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"A new era of cooperation is on the horizon. Born of decades-long struggles against ever-shifting forms of domination, cooperation heralds a dramatic transformation of our economy and society. It presages a radical change, as significant in scope as the last revolution from feudalism to capitalism. It augurs a cooperative society in which hierarchies of race, ethnicity, gender, class, and sexuality will be leveled. Cooperation is Bernard E. Harcourt's call to arms on behalf of the critical project of abolitionism. The new abolitionism forces us to address the central challenge to legal liberalism, namely: whether the institutions, practices, and agents associated with the enforcement of the law function (or should function) to redress social harms associated with law-violative behavior or, instead, serve primarily to impose a social and racial hierarchy. This question goes to the heart of whether contemporary punishment practices-such as policing, incarceration, juvenile detention, deportation,in other words,the practices of the punitive state-are a response to crime and to deviations of law, or instead constitute chiefly a mode of governing that produces racial, ethnic, gender, and other hierarchies. He argues for a society based on cooperation, mutual aid, solidarity, an ethic of care - the rallying call of a new generation of critical thinkers and organizers. This new generation builds on a long history of revolt and rebellion that has sharpened and perfected the critique and praxis challenging the ever-shifting forms of domination-from slavery to racial chattel slavery, from colonialism to settler-colonialism and genocide, from de jure to structural racism, from patriarchy to the oppression of sexual minorities, from class exploitation to racial capitalism."

Liberal democracy is in crisis around the world, unable to address pressing problems such as climate change. There is, however, another path—cooperation. Cooperation does not depend on electoral politics. Instead, it harnesses the longstanding practices and values of cooperatives: democratic participation, equity, solidarity, and respect for others and the environment. From consumer co-ops to credit unions, worker cooperatives to insurance mutuals, nonprofits to mutual aid, countless examples prove that people working together can extend the ideal of participatory democracy into every aspect of their lives.Bernard E. Harcourt develops a transformative theory and practice that builds on worldwide models of successful cooperation. He identifies the most promising forms of cooperative initiatives and then distills their lessons into an integrated framework: Coöperism. This is a political theory grounded on recognition of our interdependence. It is also an economic theory that can ensure equitable distribution of wealth. Finally, it is a social theory that supplies an alternative to punishment by fostering a range of cooperative organizations and projects to offer education, job and skills training, counseling, and therapy.A creative work of normative critical theory, Cooperation provides a positive vision for addressing our most urgent challenges today. Harcourt shows that by drawing on the core values of cooperation and the power of people working together, a new world of cooperation democracy is within our grasp

Bernard E. Harcourt calls for moving beyond the complacency of decades of philosophical detours and to harness critical thought to the need for action. Critique and Praxis advocates for a new path forward that constantly challenges each one of us to ask what more we can do to realize a society based on equality and justice.

Critical philosophy has always challenged the division between theory and practice. At its best, it aims to turn contemplation into emancipation, seeking to transform society in pursuit of equality, autonomy, and human flourishing. Yet today's critical theory often seems to engage only in critique. These times of crisis demand more.Bernard E. Harcourt challenges us to move beyond decades of philosophical detours and to harness critical thought to the need for action. In a time of increasing awareness of economic and social inequality, Harcourt calls on us to make society more equal and just. Only critical theory can guide us toward a more self-reflexive pursuit of justice. Charting a vision for political action and social transformation, Harcourt argues that instead of posing the question, "What is to be done?" we must now turn it back onto ourselves and ask, and answer, "What more am I to do?"Critique and Praxis advocates for a new path forward that constantly challenges each and every one of us to ask what more we can do to realize a society based on equality and justice. Joining his decades of activism, social-justice litigation, and political engagement with his years of critical theory and philosophical work, Harcourt has written a magnum opus

Cover -- Title -- Copyright -- Dedication -- Contents -- The Expository Society -- Part One: Clearing the Ground -- Chapter 1. George Orwell's Big Brother -- Chapter 2. The Surveillance State -- Chapter 3. Jeremy Bentham's Panopticon -- Part Two: The Birth of the Expository Society -- Chapter 4. Our Mirrored Glass Pavilion -- Chapter 5. A Genealogy of the New Doppelgänger Logic -- Chapter 6. The Eclipse of Humanism -- Part Three: The Perils of Digital Exposure -- Chapter 7. The Collapse of State, Economy, and Society -- Chapter 8. The Mortification of the Self -- Chapter 9. The Steel Mesh -- Part Four: Digital Disobedience -- Chapter 10. Virtual Democracy -- Chapter 11. Digital Resistance -- Chapter 12. Political Disobedience -- Notes -- Acknowledgments -- Index.

It is widely believed today that the free market is the best mechanism ever invented to efficiently allocate resources in society. Just as fundamental as faith in the free market is the belief that government has a legitimate and competent role in policing and the punishment arena. This curious incendiary combination of free market efficiency and the Big Brother state has become seemingly obvious, but it hinges on the illusion of a supposedly natural order in the economic realm. This work argues that our faith in "free markets" has severely distorted American politics and punishment practices. The author traces the birth of the idea of natural order to eighteenth century economic thought and reveals its gradual evolution through the Chicago School of economics and ultimately into today's myth of the free market. The modern category of "liberty" emerged in reaction to an earlier, integrated vision of punishment and public economy, known in the eighteenth century as "police." This development shaped the dominant belief today that competitive markets are inherently efficient and should be sharply demarcated from a government run penal sphere. ThIs modern vision rests on a simple but devastating illusion. Superimposing the political categories of "freedom" or "discipline" on forms of market organization has the unfortunate effect of obscuring rather than enlightening. It obscures by making both the free market and the prison system seem natural and necessary. In the process, it facilitated the birth of the penitentiary system in the nineteenth century and its ultimate culmination into mass incarceration today.

From random security checks at airports to the use of risk assessment in sentencing, actuarial methods are being used more than ever to determine whom law enforcement officials target and punish. And with the exception of racial profiling on our highways and streets, most people favor these methods because they believe they're a more cost-effective way to fight crime.In Against Prediction, Bernard E. Harcourt challenges this growing reliance on actuarial methods. These prediction tools, he demonstrates, may in fact increase the overall amount of crime in society, depending on the relative resp