritus,
University of Colorado, and former President, American Economic Association.
A major work in social economics, carrying forward E.F. Schumacher's tradition
of "economics as if people mattered." After a penetrating critique of conventional
economics, the authors make a systematic presentation of an alternative economics
based on the satisfaction of human needs and drawing extensively on the insights
of social psychology.
The Bootstrap Press. 352pp. Illus. 1988. ISBN 0-942850-06-8. $15.50 (Softcover -
I-068/S).
ISBN 0-942850-10-6. $28.50 (Hardcover - I-106/H). Softcover also distributed by Jon
Carpenter (U.K.) and IT Publications (U.K.).
BUILDING A WIN-WIN WORLD - Life Beyond Global Economic Warfare
by Hazel Henderson
Hazel's latest explores current economic trends in search of ways to accelerate human
development sustainable within the earth's eco-systems. the book also examines how
social innovations are finding expression in new forms of enterprise, new institutions,
partnerships, and cooperative agreements that can lead to the building of a win-win
world.
Barrett-Koehler Publishers. 320pp. 1996. ISBN 1-881052-90-7 (hardcover). $29.95.
(A-907)
THE POLITICS OF THE SOLAR AGE - Alternatives to Economics Hazel Henderson
This classic, award-winning text has saved people hundreds of hours when they want
to understand how economics ("politics in disguise") really works. Fritjof
Capra, in the introduction to this new edition, says Hazel is a "futurist, environmentalist
and economic iconoclast . . . (whose) intensity, brilliance and originality are still
unmatched." She explores traditional economic concepts - production, technology,
efficiency, capital, real wealth - which have been distorted: "Efficient for
whom?" she asks, and shows what paths will lead to real wealth creation, within
environmental limits, for all people. Outlines the needed reconceptualizing of political
issues and describes new coalitions that have begun to replace old parties and alignments.
The Apex Press in cooperation with Knowledge Systems, Inc. 1988.
ISBN 0-941705-06-4. Illus. with Index. 434pp. $16.95. (A-064).
REDEFINING WEALTH AND PROGRESS
New Ways to Measure Economic, Social, and Environmental Change
by The Caracas Report on Alternative Indicators;
foreword by Carlos Andres Perez, President of Venezuela and member of the South Commission
This book breaks new ground in redefining social progress by exposing misleading
economic indicators and presenting new ways to measure social change. It challenges
those who worship at the alter of economic growth by underscoring the real social
and environmental costs of such growth. The alternative indicators introduced in
the book suggest new paths to building a more just and sustainable society.
The Bootstrap Press (A TOES Book). 112pp. 1990.
ISBN 0-942850-24-6. $12.95. (I-246). Also distributed by Jon Carpenter (U.K.).
WHOLE LIFE ECONOMICS - Revaluing Daily Life
by Barbara Brandt; foreword by Anne Wilson Schaef
Whole Life Economics opens the door to personal and social recovery from our deadly
addiction to money and short-term gain. It challenges the dominance of corporations,
values women's work and other invisible forms of production, exposes the true social
and health costs of our current economy, and stretches the limits of our economic
imagination to include the health and well-being of individuals, communities, and
nature.
Well-researched, free of economic jargon, and full of examples, Whole Life Economics
helps us include in our economy all the activities that sustain people and the Earth.
It charts an emerging economics of empowerment, which recognized that real life economics
is as much about caring for children, planting gardens, and helping friends as it
is about selling resources or counting money.
New Society Publishers. 224pp. with bibliography and Index. 1995.
ISBN 0-86571-266-2. $14.95. (A-662). No discount.
WHEN CORPORATIONS RULE THE WORLD
by David C. Korten
Economic globalization has resulted in the emergence of a new organizational form;
the transnational corporation, larger and more powerful than most national governments,
and able to function largely beyond the reach of public accountability.
In a well-reasoned, extensively researched analysis, Korten shows that the multiple
crises afflicting today's world stem from the same underlying causes - a transfer
of governance power from people to transnational corporations. Korten invites readers
to join in the search for solutions while offering a range of concrete proposals
for creating a world in tune with human needs, desires, and with the natural environment.
A co-publication of Kumarian Press and Berrett-Koehler Publishers. 376pp=2E Illus.
1995.
ISBN 1-887206-01-1. $19.95 (A-011). No discount.
