Hardback
Fashioning Prosperous, Sustainable and Humane Societies
Beyond Precarity
9781035340255 Edward Elgar Publishing
Fashioning Prosperous, Sustainable and Humane Societies examines key challenges confronting humanity in the age of financialization and global warming. A distinguished team of political economists analyzes the social conditions that promote human flourishing and how these can be achieved in the face of growing economic, ecological, and societal precarity.
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Critical Acclaim
Contents
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Fashioning Prosperous, Sustainable and Humane Societies examines key challenges confronting humanity in the age of financialization and global warming. A distinguished team of political economists analyzes the social conditions that promote human flourishing and how these can be achieved in the face of growing economic, ecological, and societal precarity.
Employing critical perspectives to stress the vital role of governments and civil society, contributors survey past public policies across Asia, Europe, and North and South America. They advance existing literature on Post-Keynesian Institutional economics, exploring the new face of global money-manager capitalism and its consequences for emerging, transitioning, and advanced economies. Ultimately, this timely book outlines a social order free not only from exploitation and authoritarianism, but also from the supremacy of market values.
Students and scholars of political economy, Institutional economics and public policy will find this book to be an essential resource. Policymakers will additionally find its insights both bold and practical.
Employing critical perspectives to stress the vital role of governments and civil society, contributors survey past public policies across Asia, Europe, and North and South America. They advance existing literature on Post-Keynesian Institutional economics, exploring the new face of global money-manager capitalism and its consequences for emerging, transitioning, and advanced economies. Ultimately, this timely book outlines a social order free not only from exploitation and authoritarianism, but also from the supremacy of market values.
Students and scholars of political economy, Institutional economics and public policy will find this book to be an essential resource. Policymakers will additionally find its insights both bold and practical.
Critical Acclaim
‘The essays in this volume elaborate the many ways in which families and individuals globally are burdened by exposure to conditions that endanger their existence and emotional wellbeing. Financial vulnerabilities, especially, can be a major source of deep trauma. Admirably the authors in Beyond Precarity seek to chart a better world where people can experience security, fulfillment and joy, rather than live under the persistent threat of pain and injury.’
– William Darity, Jr., Duke University, USA
‘The title of this book expresses forcefully what should be the fundamental aim of all political economy research: to advance prosperous, sustainable and humane societies. The 14 wide-ranging chapters brought together by Charles Whalen—covering inequality, wage stagnation, financialization, caregiving, peacebuilding, democratic governance, and the climate crisis—provide critical new perspectives and workable approaches for accomplishing this fundamental aim.’
– Robert Pollin, University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA
‘Charles Whalen and an international group of colleagues outline the multi-dimensional contours of the precarity embedded in everyday life yet move beyond them to highlight innovative solutions and policies. They provide a refreshing set of directions for overcoming socioeconomic insecurity, environmental degradation, and civic precarity via sustainable enterprise and participatory strategies. Inspiring, important, and intelligently written, the book is a welcome addition to solving real world problems through democratic action and smart regulation.’
– Rosemary Batt, Cornell University, USA
‘At a time of mounting uncertainty and insecurity, this book is essential for understanding the foundations of that precarity and the ongoing deterioration of living standards for many people. It serves as a guide for building a more equitable and sustainable society, approached from a realistic and multifaceted Post-Keynesian Institutionalist perspective.’
– Hugo Iasco Pereira, Federal University of Paraná, Brazil
‘This book provides an antidote to the dismal science of our times. Charles Whalen and his co-authors put forward the alternative of Post-Keynesian Institutionalism, in which models and theories are rooted in institutions, economic outcomes are determined by financial flows, and economic problems may be resolved by institutional change. At the centre of their approach is the concept of precarity and the possibility of its reversal through institutional reform. This provides not only a wake-up call to recognise how we are all affected by economic inequality and insecurity, war and the crisis of democracy, and climate change and environmental degradation. It also gives us the institutional policy instruments with which to tackle those problems.’
– Jan Toporowski, SOAS University of London, UK
‘This is an apt collection for the contemporary tumultuous era hallmarked by multiple interconnecting crises that are embedding systemic precarity across society. The dimensions of today’s economic, ecological and civic precarity are strikingly illustrated and the socio-economic, political and institutional drivers of these dimensions are revealed which expose the changes needed for a more humane, sustainable and prosperous society.’
– Lynne Chester, The University of Sydney, Australia
– William Darity, Jr., Duke University, USA
‘The title of this book expresses forcefully what should be the fundamental aim of all political economy research: to advance prosperous, sustainable and humane societies. The 14 wide-ranging chapters brought together by Charles Whalen—covering inequality, wage stagnation, financialization, caregiving, peacebuilding, democratic governance, and the climate crisis—provide critical new perspectives and workable approaches for accomplishing this fundamental aim.’
– Robert Pollin, University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA
‘Charles Whalen and an international group of colleagues outline the multi-dimensional contours of the precarity embedded in everyday life yet move beyond them to highlight innovative solutions and policies. They provide a refreshing set of directions for overcoming socioeconomic insecurity, environmental degradation, and civic precarity via sustainable enterprise and participatory strategies. Inspiring, important, and intelligently written, the book is a welcome addition to solving real world problems through democratic action and smart regulation.’
