The present historical moment may seem a particularly inopportune time to review Bowling Alone, Robert Putnam's latest exploration of civic decline in America. After all, the outpouring of volunteerism, solidarity, patriotism, and self-sacrifice displayed by Americans in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks appears to fly in the face of Putnam's central argument: that \"social capital\" -defined as \"social networks and the norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness that arise from them\" (p. 19)'has declined to dangerously low levels in America over the last three decades. However, Putnam is not fazed in the least by the recent effusion of solidarity. Quite the contrary, he sees in it the potential to \"reverse what has been a 30to 40-year steady decline in most measures of connectedness or community.\"' As an example of how the current \"war on terrorism\" could generate a durable civic renewal, Putnam points to the burst in civic practices that occurred during and after World War II, which he says \"permanently marked\" the generation that lived through it and had a \"terrific effect on American public life over the last half-century.\" 3 If Americans can follow this example and channel their current civic

Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American community

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The Precariat. The New Dangerous Class

Manias, Panics, and Crashes. A History of Financial Crises

The Sinews of power: war, money and the english state, 1688–1783

Buying time: The delayed crisis of democratic capitalism

I. THE STORY OF THE CONSUMER, THE LABORER, THE CAPITALIST, AND THE NATION-STATE IN THE SOCIETY OF PERPETUAL GROWTH. 1. Capitalism and the Making of the Consumer. Plan of the Book. Culture and the Construction of the Consumer. The Construction of the Consumer. Marketing and Advertising. The Transformation of Institutions. The Transformation of Spiritual and Intellectual Values. Kinderculture in America: The Child as Consumer. The Role of Children in Capitalism. The Social Construction of Childhood. The Appropriation of Childhood, Part I: Baum's Emerald City. The Appropriation of Childhood, Part II: Walt Disney's World. Conclusion. 2. The Laborer in the Culture of Capitalism. A Primer on the Essential Economic Elements of Capitalism. The Baptism of Money. The Construction and Anatomy of the Working Class. Characteristics of the Working Class. The Growth of Overseas Assembly Plants. The Creation of Free Labor. The Segmentation of the Workforce. Control and Discipline. Resistance and Rebellion. Conclusion. 3. The Rise of the Merchant, Industrialist, and Capital Controller. The Era of the Global Trader. A Trader's Tour of the World in 1400. The Economic Rise of Europe and its Impact on Africa and the Americas. The Rise of the Trading Companies. The Era of the Industrialist. Textiles and the Rise of the Factory System. The Age of Imperialism. The Era of the Corporation, the Multilateral Institution, and the Capital Controller. The Rise of the Corporation. Bretton Woods and the World Debt. The Power of Capital Controllers. Conclusion. 4. The Nation-State in the Culture of Capitalism. The Origin and History of the State. The Evolution of the State. The History and Function of the Nation-State. Constructing the Nation-State. Creating the Other. Language, Bureaucracy, and Education. Violence and Genocide. The Future of the Nation-State. Transnationalism and Migration. Will Corporations Rule the World? Nongovernmental Organizations. Conclusion. II. THE GLOBAL IMPACT OF THE CULTURE OF CAPITALISM. 5. The Problem of Population Growth. The Malthusians versus the Revisionists. The Case of India and China. The Issue of Carrying Capacity. The Ideology of Malthusian Concerns. Demographic Transition Theory. A Primer on the Determinants of Population Growth and Decline. Some Examples of Demographic Change. Population Growth in the Periphery. Wealth Flows Theory. The Social Implications of Wealth Flows Theory. The Question of Gender and Power. Problems and Prospects. Conclusion. 6. Hunger, Poverty, and Economic Development. The Evolution of Food Production: From the Neolithic to the Neocaloric. From Gathering and Hunting to the Neolithic. Capitalism and Agriculture. The Neocaloric and the Green Revolution. The Politics of Hunger. The Anatomy of Famine. The Anatomy of Endemic Hunger. Economic Development and Solutions to Hunger. Economic Development. Foreign Aid: The Case of Russia. Targeting Vulnerable Populations: The Grameen Bank. Conclusion. 7. Environment and Consumption. The Case of Sugar. Sugar Origins and Production. Uses of Sugar. The Development of the Sugar Complex. The Expansion of Sugar Consumption. The Mass Consumption of Sugar. Modern Sugar. The Story of Beef. The Ascendancy of Beef. The Emergence of the American Beef Industry. The Internationalization of the Hamburger. Environmentally Sustainable Cattle Raising. Exporting Pollution. Conclusion. 8. Disease. A Primer on How to Die of an Infectious Disease. The Relationships between Culture and Disease. Gathering and Hunting to Early Agriculture. "Graveyards of Mankind." Diseases of Environmental Change. AIDS and the Culture of Capitalism. How Did the Disease Spread? Who Gets Infected with AIDS? Who Gets Blamed? Conclusion. 9. Indigenous People, Ethnic Groups, and the Nation-State. The Fate of Indigenous Peoples. Some Characteristics of Indigenous Peoples. The Process of Ethnocide. The Guarani: The Economics of Ethnocide. History and Background. Contemporary Development and Guarani Communities. Ethnic Violence and the Question of Political Sovereignty. Genocide in Rwanda. Rights of Self-Determination. Conclusion. III. RESISTANCE AND REBELLION. 10. Peasant Protest, Rebellion, and Resistance. Malaysia and the Weapons of the Weak. Malaysian Peasants and the Green Revolution. Fighting Back. Obstacles to Resistance. Protest and Change. Kikuyu and the Mau Mau Rebellion. The British in East Africa. The White Highlands. The Roots of the Rebellion. The Rebellion. "State of Emergency." The Oath and the Detention Camps. Independence. The Rebellion in Chiapas. Poverty and Inequality in Chiapas. The Rebellion and the Global Economy. The Revolt and the Reaction of the Mexican Government. The Future of Peasants. Conclusion. 11. Antisystemic Protest. Protest as Antisystemic: The Two World Revolutions. The Revolution of 1848. The Revolution of 1968. The Protests of Labor: Coal Miners in Nineteenth-Century Pennsylvania. The Coal Industry and the Worker's Life. Worker Resistance and Protest. Destroying Worker Resistance. Global Feminist Resistance. Gender Relations in the Culture of Capitalism. Strategies of Protest. Ecological Resistance Movements. Earthfirst! Chipko and the Tragedy of the Commons. Conclusion. 12. Religion and Antisystemic Protest. Indigenous Religious Movements as Protest. The Ghost Dance. The Cargo Cults. Zionism in South Africa. The Global Challenge of Antisystemic Religious Protest. Islamic Fundamentalism. Protestant Fundamentalism in North America. The Contest between Liberation Theology and Protestant Fundamentalism in Latin America. The Growth and Development of Liberation Theology. Growing Opposition to Liberation Theology. The Growth of the Evangelical Movement in Latin America: The Case of Guatemala. Conclusion. 13. The Construction of the Citizen/Activist. What Are the Real Dangers? The GNP and the Construction of the Doctrine of Perpetual Growth. The Depletion of Natural Capital. The Depletion of Political Capital. The Depletion of Social Capital. Capital and Public Policy. Constructing the Citizen Activist. Indices and Goals for Global Well-being. Some Concrete Policy Recommendations. Rebuilding and Maintaining Natural Capital. Rebuilding and Maintaining Political Capital. Rebuilding and Maintaining Social Capital. Conclusions: Cosmological and Everyday Choices. References. Index.