THE GAIA ATLAS OF GREEN ECONOMICS Paul Ekins, Mayer Hillman & Robert Hutchison;
foreword by Robert Heilbroner
Every day, all over the world, billions of people play their part in humanity's global
growth economy. Money is the god, material wealth the principal virtue, and market
economics the ruler of our times. But this economics of consumption is full of hidden
costs. It is drawing us ever deeper into social, ecological, and economic crisis.
We are trading the health of the Earth and our communities for freeways and the free
market.
This pioneering work in "green" economics shows us a way out of this
destructive obsession with economic growth. It explores a new concept of wealth and
wealth creation; it describes a new economics synthesis between the market, state,
families, and communities; it sets out what governments and people can do to build
a sustainable society - to create prosperity and a fairer world in a healthy environment.
Anchor Books. 192pp. Illus. with bibliography and Index. 1992.
ISBN 0-385-41914-7. $16.00 (A-147). No discount.
THE ECO PRINCIPLE - Ecology and Economics in Symbiosis Arthur Lyon Dahl
The really important books are those that provide ideas for a fundamental recasting
of our thinking and institutions. This is such a book.
At a time when most societies have lost all control and direction, this book not
only explains why present economic and political systems are not working, but integrates
economic, environmental, social, and spiritual dimensions into a new paradigm for
understanding and changing them. Instead of our usual thinking in terms of mechanical
analogies and essential static entities, the author introduces the notion of Ecos.
This, he argues, provides a more accurate portrayal of the real world as a complex
"nested" structure of interacting, dynamic, and constantly changing systems.
He then applies this analytical approach based on the time-proven organic systems
of the natural world to our understanding of human institutions. He shows how these
are not immutable, but shaped by our values and understandings. This opens the way
to a more integrated view of the solutions required for the economic, environmental,
and social problems we face.
"A beautifully written and well reasoned book with thought-provoking conclusions"
- Carl Djerassi, Professor of Chemistry, Stanford University.
It is rare to find an approach that is equally appropriate to the industrialized
and developing countries. - Elizabeth Dowdeswell, Executive Director, UNEP.
Zed Books. 192pp. Index. 1996. ISBN 1-85649-434-9 $17.50 (A-349). No discount.
ECOLOGICAL TAX REFORM - A Policy Proposal for Sustainable Development Ernst
Ulrich von Weizsacker & Jochen Jesinghaus
Sustainable development must apply as much to the industrialized North as to the
South. This book argues that to convert the technologically possible into the economically
feasible requires an efficiency revolution in our use of resources, including energy.
The authors survey the economic instruments available - tradeable permits, pollution
charges, refund systems, and "green" taxes - and argue that ecological
tax reform would reward long-term, resource-efficiency investment, and provide strong
enough incentives to encourage large-scale changes in private sector behavior.
This book presents new evidence at price elasticity in the transport sector in
relation to fuel prices. It explores moving the tax base away from corporation and
income taxes to ecological taxes. And it suggests that the latter will prove a realistic
policy option if introduced gradually, and in ways that are revenue neutral, easy
to administer, harmonized internationally, and accompanied by measures to compensate
for negative social distribution effects.
The imperative transition to sustainability will require a thorough reorientation
of the system of incentives and penalties that motivate our economic life. Professor
von Welzsacker and Jochen Jesinghaus give a revealing account of the economic instruments
that promised to be most effective in bringing about the changes necessary in corporate
and individual behavior. - Maurice F. Strong, Secretary-General, United Nations Conference
on Environment and Development.
Zed Books. 1992. illus. with Index. 96pp.
ISBN 1-856490-096-3. $15.00. (A-963). No discount.
GENETIC RESOURCES Our Forgotten Treasure -
Technical and socio-economic approaches
by Daniel Querol
Third World countries are the source of the world's main crops. However, it is precisely
in these countries the resources of these crops have been least used.
This book describes some of the basic concepts and the economic and political
importance of genetic resources within a technical and economic framework for Third
World peasants and scientists. The technical processes and practical problems related
to the collection, conservation, and use of genetic resources are also shown
Third World Network. 256pp. Illus. 1992. ISBN 983-9747-01-0. $15.00. (A-010). No
discount
RADIOACTIVE HEAVEN AND EARTH -
The health and environmental effects of nuclear weapons testing in, on, and above
the earth.
A Report of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War &
the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research.
