Author: Pandemic Research for the Peo (Prep)
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781988832975
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 52
Book Description
Pathogens repeatedly are emerging from a global agrifood system rooted in inequality, labor exploitation, and unfettered extractivism by which communities are robbed of their natural and social resources. A crisis-prone economic system that prioritizes production for profit over meeting human needs and ecological preservation is organized around intense monocultural production that, along the way, allows the deadliest of diseases to emerge. The PReP Agroecologies working group focuses on how agriculture might be reimagined as the kind of community-wide intervention that could stop coronaviruses and other pathogens from emerging in the first place. We address how mainstream science supports the same political and economic systems that helped produce the pandemic. Then we introduce agroecology, an environmentalism of the peasantry, the poor, and indigenous, long in practice, that treats agriculture as a part of the ecology out of which humanity grows its food. Agroecology-a science, movement, and practice-combines ecological science, indigenous and peasant knowledges, and social movements for food and territorial sovereignty to achieve environmentally just food systems. Peasant- and indigenous-led agroecology is uniquely positioned to limit the spread of zoonotic viruses: Post-capitalist agroecology champions the indigenous and smallholders who protect agricultural biodiversity. A diverse agroecological matrix of farm plots, agroforestry, and grazing lands all embedded within a forest can conserve animal biodiversity in the landscape. Agricultural biodiversity can make it more difficult for zoonotic diseases to prevail. Such a mode of conservation also takes into account the economic and social conditions of people currently tending the land, rather than a conservation that uproots people to foster the private accumulation of capital.
Moving Beyond Capitalist Agriculture
Author: Pandemic Research for the Peo (Prep)
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781988832975
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 52
Book Description
Pathogens repeatedly are emerging from a global agrifood system rooted in inequality, labor exploitation, and unfettered extractivism by which communities are robbed of their natural and social resources. A crisis-prone economic system that prioritizes production for profit over meeting human needs and ecological preservation is organized around intense monocultural production that, along the way, allows the deadliest of diseases to emerge. The PReP Agroecologies working group focuses on how agriculture might be reimagined as the kind of community-wide intervention that could stop coronaviruses and other pathogens from emerging in the first place. We address how mainstream science supports the same political and economic systems that helped produce the pandemic. Then we introduce agroecology, an environmentalism of the peasantry, the poor, and indigenous, long in practice, that treats agriculture as a part of the ecology out of which humanity grows its food. Agroecology-a science, movement, and practice-combines ecological science, indigenous and peasant knowledges, and social movements for food and territorial sovereignty to achieve environmentally just food systems. Peasant- and indigenous-led agroecology is uniquely positioned to limit the spread of zoonotic viruses: Post-capitalist agroecology champions the indigenous and smallholders who protect agricultural biodiversity. A diverse agroecological matrix of farm plots, agroforestry, and grazing lands all embedded within a forest can conserve animal biodiversity in the landscape. Agricultural biodiversity can make it more difficult for zoonotic diseases to prevail. Such a mode of conservation also takes into account the economic and social conditions of people currently tending the land, rather than a conservation that uproots people to foster the private accumulation of capital.
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781988832975
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 52
Book Description
Pathogens repeatedly are emerging from a global agrifood system rooted in inequality, labor exploitation, and unfettered extractivism by which communities are robbed of their natural and social resources. A crisis-prone economic system that prioritizes production for profit over meeting human needs and ecological preservation is organized around intense monocultural production that, along the way, allows the deadliest of diseases to emerge. The PReP Agroecologies working group focuses on how agriculture might be reimagined as the kind of community-wide intervention that could stop coronaviruses and other pathogens from emerging in the first place. We address how mainstream science supports the same political and economic systems that helped produce the pandemic. Then we introduce agroecology, an environmentalism of the peasantry, the poor, and indigenous, long in practice, that treats agriculture as a part of the ecology out of which humanity grows its food. Agroecology-a science, movement, and practice-combines ecological science, indigenous and peasant knowledges, and social movements for food and territorial sovereignty to achieve environmentally just food systems. Peasant- and indigenous-led agroecology is uniquely positioned to limit the spread of zoonotic viruses: Post-capitalist agroecology champions the indigenous and smallholders who protect agricultural biodiversity. A diverse agroecological matrix of farm plots, agroforestry, and grazing lands all embedded within a forest can conserve animal biodiversity in the landscape. Agricultural biodiversity can make it more difficult for zoonotic diseases to prevail. Such a mode of conservation also takes into account the economic and social conditions of people currently tending the land, rather than a conservation that uproots people to foster the private accumulation of capital.
