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The enemies of globalization--whether they denounce the exploitation of poor countries by rich ones or the imposition of Western values on traditional cultures--see the new world economy as forcing a system on people who do not want it. But the truth of the matter, writes Daniel Cohen in this provocative book, may be the reverse. Globalization, thanks to the speed of twenty-first-century communications, shows people a world of material prosperity that they dowant--a vivid world of promises that have yet to be fulfilled. For the most impoverished developing nations, globalization remains only an elusive image, a fleeting mirage. Never before, Cohen says, have the means of communication--the media--created such a global consciousness, and never have economic forces lagged so far behind expectations. For the poorest countries of the world, writes Cohen, the problem is not so much that they are exploited by globalization as that they are forgotten and excluded.
The book retells 19 tales and legends, some hundreds of years old, with modern settings.
This book presents tales of people who have encountered ghostly dogs, cats, rabbits, and other animals.
What happened yesterday in the West is today being repeated on a global scale. Industrial society is replacing rural society: millions of peasants in China, India, and elsewhere are leaving the countryside and going to the city. New powers are emerging and rivalries are exacerbated as competition increases for control of raw materials. Contrary to what believers in the "clash of civilizations" maintain, the great risk of the twenty-first century is not a confrontation between cultures but a repetition of history. In The Prosperity of Vice, the influential French economist Daniel Cohen shows that violence, rather than peace, has been the historical accompaniment to prosperity. Peace in Europe came only after the barbaric wars of the twentieth century, not as the outcome of economic growth. What will happen this time for today's eagerly Westernizing emerging nations? Cohen guides us through history, describing the European discovery of the "philosopher's stone": the possibility of perpetual growth. But the consequences of addiction to growth are dire in an era of globalization. If a billion Chinese consume a billion cars, the future of the planet is threatened. But, Cohen points out, there is another kind of globalization: the immaterial globalization enabled by the Internet. It is still possible, he argues, that the cyber-world will create a new awareness of global solidarity. It even may help us accomplish a formidable cognitive task, as immense as that realized during the Industrial Revolution--one that would allow us learn to live within the limits of a solitary planet.
From the Book jacket: Feel like taking a little late night journey? Beware! Those eerie shadows along the road and bloodcurdling cries in the dark might be more than figments of your imagination. Ghastly tales of railway ghosts and highway horrors are infamous. Have you heard of the headless brakeman who warns of approaching danger on the railway, or the screaming, faceless phantoms who strike terror along the roadways? These and other spine-chilling stories are based on actual reports that will spook even nonbelievers. Are they in fact true? Do such supernatural beings exist? Only you can decide. RL 5
Stories of ghosts and spirits from beyond the grave are much the same the world over. Some of these tales are grim, even gruesome. They reflect that the dead do not always rest in peace.
In this pithy and provocative book, noted economist Daniel Cohen offers his analysis of the global shift to a post-industrial era. If it was once natural to speak of industrial society, Cohen writes, it is more difficult to speak meaningfully of post-industrial "society." The solidarity that once lay at the heart of industrial society no longer exists. The different levels of large industrial enterprises have been systematically disassembled: tasks considered nonessential are assigned to subcontractors; engineers are grouped together in research sites, apart from the workers. Employees are left exposed while shareholders act to protect themselves. Never has the awareness that we all live in the same world been so strong---and never have the social conditions of existence been so unequal. In these wide-ranging reflections, Cohen describes the transformations that signaled the break between the industrial and the post-industrial eras. He links the revolution in information technology to the trend toward flatter hierarchies of workers with multiple skills--and connects the latter to work practices growing out of the culture of the May 1968 protests. Subcontracting and outsourcing have also changed the nature of work, and Cohen succinctly analyzes the new international division of labor, the economic rise of China, India, and the former Soviet Union, and the economic effects of free trade on poor countries. Finally, Cohen examines the fate of the European social model--with its traditional compromise between social justice and economic productivity--in a post-industrial world.
A report from the International Monetary Fund.
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