– Rosemary Batt, Cornell University, USA
‘At a time of mounting uncertainty and insecurity, this book is essential for understanding the foundations of that precarity and the ongoing deterioration of living standards for many people. It serves as a guide for building a more equitable and sustainable society, approached from a realistic and multifaceted Post-Keynesian Institutionalist perspective.’
– Hugo Iasco Pereira, Federal University of Paraná, Brazil
‘This book provides an antidote to the dismal science of our times. Charles Whalen and his co-authors put forward the alternative of Post-Keynesian Institutionalism, in which models and theories are rooted in institutions, economic outcomes are determined by financial flows, and economic problems may be resolved by institutional change. At the centre of their approach is the concept of precarity and the possibility of its reversal through institutional reform. This provides not only a wake-up call to recognise how we are all affected by economic inequality and insecurity, war and the crisis of democracy, and climate change and environmental degradation. It also gives us the institutional policy instruments with which to tackle those problems.’
– Jan Toporowski, SOAS University of London, UK
‘This is an apt collection for the contemporary tumultuous era hallmarked by multiple interconnecting crises that are embedding systemic precarity across society. The dimensions of today’s economic, ecological and civic precarity are strikingly illustrated and the socio-economic, political and institutional drivers of these dimensions are revealed which expose the changes needed for a more humane, sustainable and prosperous society.’
– Lynne Chester, The University of Sydney, Australia
Contents
Contents
PART I
Introduction
1 Introduction: precarity and beyond 2
Charles J. Whalen
PART II
Economic precarity: analyses and policy alternatives
2 The effect of precarious work on wealth inequality in the
United States: analysis and policy implications 17
Emek Karakilic
3 Wage stagnation and inequality in the United States: how
public policy often made things worse and what can be done
to pursue more broadly shared prosperity 36
Oren M. Levin-Waldman
4 Financialized US labor and the COVID-19 pandemic: lessons
learned and lingering questions 57
Avraham I. Baranes
5 Precarious employment, precarious lives, and frameworks for
change 77
Janice Peterson
PART III
Ecological precarity: pathways to sustainability
6 The environment and care work: similar problems, similar
solutions? 97
Anna Zachorowska-Mazurkiewicz and Mateusz Racławski
7 Post-Keynesian Institutionalism and the transition to
ecological sustainability 117
Samba Diop
Financing the future: sustainable economic and
environmental transition through sustainable regulation 136
Faruk Ülgen
9 Financing energy transition: managed money versus public
money 154
Yan Liang
PART IV
Civic precarity: societal revitalization through participation
10 Power to the people? Historical and theoretical perspectives
on energy, nutrition insecurity, and environmental disruption 173
David A. Zalewski
11 Large Chinese corporations in Latin America: more
extraction or a just transition to an environmentally
sustainable economy? 191
Alicia Girón
12 How to rebuild the economy of post-war Ukraine: a PostKeynesian Institutionalist perspective 224
Anna Klimina
13 Values and institutions of participatory and deliberative
democracy: contribution and functioning in the economy and
public policy 245
Asimina Christoforou and Fikret Adaman
PART V
Conclusion
14 Corporate financialization and socioeconomic precarity:
processes, consequences, and remedies 268
William Lazonick
PART I
Introduction
1 Introduction: precarity and beyond 2
Charles J. Whalen
PART II
Economic precarity: analyses and policy alternatives
2 The effect of precarious work on wealth inequality in the
United States: analysis and policy implications 17
Emek Karakilic
3 Wage stagnation and inequality in the United States: how
public policy often made things worse and what can be done
to pursue more broadly shared prosperity 36
Oren M. Levin-Waldman
4 Financialized US labor and the COVID-19 pandemic: lessons
learned and lingering questions 57
Avraham I. Baranes
5 Precarious employment, precarious lives, and frameworks for
change 77
Janice Peterson
PART III
Ecological precarity: pathways to sustainability
6 The environment and care work: similar problems, similar
solutions? 97
Anna Zachorowska-Mazurkiewicz and Mateusz Racławski
7 Post-Keynesian Institutionalism and the transition to
ecological sustainability 117
Samba Diop
Financing the future: sustainable economic and
environmental transition through sustainable regulation 136
Faruk Ülgen
9 Financing energy transition: managed money versus public
money 154
Yan Liang
PART IV
Civic precarity: societal revitalization through participation
10 Power to the people? Historical and theoretical perspectives
on energy, nutrition insecurity, and environmental disruption 173
David A. Zalewski
11 Large Chinese corporations in Latin America: more
extraction or a just transition to an environmentally
sustainable economy? 191
Alicia Girón
12 How to rebuild the economy of post-war Ukraine: a PostKeynesian Institutionalist perspective 224
Anna Klimina
13 Values and institutions of participatory and deliberative
democracy: contribution and functioning in the economy and
public policy 245
Asimina Christoforou and Fikret Adaman
PART V
Conclusion
14 Corporate financialization and socioeconomic precarity:
processes, consequences, and remedies 268
William Lazonick