The Cold War is over. Not so the testing of nuclear weapons. The United States, Soviet
Union, France, Britain, and China continue to explode nuclear weapons in far-flung
places around the globe. Concern about the health and environmental effects of testing
spurred the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War to commission
this report. Its findings are disturbing. Some 500 atmospheric tests have poisoned
the earth's environment for millennia to come, and by the year 2000 will have delivered
enough radioactive material to the world's people to produce 430,000 cancer deaths.
Governments have moved the tests underground, yet underground testing also leaves
a legacy of long-lived radioactive elements that will likely seep eventually into
the biosphere.
The insults to human health and environmental quality inflicted by nuclear weapons
testing have been possible and are allowed to continue because decisions about testing
have largely been treated as military secrets beyond the purview of public scrutiny.
This book argues that, now more than ever, no credible justification exists for
"national security" considerations to take precedence over the health of
the world's people.
The Apex Press. 208pp. Illus. 1991. ISBN 0-945257-34-1. $15.00. (A-341).
Also distributed by Fernwood Books (Canada) and Zed Books (U.K.).
RAINFOREST DESTRUCTION - Causes, effects & false solutions World Rainforest
Movement.
Rainforest destruction is now recognized as one of the greatest environmental tragedies
of all time. "Modernization" and commercial interests (backed by aid money
and bank loans) are devastating tropical forests through logging, mining, dams, road
and agriculture projects and colonization schemes.
This book provides a cogent analysis of the causes and effects of deforestation,
from the viewpoint of the leading environmental groups involved in the defense of
the forests.
It also points out that the "solutions" proposed by established institutions
like the World Bank and the timber trade accelerates (and not reduce) deforestation.
Third World Network for World Rainforest Movement. 90pp. 1991.
ISBN 967-99987-2-X. $8.50. (A-72X). No discount.
WASHINGTON'S NEW POOR LAW- Welfare reform and the jobs illusion
by Shelia D. Collins & Gertrude Schaffner Goldberg
The authors argue that the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation
Act, popularly known as "welfare reform," offers neither "work opportunity"
nor real reform. In repealing the entitlement to welfare and failing to create an
entitlement to work - at the same time as it imposes strict, time-limited work requirements
- Washington has, in effect, written a new Poor Law. Like earlier poor laws, this
act, the authors maintain, condemns the poor to continued, if not further impoverishment
and public stigma. Moreover, the law will likely have the effect of depressing wages
for other workers, increasing unemployment, and exacerbating social conflict.
The book provides a succinct history of public assistance programs in 20th-century
America, showing why the United States has always been reluctant to provide a genuine
social safety net for the economically vulnerable and why it has become even more
stingy today. It analyzes both the domestic political currents and global economic
forces driving the successful effort to repeal the entitlement to welfare and show
that this bill may be a harbinger of worse to come - the end of all entitlements,
even those enjoyed by the middle class. The authors, co- founders of the National
Jobs for All Coalition, conclude with a program for real welfare reform, the centerpiece
of which is jobs for all at decent wages. They show how such a program is socially
and ethically desirable as well as economically feasible.
The Apex Press. Approx. 160pp. Summer 1997.
ISBN 0-94527-83-X. $14.50=2E (Softcover - A- 83X).
ISBN 0-945257-84-8. $27.50. (Hardcover - A848/H).
THE GREEN NATIONAL PRODUCT: A proposed Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare
by Clifford W. Cobb & John B. Cobb, Jr.
Many critics of mainstream economics have been calling for a new compass to guide
national economic policies because the existing one, the GNP, is broken. They proposed
a "green national product" which would address the long-term health of
the planet and its inhabitants, and focus on sustainability. Toward this end, they
propose and Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare (ISEW), which takes into account
such elements as adjustments for income distribution, environmental damage, the value
of housework, and resource depletion. Experts in the field of economic development
present comments and criticisms regarding the creation of the ISEW and its outcome.
The book concludes with the authors' direct response to those critical suggestions,
culminating in a revised Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare.
Contributors are Robert Eisner, Alan H. Young, Carol S. Carson, Robert R. Gottfried,
Thomas Michael Power, E.J. Mishan, Jan Tingergen, Richard D. Lamm, and Hans Diefenbacher.
University Press of America. 344pp. Illus. with Index.
ISBN 0-8191-9322-4. $26.50. (A-224). No discount.
Copyright © 1996. The Light Party.
 |