Rinky-Dink Revolution
Author: Howard Waitzkin
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781988832531
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 74
Book Description
Answering the question of how to get from A to B, capitalism to post-capitalism, is a task that we "audaciously" need to pursue now. This pamphlet is one among several others, intended to clarify our struggle 1) to bring down capitalism; and 2) to create a path toward eco-socialism. Those of us oppressed by capitalism engage in some peculiar forms of actions and inactions. In our actions, we take part in struggles to improve key problems generated by capitalism without confronting capitalism. In other words, our actions confront effects rather than causes. In addition to our contradictory actions, our inactions involve consent. We consent by not challenging or even trying to change our simple economic behaviors that perpetuate the capitalist economic system. As a result, we ordinary people continue to serve as the main financiers of the capitalist system. Why do oppressed people consent to their oppression? Repression usually is not enough, as Gramsci observed while imprisoned by Italian fascism. "Hegemonic" ideas explain and justify the oppressive circumstances of our lives. Rinky-dink revolution involves actions and inactions that are easy, safe, mundane, unglamorous, and feasible within every person's life. The history of revolutions shows that the activists who bring them about number much fewer than countries' entire populations. The estimate of 7 to 11 million people required to achieve revolutionary transformation in the United States comes from a simple calculation, which may be off, but probably not way off. "We" who struggle against capitalism have become much more diverse and numerous than the protagonists envisioned by Marx and Engels. "They" who fight to preserve capitalism make up a tiny minority of the world's population. Revolutionary strategy requires clarifying what specific characteristics of capitalism are oppressive and have to go, as opposed to what characteristics of social and economic organization are not oppressive and can stay. What post-capitalist society looks like has become much clearer. Rinky-dink revolution includes withholding consent to processes that capitalism needs to maintain itself and grow, plus several creatively constructive and destructive efforts in which millions of people, but still a minority of the population, participate. The transition to post-capitalism is already happening throughout the world in the creative construction of communal organizations that govern themselves and that act to assure the survival and well-being of their participants. Moving beyond the capitalist state, including the welfare state as part of the capitalist state, entails moving beyond the state itself. The solidarity economy first of all finds ways to create cheap, small-scale, cooperative, pleasant, and comfortable housing units that require very little money, with collaborative solutions to exploitative rent, debt, taxes, and insurance. Second, communal organizations solve the food problem through local production and distribution of nutritious food, achieving independence from capitalist agriculture.
