LITMIR.BIZ

Worauf kommt es an im Leben? Sie überstanden zwei Weltkriege und waren Zeugen, als 1937 das Luftschiff «Hindenburg» in Flammen aufging oder 1946 der erste Bikini der Öffentlichkeit präsentiert wurde. Sie erlebten, wie Droschken durch Autos ersetzt und Staubsauger, Reißverschluss, Nylonstrümpfe und Kugelschreiber erfunden wurden. Nur wenige Menschen sind Zeitzeugen eines ganzen Jahrhunderts. Wie fühlt es sich an, ein Leben mit hundert Jahren? Wie sieht ein normaler Tagesablauf aus? Spielt der Tod eine Rolle im täglichen Leben? Wolfgang Paterno und Eva Walisch haben mit fünfundzwanzig hochbetagten Menschen – von der einfachen Bauersfrau bis zum Theaterschauspieler – gesprochen, die von ihren Sorgen und Nöten, Träumen und Wünschen erzählen. Herausgekommen sind fünfundzwanzig bewegende Porträts von Hundertjährigen, deren Witz und Wissen, Geschichte und Geschichten nicht verloren gehen dürfen – und die so manchem jungen Menschen als Vorbild dienen können.

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Migration dominates contemporary politics across the world, and there has been a corresponding surge in political theorizing about the complex issues that it raises. In a world in which borders seem to be solidifying while the number of displaced people soars, how should we think about the political and ethical implications of human movement across the globe? In this book, Gillian Brock, one of the leading figures in the field, lucidly introduces and explains the important historical, empirical, and normative context necessary to get to grips with the major contemporary debates. She examines issues ranging from the permissibility of controlling borders and the criteria that states can justifiably use to underpin their migration management policies through to questions of integration, inclusion, and resistance to unjust immigration laws. Migration and Political Theory is essential reading for any student, scholar, or general reader who seeks to understand the political theory and ethics of migration and movement in the twenty-first century.

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Is it possible to abolish coercion and hierarchy and build a stateless, egalitarian social order based on non-domination? There is one political tradition that answers these questions with a resounding yes: anarchism. <br /><br />In this book, Carissa Honeywell offers an accessible introduction to major anarchist thinkers and principles, from Proudhon to Goldman, non-domination to prefiguration. She helps students understand the nature of anarchism by examining how its core ideas shape important contemporary social movements, thereby demonstrating how anarchist principles are relevant to modern political dilemmas connected to issues of conflict, justice and care. She argues that anarchism can play a central role in tackling our major global problems by helping us rethink the essentially militarist nature of our dominant ideas about human relationships and security. <br /><br />Dynamic, urgent, and engaging, this new introduction to anarchist thought will be of great interest to both students as well as thinkers and activists working to find solutions to the multiple crises of capitalist modernity.

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Essays on the political, legal, and philosophical dimensions of political legitimacy. Scholars, journalists, and politicians today worry that the world’s democracies are facing a crisis of legitimacy. Although there are key challenges facing democracy—including concerns about electoral interference, adherence to the rule of law, and the freedom of the press—it is not clear that these difficulties threaten political legitimacy. Such ambiguity derives in part from the contested nature of the concept of legitimacy, and from disagreements over how to measure it. This volume reflects the cutting edge of responses to these perennial questions, drawing, in the distinctive NOMOS fashion, from political science, philosophy, and law. Contributors address fundamental philosophical questions such as the nature of public reasons of authority, as well as urgent concerns about contemporary democracy, including whether “animus” matters for the legitimacy of President Trump’s travel ban, barring entry for nationals from six Muslim-majority nations, and the effect of fundamental transitions within the moral economy, such as the decline of labor unions. Featuring twelve essays from leading scholars, Political Legitimacy is an important and timely addition to the NOMOS series.

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This classic collection of essays by E.P. Thompson, one of England&#8217;s most renowned socialist voices, remains a staple text in the history of Marxist theory. The bulk of the book is dedicated to Thompson&#8217;s famous polemic against Louis Althusser and what he considers the reductionism and authoritarianism of Althusserian structuralism. In lively and erudite prose, Thompson argues for a self-critical and unapologetically humanist Marxist tradition. Also included are three essays of considerable importance to the development of the New Left.

