Suchergebnisse

How did Americans come to quantify their society's progress and well-being in units of money? In today's GDP-run world, prices are the standard measure of not only our goods and commodities but our environment, our communities, our nation, even our self-worth. The Pricing of Progress traces the long history of how and why we moderns adopted the monetizing values and valuations of capitalism as an indicator of human prosperity while losing sight of earlier social and moral metrics that did not put a price on everyday life. Cook roots the rise of economic indicators in the emergence of modern capitalism and the contested history of English enclosure, Caribbean slavery, American industrialization, economic thought, and corporate power. He explores how the maximization of market production became the chief objective of American economic and social policy. We see how distinctly capitalist quantification techniques used to manage or invest in railroad corporations, textile factories, real estate holdings, or cotton plantations escaped the confines of the business world and seeped into every nook and cranny of society. As economic elites quantified the nation as a for-profit, capitalized investment, the progress of its inhabitants, free or enslaved, came to be valued according to their moneymaking abilities. Today as in the nineteenth century, political struggles rage over who gets to determine the statistical yardsticks used to gauge the "health" of our economy and nation.The Pricing of Progress helps us grasp the limits and dangers of entrusting economic indicators to measure social welfare and moral goals.--

ABSTRACT: After more than two months of intensive bombardment, Israel's war in Gaza continues to exact a terrible human toll. As of this writing, Israeli forces have killed close to 20,000 Palestinians, the majority of them civilians. According to the United Nations, roughly 1.8 million people, or 80 percent of Gaza's population, have been internally displaced since the war's start. Within Israel, an atmosphere of tension, fear, and anger prevails. Massive billboards and banners draped across high-rises announce, "Together, We Will Win." Civilians and uniformed soldiers alike walk the streets armed with M-16s. Yet discontent with the government's conduct of the war has also begun to simmer. Hamas and other Palestinian factions continue to hold at least 120 Israelis hostage, but the Benjamin Netanyahu administration often refers to returning them as only a secondary priority. Against this backdrop, and despite mounting repression, left-wing Israeli organizers and anti-occupation activists have begun to return to the streets.Their demand: a ceasefire and a deal to free all the hostages. On December 6, Dissent spoke with three left-wing Israeli activist-thinkers about the challenges facing the Israeli left right now.