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781988832531
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 74
Book Description
Answering the question of how to get from A to B, capitalism to post-capitalism, is a task that we "audaciously" need to pursue now. This pamphlet is one among several others, intended to clarify our struggle 1) to bring down capitalism; and 2) to create a path toward eco-socialism. Those of us oppressed by capitalism engage in some peculiar forms of actions and inactions. In our actions, we take part in struggles to improve key problems generated by capitalism without confronting capitalism. In other words, our actions confront effects rather than causes. In addition to our contradictory actions, our inactions involve consent. We consent by not challenging or even trying to change our simple economic behaviors that perpetuate the capitalist economic system. As a result, we ordinary people continue to serve as the main financiers of the capitalist system. Why do oppressed people consent to their oppression? Repression usually is not enough, as Gramsci observed while imprisoned by Italian fascism. "Hegemonic" ideas explain and justify the oppressive circumstances of our lives. Rinky-dink revolution involves actions and inactions that are easy, safe, mundane, unglamorous, and feasible within every person's life. The history of revolutions shows that the activists who bring them about number much fewer than countries' entire populations. The estimate of 7 to 11 million people required to achieve revolutionary transformation in the United States comes from a simple calculation, which may be off, but probably not way off. "We" who struggle against capitalism have become much more diverse and numerous than the protagonists envisioned by Marx and Engels. "They" who fight to preserve capitalism make up a tiny minority of the world's population. Revolutionary strategy requires clarifying what specific characteristics of capitalism are oppressive and have to go, as opposed to what characteristics of social and economic organization are not oppressive and can stay. What post-capitalist society looks like has become much clearer. Rinky-dink revolution includes withholding consent to processes that capitalism needs to maintain itself and grow, plus several creatively constructive and destructive efforts in which millions of people, but still a minority of the population, participate. The transition to post-capitalism is already happening throughout the world in the creative construction of communal organizations that govern themselves and that act to assure the survival and well-being of their participants. Moving beyond the capitalist state, including the welfare state as part of the capitalist state, entails moving beyond the state itself. The solidarity economy first of all finds ways to create cheap, small-scale, cooperative, pleasant, and comfortable housing units that require very little money, with collaborative solutions to exploitative rent, debt, taxes, and insurance. Second, communal organizations solve the food problem through local production and distribution of nutritious food, achieving independence from capitalist agriculture.
Abolitionist Agroecology, Food Sovereignty and Pandemic Prevention
Author: Maywa Montenegro de Wit
Publisher: Daraja Press
ISBN: 9781990263033
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 80
Book Description
COVID-19 has exposed the racialized nature of food systems, but also potentially grants opportunities to build anew. Maywa Montenegro explores a series of breakdowns, from fractured supply chains to uncontrolled infection among essential food workers to Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities scythed through by the virus along old grooves of race-class oppression. She traces the likely origins of COVID-19 to spillover sites forged by agroindustrial expansion into forested regions where pathogens spring free and infect humans. Industrial animal agriculture drives these ecological changes that incubate future outbreaks. Pandemics have their roots in the violent separation of communities from their territories, seeds, knowledge and wealth. Racism enables such theft as fundamental to capitalist expansion. To tackle pandemics and food injustices, Montenegro calls for an abolitionist agroecology. No anti-capitalist alternative can ignore the racism that is central to the transnational industrial food system. Scholars including Angela Davis, Ruth Wilson Gilmore, and Mariame Kaba have argued that although abolition is frequently seen as an oppositional strategy - to eradicate, for example, prisons and police - abolition is equally propositional. An abolitionist agroecology cracks open multiple possibilities that respond to the exigencies of a pandemic planet - there is no 'normal' to which we can safely return.
Publisher: Daraja Press
ISBN: 9781990263033
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 80
Book Description
COVID-19 has exposed the racialized nature of food systems, but also potentially grants opportunities to build anew. Maywa Montenegro explores a series of breakdowns, from fractured supply chains to uncontrolled infection among essential food workers to Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities scythed through by the virus along old grooves of race-class oppression. She traces the likely origins of COVID-19 to spillover sites forged by agroindustrial expansion into forested regions where pathogens spring free and infect humans. Industrial animal agriculture drives these ecological changes that incubate future outbreaks. Pandemics have their roots in the violent separation of communities from their territories, seeds, knowledge and wealth. Racism enables such theft as fundamental to capitalist expansion. To tackle pandemics and food injustices, Montenegro calls for an abolitionist agroecology. No anti-capitalist alternative can ignore the racism that is central to the transnational industrial food system. Scholars including Angela Davis, Ruth Wilson Gilmore, and Mariame Kaba have argued that although abolition is frequently seen as an oppositional strategy - to eradicate, for example, prisons and police - abolition is equally propositional. An abolitionist agroecology cracks open multiple possibilities that respond to the exigencies of a pandemic planet - there is no 'normal' to which we can safely return.
