Author: Michael Goldman Publisher: ISBN: 9780813525549 Category : Nature Languages : en Pages : 257
Book Description
The concept of "commons" has traditionally served as a device for controlling land, forests, rivers, and natural resources. Now, as we approach the twenty-first century, new forms of enclosures and notions of private property are emerging-from water rights, biodiversity, and "gene pools" of plants and humans to the demands of multinational corporations for free access to more land for investment and exploitation. The power of the commons is still flourishing and the "global commons" now provides the central metaphor for ecological politics. The contributors to Privatizing Nature examine the reasons behind the political resurgence of the commons, and the widespread struggle to transform existing nature-society relations into ones that are non-exploitative, socially just, and ecologically healthy. Tackling the key themes-such as the convergence of environment and social justice, global commodities, and the role of social movements-the authors draw on examples form the Amazon, Mexico, Cameroon, India, and the industrialized North. They argue that, although environmental problems like the Chernobyl disaster suggest that the world is indeed shrinking, the fate of the global commons should not be left to a new powerful class of global problem-solvers at the World Bank, IMF, NAFTA, and WTO. By contrast, the authors highlight the political expertise of social movements fighting dominant strategies to "privatize nature." The contributors are Giovanna DiChiro (USA), Antonio Diegues (Brazil), Michael Flitner (Germany), Michael Goldman (USA), Samuel-Alain Nguiffo (Cameroon), Sanjeev Prakash (India), Lynn Stephen (USA), and Michael Thompson (United Kingdom).
Author: Becky Mansfield Publisher: John Wiley & Sons ISBN: 1444306766 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 184
Book Description
Contemporary privatization remakes nature-society as property andtransforms people’s relationships to themselves, each other,and the natural world. This groundbreaking collection provides thefirst systematic analysis of neo-liberal privatization. Rich casestudies of privatization in the making reveal both the pivotal rolethat privatization plays in neoliberalism and new opportunities forchallenging neo-liberal hegemony. Rich case studies linked to broader questions onneoliberalism Illustrates the importance of property relation and thecomplexities existing in the meaning and practice of property Extends current geographical scholarship on neoliberalism–including neoliberalism and nature Each essay touches on the disciplinary, regulatory dimensionsof privatization Highlights the importance of privatization, both broadly andspecifically
Author: Scott Lehmann Publisher: Oxford University Press ISBN: 0195358252 Category : Philosophy Languages : en Pages : 263
Book Description
In the United States, private ownership of land is not a new idea, yet the federal government retains title to roughly a quarter of the nation's land, including national parks, forests, and wildlife refuges. Managing these properties is expensive and contentious, and few management decisions escape criticism. Some observers, however, argue that such criticism is largely misdirected. The fundamental problem, in their view, is collective ownership and its solution is privatization. A free market, they claim, directs privately owned resources to their most productive uses, and privatizing public lands would create a free market in their services. This timely study critically examines these issues, arguing that there is no sense of "productivity" for which it is true that greater productivity is both desirable and a likely consequence of privatizing public lands or "marketizing" their management. Lehmann's discussion is self-contained, with background chapters on federal lands and management agencies, economics, and ethics, and will interest philosophers as well as public policy analysts.
Author: Michael Goldman Publisher: Pluto Press ISBN: 9780745313054 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 276
Book Description
'An easily read book illuminating the multifarious process of environmental degradation, as well as the motley social movements, especially on a grass-root level, resisting the privatisation of common resources and ecological degradation on both a local and global level.' Capital & ClassTackling the key themes - such as the convergence of environment and social justice, global commodities, and the role of social movements - the contributors draw on examples from the Amazon, Mexico, Cameroon, India and the industrialised North.
Author: Donald Cohen Publisher: The New Press ISBN: 1620976625 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 360
Book Description
The book the American Prospect calls “an essential resource for future reformers on how not to govern,” by America’s leading defender of the public interest and a bestselling historian “An essential read for those who want to fight the assault on public goods and the commons.” —Naomi Klein A sweeping exposé of the ways in which private interests strip public goods of their power and diminish democracy, the hardcover edition of The Privatization of Everything elicited a wide spectrum of praise: Kirkus Reviews hailed it as “a strong, economics-based argument for restoring the boundaries between public goods and private gains,” Literary Hub featured the book on a Best Nonfiction list, calling it “a far-reaching, comprehensible, and necessary book,” and Publishers Weekly dubbed it a “persuasive takedown of the idea that the private sector knows best.” From Diane Ravitch (“an important new book about the dangers of privatization”) to Heather McGhee (“a well-researched call to action”), the rave reviews mirror the expansive nature of the book itself, covering the impact of privatization on every aspect of our lives, from water and trash collection to the justice system and the military. Cohen and Mikaelian also demonstrate how citizens can—and are—wresting back what is ours: A Montana city took back its water infrastructure after finding that they could do it better and cheaper. Colorado towns fought back well-funded campaigns to preserve telecom monopolies and hamstring public broadband. A motivated lawyer fought all the way to the Supreme Court after the state of Georgia erected privatized paywalls around its legal code. “Enlightening and sobering” (Rosanne Cash), The Privatization of Everything connects the dots across a wide range of issues and offers what Cash calls “a progressive voice with a firm eye on justice [that] can carefully parse out complex issues for those of us who take pride in citizenship.”