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Global Problems and the Culture of Capitalism

"Debt as power is a timely and innovative contribution to our understanding of one of the most prescient issues of our time: the explosion of debt across the global economy and related requirement of political leaders to pursue exponential growth to meet the demands of creditors and investors. The book is distinctive in offering a historically sensitive and comprehensive analysis of debt as an interconnected and global phenomenon. Rather than focusing on the historical emergence of debt as a moral obligation, the authors argue that debt under capitalism can be conceived of as a technology of power, intimately tied up with the requirement for perpetual growth and the differential capitalization that benefits ‘the 1%’. Their account begins with the recognition that the histories of human communities and their natural environment are interconnected in complex spatial and hierarchical relations of power and to understand their development we need to not only examine the particularities of a given case, but more importantly their interconnected, interdependent and international relations. Since debt under capitalism is increasingly ubiquitous at all levels of society and economic growth is now the sole mantra of dominant political parties around the world, the authors argue that tracing the evolution and transformation of debt as a technology of power is crucial for understanding the ‘present as history’ and possible alternatives to our current trajectory."

https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/161429/1/2016_di_muzio_robbins_debt_as_power.pdf

Debt as Power

This paper proposes to examine the apparent increase in interpersonal conflict that often accompanies economic change. Focusing initially on the drinking behavior of the Naskapi Indians of Schefferville, Quebec, it is held that when economic change results in the introduction of new ways of access of persons to goods or activities that serve to maintain identities, there will be an increase in frequency of identity struggles, and a corresponding increase in those ritualized or formalized social interactions which serve as identity-resolving forums.

Alcohol and the Identity Struggle: Some Effects of Economic Change on Interpersonal Relations

Preface. Acknowledgments. 1. Culture and Meaning. 2. The Meaning of Progress and Development. 3. Globalization , Neoliberalism and the Nation-State. 4. The Social and Cultural Construction of Reality. 5. Patterns of Family Relations. 6. The Cultural Construction of Identity. 7. The Cultural Construction of Social Hierarchy. 8. The Cultural Construction of Violent Conflict. Glossary. Bibliography. Index.

Cultural Anthropology: A Problem-Based Approach

The goals of the fair trade movement include guaranteeing a reasonable income for rural farmers in the Global South, building democratic institutions and gender equality, and promoting environmental sustainability. Proponents claim that consumers, through their buying choices, can counter the negative externalities created by neoliberal reforms of the past three decades. The question is, whether a market-oriented solution can address market-created ills, or whether fair trade is a marketing strategy to increase the profit margin of agencies along the commodity chain? This article examines how these questions have been addressed by the books under review.

Richard H. Robbins

Papers

Global Problems and the Culture of Capitalism

Debt as Power

Alcohol and the Identity Struggle: Some Effects of Economic Change on Interpersonal Relations

Cultural Anthropology: A Problem-Based Approach

Coffee, Fair Trade, and the Commodification of Morality