Agroecology Now!
Author: Colin Ray Anderson
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030613151
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 204
Book Description
This open access book develops a framework for advancing agroecology transformations focusing on power, politics and governance. It explores the potential of agroecology as a sustainable and socially just alternative to today’s dominant food regime. Agroecology is an ecological approach to farming that addresses climate change and biodiversity loss while contributing to the Sustainable Development Goals. Agroecology transformations represent a challenge to the power of corporations in controlling food system and a rejection of the industrial food systems that are at the root of many social and ecological ills. In this book the authors analyse the conditions that enable and disable agroecology’s potential and present six ‘domains of transformation’ where it comes into conflict with the dominant food system. They argue that food sovereignty, community-self organization and a shift to bottom-up governance are critical for the transformation to a socially just and ecologically viable food system. This book will be a valuable resource to researchers, students, policy makers and professionals across multidisciplinary areas including in the fields of food politics, international development, sustainability and resilience.
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030613151
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 204
Book Description
This open access book develops a framework for advancing agroecology transformations focusing on power, politics and governance. It explores the potential of agroecology as a sustainable and socially just alternative to today’s dominant food regime. Agroecology is an ecological approach to farming that addresses climate change and biodiversity loss while contributing to the Sustainable Development Goals. Agroecology transformations represent a challenge to the power of corporations in controlling food system and a rejection of the industrial food systems that are at the root of many social and ecological ills. In this book the authors analyse the conditions that enable and disable agroecology’s potential and present six ‘domains of transformation’ where it comes into conflict with the dominant food system. They argue that food sovereignty, community-self organization and a shift to bottom-up governance are critical for the transformation to a socially just and ecologically viable food system. This book will be a valuable resource to researchers, students, policy makers and professionals across multidisciplinary areas including in the fields of food politics, international development, sustainability and resilience.
Facing the Apocalypse
Author: ALAN. THORNETT
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780902869745
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 350
Book Description
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780902869745
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 350
Book Description
Climate Capitalism
Author: L. Hunter Lovins
Publisher: Hill and Wang
ISBN: 1429966653
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 402
Book Description
Believe in climate change. Or don't. It doesn't matter. But you'd better understand this: the best route to rebuilding our economy, our cities, and our job markets, as well as assuring national security, is doing precisely what you would do if you were scared to death about climate change. Whether you're the head of a household or the CEO of a multinational corporation, embracing efficiency, innovation, renewables, carbon markets, and new technologies is the smartest decision you can make. It's the most profitable, too. And, oh yes—you'll help save the planet. In Climate Capitalism, L. Hunter Lovins, coauthor of the bestselling Natural Capitalism, and the sustainability expert Boyd Cohen prove that the future of capitalism in a recession-riddled, carbon-constrained world will be built on innovations that cutting-edge leaders are bringing to the market today. These companies are creating jobs and driving innovation. Climate Capitalism delivers hundreds of indepth case studies of international corporations, small businesses, NGOs, and municipalities to prove that energy efficiency and renewable resources are already driving prosperity. While highlighting business opportunities across a range of sectors—including energy, construction, transportation, and agriculture technologies—Lovins and Cohen also show why the ex–CIA director Jim Woolsey drives a solar-powered plugin hybrid vehicle. His bumper sticker says it all: "Osama bin Laden hates my car." Corporate executives, entrepreneurs, environmentalists, and concerned citizens alike will find profitable ideas within these pages. In ten information-packed chapters, Climate Capitalism gives tangible examples of early adopters across the globe who see that the low-carbon economy leads to increased profits and economic growth. It offers a clear and concise road map to the new energy economy and a cooler planet.