Author: Chiara Cordelli Publisher: Princeton University Press ISBN: 0691205752 Category : BUSINESS & ECONOMICS Languages : en Pages : 356
Book Description
Why government outsourcing of public powers is making us less free Many governmental functions today—from the management of prisons and welfare offices to warfare and financial regulation—are outsourced to private entities. Education and health care are funded in part through private philanthropy rather than taxation. Can a privatized government rule legitimately? The Privatized State argues that it cannot. In this boldly provocative book, Chiara Cordelli argues that privatization constitutes a regression to a precivil condition—what philosophers centuries ago called "a state of nature." Developing a compelling case for the democratic state and its administrative apparatus, she shows how privatization reproduces the very same defects that Enlightenment thinkers attributed to the precivil condition, and which only properly constituted political institutions can overcome—defects such as provisional justice, undue dependence, and unfreedom. Cordelli advocates for constitutional limits on privatization and a more democratic system of public administration, and lays out the central responsibilities of private actors in contexts where governance is already extensively privatized. Charting a way forward, she presents a new conceptual account of political representation and novel philosophical theories of democratic authority and legitimate lawmaking. The Privatized State shows how privatization undermines the very reason political institutions exist in the first place, and advocates for a new way of administering public affairs that is more democratic and just.
Author: Elizabeth Cullen Dunn Publisher: Cornell University Press ISBN: 150170219X Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 228
Book Description
The transition from socialism in Eastern Europe is not an isolated event, but part of a larger shift in world capitalism: the transition from Fordism to flexible (or neoliberal) capitalism. Using a blend of ethnography and economic geography, Elizabeth C. Dunn shows how management technologies like niche marketing, accounting, audit, and standardization make up flexible capitalism's unique form of labor discipline. This new form of management constitutes some workers as self-auditing, self-regulating actors who are disembedded from a social context while defining others as too entwined in social relations and unable to self-manage.Privatizing Poland examines the effects privatization has on workers' self-concepts; how changes in "personhood" relate to economic and political transitions; and how globalization and foreign capital investment affect Eastern Europe's integration into the world economy. Dunn investigates these topics through a study of workers and changing management techniques at the Alima-Gerber factory in Rzeszów, Poland, formerly a state-owned enterprise, which was privatized by the Gerber Products Company of Fremont, Michigan.Alima-Gerber instituted rigid quality control, job evaluation, and training methods, and developed sophisticated distribution techniques. The core principle underlying these goals and strategies, the author finds, is the belief that in order to produce goods for a capitalist market, workers for a capitalist enterprise must also be produced. Working side-by-side with Alima-Gerber employees, Dunn saw firsthand how the new techniques attempted to change not only the organization of production, but also the workers' identities. Her seamless, engaging narrative shows how the employees resisted, redefined, and negotiated work processes for themselves.
Author: Melissa K. Scanlan Publisher: ISBN: Category : Languages : en Pages : 45
Book Description
Drinking water, beaches, a livable climate, clean air, forests, fisheries, and parks are all commons, shared by many users with diffuse and overlapping interests. These public natural resources are susceptible to depletion, overuse, erosion, and extinction; and they are under increasing pressures to become privatized. The Public Trust Doctrine provides a legal basis to guard against privatizing important public resources or commons. As such, it is a critical doctrine to counter the ever-increasing enclosure and privatization of the commons as well as ensure government trustees protect current and future generations. This Article considers separation of powers and statutory interpretation in cases involving attempted privatizations of public natural resources. Judges use a wide variety of interpretive tools when ruling on the meaning of a statute or legality of an administrative agency's action. This Article explores the role of the judiciary in protecting the public interest in natural resources when a privatization appears to be underway. It analyzes cases from the United States, India, Uganda, Kenya, and the Philippines to demonstrate the multi-jurisdictional use of what should be recognized as a substantive canon of statutory interpretation for nature's trust, seeking a clear statement from the legislature finding no substantial impact on the public interest before allowing privatization. Such an approach furthers democracy by ensuring elected representatives have publicly considered and expressed their intent to authorize a privatization of nature's trust and that such action is in the public interest. This moves the locus of decision-making away from administrative agencies and back to the democratically elected law making body. And once squarely inside the political branch it requires clarity about the action undertaken and a finding consistent with the trustee's duties to the public. Lastly, it explores the political question doctrine as it relates to controversies about privatizing nature's trust and shows the power of framing the status quo.
Author: Michael Goldman
Author: Becky Mansfield
Author: Scott Lehmann
Author: Michael Goldman
Author: 
Author: Donald Cohen
Author: Friends of the Earth International
Author: Chiara Cordelli
Author: Elizabeth Cullen Dunn
Author: Melissa K. Scanlan