Capital and the Common Good PDF Download

Author: Georgia Levenson Keohane
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 023154166X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 263

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Book Description
Despite social and economic advances around the world, poverty and disease persist, exacerbated by the mounting challenges of climate change, natural disasters, political conflict, mass migration, and economic inequality. While governments commit to addressing these challenges, traditional public and philanthropic dollars are not enough. Here, innovative finance has shown a way forward: by borrowing techniques from the world of finance, we can raise capital for social investments today. Innovative finance has provided polio vaccines to children in the DRC, crop insurance to farmers in India, pay-as-you-go solar electricity to Kenyans, and affordable housing and transportation to New Yorkers. It has helped governmental, commercial, and philanthropic resources meet the needs of the poor and underserved and build a more sustainable and inclusive prosperity. Capital and the Common Good shows how market failure in one context can be solved with market solutions from another: an expert in securitization bundles future development aid into bonds to pay for vaccines today; an entrepreneur turns a mobile phone into an array of financial services for the unbanked; and policy makers adapt pay-for-success models from the world of infrastructure to human services like early childhood education, maternal health, and job training. Revisiting the successes and missteps of these efforts, Georgia Levenson Keohane argues that innovative finance is as much about incentives and sound decision-making as it is about money. When it works, innovative finance gives us the tools, motivation, and security to invest in our shared future.

Author: Jean Tirole
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691192251
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 582

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Book Description
"When Jean Tirole won the 2014 Nobel Prize in Economics, he suddenly found himself being stopped in the street by complete strangers and asked to comment on issues of the day, no matter how distant from his own areas of research. His transformation from academic economist to public intellectual prompted him to reflect further on the role economists and their discipline play in society. The result is Economics for the Common Good, a passionate manifesto for a world in which economics, far from being a 'dismal science,' is a positive force for the common good. Economists are rewarded for writing technical papers in scholarly journals, not joining in public debates. But Tirole says we urgently need economists to engage with the many challenges facing society, helping to identify our key objectives and the tools needed to meet them. To show how economics can help us realize the common good, Tirole shares his insights on a broad array of questions affecting our everyday lives and the future of our society, including global warming, unemployment, the post-2008 global financial order, the euro crisis, the digital revolution, innovation, and the proper balance between the free market and regulation. Providing a rich account of how economics can benefit everyone, Economics for the Common Good sets a new agenda for the role of economics in society"--Provided by publisher.

Author: Corwin E. Smidt
Publisher: Baylor University Press
ISBN: 0918954851
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 270

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Book Description
While Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone (2000) highlighted the notion of volunteerism, little attention has been paid to religion's role in generating social capital--an ironic omission since religion constitutes the most common form of voluntary association in America today. Featuring essays by prominent social scientists, this is the first book-length, systematic examination of the relationship between religion and social capital and what effects religious social capital has on democratic life in the United States.

Author: Herman E. Daly
Publisher: Beacon Press (MA)
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 492

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Book Description
Daly (economist, the World Bank) and Cobb (philosophy, Claremont Graduate School) expose the outmoded abstractions of mainstream economic theory. They conclude, in particular, that economic growth--the prevailing yardstick for measuring economic success--is no longer an appropriate goal as energy consumption, overpopulation, and pollution increase. Instead, they propose a new measure for the economy--the Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Author: John Nickson
Publisher: Biteback Publishing
ISBN: 1785902202
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 434

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Book Description
Contemporary Britain is defined by the personal generosity and social commitment of our predecessors as much as by the state. But, as the state retreats, demands on the voluntary sector grow, the gap between the rich and the poor increases and charitable giving stagnates, our way of life is at risk. Will future generations live in a liberal democracy - or a plutocracy devoted to the interests of the rich and powerful? In this timely book, John Nickson, one of Britain's most experienced and successful fundraisers, argues that there will be catastrophic effects on our democracy unless we all commit to creating the social, cultural and intellectual capital we need to sustain society and our economy. Amid the challenges we face, there are opportunities: not least to transform the role of the state and the way the public, private and voluntary sectors work together to find innovative and enterprising solutions. Our Common Good explores the efforts of philanthropists, social entrepreneurs, and local authority, charity and business leaders, and reveals how their inspiring and practical solutions can build a better and fairer society.

Author: Christian Felber
Publisher: Zed Books Ltd.
ISBN: 1786997479
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
Is it possible for businesses to have a bottom line that is not profit and endless growth, but human dignity, justice, sustainability and democracy? Or an alternative economic model that is untainted by the greed and crises of current financial systems? Christian Felber says it is. Moreover, in Change Everything he shows us how. In this new and updated edition of the book that sparked a global movement, Christian Felber proposes a blueprint for an economics of everybody: ethical, dignified, sustainable and principled. He shows that The Economy for the Common Good is not just an idea, but has already become a broad international movement with thousands of people, companies, communities and organizations participating, developing and implementing it.