Publisher: Hill and Wang
ISBN: 1429966653
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 402
Book Description
Believe in climate change. Or don't. It doesn't matter. But you'd better understand this: the best route to rebuilding our economy, our cities, and our job markets, as well as assuring national security, is doing precisely what you would do if you were scared to death about climate change. Whether you're the head of a household or the CEO of a multinational corporation, embracing efficiency, innovation, renewables, carbon markets, and new technologies is the smartest decision you can make. It's the most profitable, too. And, oh yes—you'll help save the planet. In Climate Capitalism, L. Hunter Lovins, coauthor of the bestselling Natural Capitalism, and the sustainability expert Boyd Cohen prove that the future of capitalism in a recession-riddled, carbon-constrained world will be built on innovations that cutting-edge leaders are bringing to the market today. These companies are creating jobs and driving innovation. Climate Capitalism delivers hundreds of indepth case studies of international corporations, small businesses, NGOs, and municipalities to prove that energy efficiency and renewable resources are already driving prosperity. While highlighting business opportunities across a range of sectors—including energy, construction, transportation, and agriculture technologies—Lovins and Cohen also show why the ex–CIA director Jim Woolsey drives a solar-powered plugin hybrid vehicle. His bumper sticker says it all: "Osama bin Laden hates my car." Corporate executives, entrepreneurs, environmentalists, and concerned citizens alike will find profitable ideas within these pages. In ten information-packed chapters, Climate Capitalism gives tangible examples of early adopters across the globe who see that the low-carbon economy leads to increased profits and economic growth. It offers a clear and concise road map to the new energy economy and a cooler planet.
Moving Beyond Capitalism
Author: Cliff DuRand
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317093844
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 255
Book Description
The book speaks to the widespread quest for concrete alternative ways forward 'beyond capitalism' in the face of the prevailing corporatocracy and a capitalist system in crisis. It examines a number of institutions and practices now being built in the nooks and crannies of present societies and that point beyond capitalism toward a more equal, participatory, and democratic society – institutions such as cooperatives, public banks, the commons, economic democracy. This seminal collection of critical studies draws on academic and activist voices from the U.S. and Canada, Mexico, Cuba, and Argentina, and from a variety of theoretical-political perspectives – Marxism, anarchism, feminism, and Zapatismo.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317093844
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 255
Book Description
The book speaks to the widespread quest for concrete alternative ways forward 'beyond capitalism' in the face of the prevailing corporatocracy and a capitalist system in crisis. It examines a number of institutions and practices now being built in the nooks and crannies of present societies and that point beyond capitalism toward a more equal, participatory, and democratic society – institutions such as cooperatives, public banks, the commons, economic democracy. This seminal collection of critical studies draws on academic and activist voices from the U.S. and Canada, Mexico, Cuba, and Argentina, and from a variety of theoretical-political perspectives – Marxism, anarchism, feminism, and Zapatismo.
The Modern World-System I
Author: Immanuel Wallerstein
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520267575
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 441
Book Description
"The Modern World System", Immanuel Wallerstein's influential multivolume reinterpretation of global history, traces the emergence and development of the modern world from the sixteenth century to the twentieth. -- From publisher's description.
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520267575
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 441
Book Description
"The Modern World System", Immanuel Wallerstein's influential multivolume reinterpretation of global history, traces the emergence and development of the modern world from the sixteenth century to the twentieth. -- From publisher's description.
Capitalism Takes Command
Author: Michael Zakim
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226451097
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 368
Book Description
Most scholarship on nineteenth-century America’s transformation into a market society has focused on consumption, romanticized visions of workers, and analysis of firms and factories. Building on but moving past these studies, Capitalism Takes Command presents a history of family farming, general incorporation laws, mortgage payments, inheritance practices, office systems, and risk management—an inventory of the means by which capitalism became America’s new revolutionary tradition. This multidisciplinary collection of essays argues not only that capitalism reached far beyond the purview of the economy, but also that the revolution was not confined to the destruction of an agrarian past. As business ceaselessly revised its own practices, a new demographic of private bankers, insurance brokers, investors in securities, and start-up manufacturers, among many others, assumed center stage, displacing older elites and forms of property. Explaining how capital became an “ism” and how business became a political philosophy, Capitalism Takes Command brings the economy back into American social and cultural history.