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This landmark book, first published in 1979, met acclaim as a doubly important work of radical philosophy. Its subject, Jean-Paul Sartre, was among the twentieth century's most controversial and influential philosophers; its author, Istv&#225;n M&#233;sz&#225;ros, was himself establishing a reputation for profound contributions to the Marxian tradition, which would continue into the next century. The Work of Sartre was thus considered essential for its insights on Sartre and as a piece of M&#233;sz&#225;ros 's developing politico-philosophical project. In this completely updated and expanded volume, M&#233;sz&#225;ros examines the manifold aspects of Sartre's legacy&#8212;as novelist, playwright, philosopher, and political actor&#8212;and in so doing casts light upon the enture oeuvre, situating it within the historical and social context of Sartre's time. Although critical of aspects of Sartre's philosophy, M&#233;sz&#225;ros celebrates his unyielding commitment to the struggle against the power of capital, and elucidates what this means for the individual in their search for freedom.

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In this collection of trenchant essays and interviews, Istv&#225;n M&#233;sz&#225;ros, the world&#8217;s preeminent Marxist philosopher and winner of the 2008 Libertador Award for Critical Thought (the Bolivar Prize), lays bare the exploitative structure of modern capitalism. He argues with great power that the world&#8217;s economies are on a social and ecological precipice, and that unless we take decisive action to radically transform our societies we will find ourselves thrust headfirst into barbarism and environmental catastrophe.M&#233;sz&#225;ros, however, is no pessimist. He believes that the multiple crises of world capitalism will encourage the working class to demand center stage in the construction of a new system of production and distribution designed to meet human needs rather than serve the relentless pursuit of profit&#8212;a struggle which is already underway in places such as Venezuela. As John Bellamy Foster says in the foreword to this indispensable book, &#8220;Today the structural crisis of capital provides the historical setting for a new revolutionary movement for social emancipation in which developments normally taking centuries would flit by like phantoms in decades or even years. But the force for such necessary, vital change, remains with the people themselves, and rests on humanity&#8217;s willingness to constitute itself as both subject and object of history, through the collective struggle to create a just and sustainable world. This, M&#233;sz&#225;ros insists, constitutes the unprecedented challenge and burden of our historical time.&#8221;

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&#8220;A good society,&#8220; Michael Lebowitz tells us, &#8220;is one that permits the full development of human potential.&#8221; In this slim, lucid, and insightful book, he argues persuasively that such a society is possible. That capitalism fails his definition of a good society is evident from even a cursory examination of its main features. What comes first in capitalism is not human development but privately accumulated profits by a tiny minority of the population. When there is a conflict between profits and human development, profits take precedence. Just ask the unemployed, those toiling at dead-end jobs, the sick and infirm, the poor, and the imprisoned.But if not capitalism, what? Lebowitz is also critical of those societies that have proclaimed their socialism, such as the former Soviet Union and China. While their systems were not capitalist and were capable of achieving some of what is necessary for the &#8220;development of human potential,&#8221; they were not &#8220;good societies.&#8221;A good society as Lebowitz defines it must be marked by three characteristics: social ownership of the means of production, social production controlled by workers, and satisfaction of communal needs and purposes. Lebowitz shows how these characteristics interact with and reinforce one another, and asks how they can be developed to the point where they occur more or less automatically&#8212;that is, become both a society&#8217;s premises and outcomes. He also offers fascinating insights into matters such as the nature of wealth, the illegitimacy of profits, the inadequacies of worker-controlled enterprises, the division of labor, and much more.

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In The Dialectic of Structure and History, Volume Two of Social Structure and Forms of Consciousness, Istv&#225;n M&#233;sz&#225;ros brings the comprehension of our condition and the possibility of emancipatory social action beyond the highest point reached to date. Building on the indicatory flashes of conceptual lightning in the Grundrisse and other works of Karl Marx, M&#233;sz&#225;ros sets out the relations of structure and agency, individual and society, base and superstructure, nature and history, in a dialectical totality open to the future.The project is brought to its conclusion by means of critique, an analysis that shows not only the inadequacies of the thought critiqued but at the same time their social historical cause. The crucial questions are addressed through critique of the highest point of honest and brilliant thought in capital&#8217;s ascending phase, that of Adam Smith, Kant, and Hegel, as well as the irrationalities and dishonesty of the apologists of the capital system&#8217;s descending phase, such as Hayek and Popper. The dead ends of both L&#233;vi-Strauss&#8217;s structuralism and post-modernism, arising from their denial of history, are placed in their context as capital-apologetics.What M&#233;sz&#225;ros, the leading Marxist philosopher of our times, has achieved is of world historical importance. He has cleared the philosophical ground to permit the illumination of a path to transcend the destructive death spiral of the capital system.

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