Author: Maurice Glasman
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1509528881
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 103

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Book Description
Labour has been on a wild ride over the past thirty years. New Labour argued that we had no choice but to accept a globalized free market economy in which the race was to the swift, the open and the flexible. Corbynism reacted against this with a jumble of old school statism and identity politics. Both ultimately failed. In this book, Maurice Glasman takes the axe to the soulless utilitarianism and ‘progressive’ intolerance of both Blair and Corbyn. Human beings, he contends, are not calculating machines, but faithful, relational beings who yearn for meaning and belonging. Rooted in their homes, families and traditions, they seek to resist the revolutionary upheaval of markets and states, which try to commodify and dominate their lives and homes, by the practice of democracy, mutuality and pluralism. This is the true Labour tradition, which is paradoxically both radical and conservative – and more relevant than ever in a post-COVID world. This crisp statement of the real politics of Blue Labour – rather than the absurd caricature of its detractors – is Glasman’s love letter to the left-conservatism that provides Labour’s best chance of moral – and indeed electoral – redemption.

Author: Cor van Beuningen
Publisher:
ISBN: 9789463727914
Category : Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 208

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Book Description
Over the past fifty years, (financial) capitalism has brought about an enormous growth in wealth. Millions around the world have been lifted out of poverty. However, the downsides of the present global economic constitution are rapidly becoming evident as well. Rising inequality, soaring debt levels, and repeated cycles of boom and bust have proven to be some of its key characteristics. After the 2008 crisis brought the financial system to the brink of collapse, new regulations, stricter supervision, higher capital requirements, and ethical codes were introduced to the sector. Today we find ourselves in the middle of another economic boom. Yet one pressing question remains: has anything changed? Have the (necessary) repairs fixed the flaws in the system? Or do we require even more fundamental reforms? This volume builds on the observation that society has co-evolved with the financial sector. We cannot simply claim that 'finance' was the sole instigator of the 2008 crisis. Society itself has become financialized; the process of replacing relations, structures of trust and reciprocity, by anonymous and systemic transactions. The volume poses vital questions with regard to this societal development. How did this happen? And more importantly: is change possible? If yes, how? This volume contains 21 essays on the themes mentioned above. Authors include Jan Peter Balkenende, Wouter Bos, Lans Bovenberg, Govert Buijs, and Herman Van Rompuy. A recommendation by Dutch Minister of Finance Wopke Hoekstra is also included.

Author: Steven Garber
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
ISBN: 0830896260
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 259

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Book Description
Foreword Review's Annual INDIEFAB Book of the Year Finalist Outreach Resource of the Year Christianity Today Award of Merit Leadership Journal Best Books for Church Leaders Book of the Year from Byron Borger, Hearts and Minds Bookstore Is it possible to know the world and still love the world? Of all the questions we ask about our calling, this is the most difficult. From marriages to international relations, the more we know, the harder it is to love. We become cynics or stoics, protecting our hearts from the implications of what we know. But what if the vision of vocation can be recovered—allowing us to step into the wounds of the world and for love's sake take up our responsibility for the way the world turns out? For decades Steve Garber has come alongside a wide range of people as they seek to make sense of the world and their lives. With him we meet leaders from the Tiananmen Square protest who want a good reason to still care about China. We also meet with many ordinary people in ordinary places who long for their lives to matter: Jonathan who learned he would rather build houses than study history Todd and Maria who adopted creative schedules so they could parent better and practice medicine D.J. who helped Congress move into the Internet Age Robin who spends her life on behalf of urban justice Hans who makes hamburgers the way they are meant to be made Susan who built a home business of hand-printing stationary using a letterpress Santiago who works with majority-world nations in need of capital George who has given years to teaching students to learn things that matter most Claudius and Deirdre whose openhearted home has always been a place for people Dan who loves Wyoming, the place, its people and its cows Vocation is when we come to know the world in all its joy and pain and still love it. Vocation is following our calling to seek the welfare of the world we live in. And in helping the world to flourish, strangely, mysteriously, we find that we flourish too. Garber offers a book for everyone everywhere—for students, for parents, for those in the arts, in the academy, in public service, in the trades and in commerce—for all who want to discover the virtue of vocation.

Author: Jason Kaufman
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 9780195148589
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 308

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Book Description
"The Golden Age of Fraternity was a unique time in American history. In the forty years between the Civil War and the onset of World War I, more than half of all Americans participated in clubs, fraternities, militias, and mutual benefit societies. Today this period is held up as a model for how we might revitalize contemporary civil society. But was America's associational culture really as communal as has been assumed? What if these much-admired voluntary organizations served parochial concerns rather than the common good? Jason Kaufman sets out to dispel many of the myths about the supposed civic-mindedness of "joining" while bringing to light the hidden lessons of associationalism's history. Relying on deep archival research in city directories, club histories, and membership lists, Kaufman shows that organizational activity in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries revolved largely around economic self-interest rather than civic engagement. And far from spurring concern for the collective good, fraternal societies, able to pick and choose members at will, fostered exclusion and further exacerbated the competitive interests of a society divided by race, class, ethnicity, and religion. Tracing both the rise and the decline of American associational life - a decline that began immediately after World War I, much earlier than previously thought - Kaufman argues persuasively that the end of fraternalism was a good thing. Illuminating both broad historical shifts - immigration, urbanization, and the disruptions of war, among them - and smaller, overlooked contours, such as changes in the burial and life insurance industries, Kaufman has written a bracing revisionist history. Eloquently rebutting those hailing America's associational past and calling for a return to old-style voluntarism, For the Common Good? will change the terms of debate about the history - and the future - of American civil society."--Publisher's description.