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226451097
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 368
Book Description
Most scholarship on nineteenth-century America’s transformation into a market society has focused on consumption, romanticized visions of workers, and analysis of firms and factories. Building on but moving past these studies, Capitalism Takes Command presents a history of family farming, general incorporation laws, mortgage payments, inheritance practices, office systems, and risk management—an inventory of the means by which capitalism became America’s new revolutionary tradition. This multidisciplinary collection of essays argues not only that capitalism reached far beyond the purview of the economy, but also that the revolution was not confined to the destruction of an agrarian past. As business ceaselessly revised its own practices, a new demographic of private bankers, insurance brokers, investors in securities, and start-up manufacturers, among many others, assumed center stage, displacing older elites and forms of property. Explaining how capital became an “ism” and how business became a political philosophy, Capitalism Takes Command brings the economy back into American social and cultural history.
What Every Environmentalist Needs to Know About Capitalism
Author: Fred Magdoff
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 1583672737
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 188
Book Description
Praise for Foster and Magdoff’s The Great Financial Crisis: In this timely and thorough analysis of the current financial crisis, Foster and Magdoff explore its roots and the radical changes that might be undertaken in response. . . . This book makes a valuable contribution to the ongoing examination of our current debt crisis, one that deserves our full attention.—Publishers Weekly There is a growing consensus that the planet is heading toward environmental catastrophe: climate change, ocean acidification, ozone depletion, global freshwater use, loss of biodiversity, and chemical pollution all threaten our future unless we act. What is less clear is how humanity should respond. The contemporary environmental movement is the site of many competing plans and prescriptions, and composed of a diverse set of actors, from militant activists to corporate chief executives. This short, readable book is a sharply argued manifesto for those environmentalists who reject schemes of “green capitalism” or piecemeal reform. Environmental and economic scholars Magdoff and Foster contend that the struggle to reverse ecological degradation requires a firm grasp of economic reality. Going further, they argue that efforts to reform capitalism along environmental lines or rely solely on new technology to avert catastrophe misses the point. The main cause of the looming environmental disaster is the driving logic of the system itself, and those in power—no matter how “green”—are incapable of making the changes that are necessary. What Every Environmentalist Needs To Know about Capitalism tackles the two largest issues of our time, the ecological crisis and the faltering capitalist economy, in a way that is thorough, accessible, and sure to provoke debate in the environmental movement.
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 1583672737
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 188
Book Description
Praise for Foster and Magdoff’s The Great Financial Crisis: In this timely and thorough analysis of the current financial crisis, Foster and Magdoff explore its roots and the radical changes that might be undertaken in response. . . . This book makes a valuable contribution to the ongoing examination of our current debt crisis, one that deserves our full attention.—Publishers Weekly There is a growing consensus that the planet is heading toward environmental catastrophe: climate change, ocean acidification, ozone depletion, global freshwater use, loss of biodiversity, and chemical pollution all threaten our future unless we act. What is less clear is how humanity should respond. The contemporary environmental movement is the site of many competing plans and prescriptions, and composed of a diverse set of actors, from militant activists to corporate chief executives. This short, readable book is a sharply argued manifesto for those environmentalists who reject schemes of “green capitalism” or piecemeal reform. Environmental and economic scholars Magdoff and Foster contend that the struggle to reverse ecological degradation requires a firm grasp of economic reality. Going further, they argue that efforts to reform capitalism along environmental lines or rely solely on new technology to avert catastrophe misses the point. The main cause of the looming environmental disaster is the driving logic of the system itself, and those in power—no matter how “green”—are incapable of making the changes that are necessary. What Every Environmentalist Needs To Know about Capitalism tackles the two largest issues of our time, the ecological crisis and the faltering capitalist economy, in a way that is thorough, accessible, and sure to provoke debate in the environmental movement.