John F. M. McDermott - Böcker

If the current economic malaise accomplishes nothing else, it should help awaken us all to the realization that our country has been on a path of self-destructive behavior for several decades—a reversal of the progressive path that had made major gains in economic and political equality for a large majority of the U.S. population starting in the 1870s. It is John McDermott’s purpose in this ambitious book to explain why that reversal happened, how society has changed in dramatic ways since the 1960s, and what we can do to reverse this downward spiral. In Part 1 he endeavors to lay out the overall narrative of change from the 1960s to the present, emphasizing how a novel social structure came to be developed around corporate America to form what he calls “corporate society.” Part 2 analyzes what the nature of this corporate society is, how it is a special type of “fabricated” structure, and why it came to dominate society generally, eventually including the government and university systems, which themselves became increasingly corporatized. The aim of Part 3 is to outline a path of reform that can, if all its parts can be integrated sufficiently to be effective, put us on the path to restarting the progressive movement.

We are social animals, all embedded in (unequal) networks of social and economic relations, requiring very different explanatory frameworks from those given by individual rights theorizing.This book explores the ways in which the foundational ideology of individual rights belies the actualities of economic inequality.

Since the mid-1960s, citizens' rights in the United States have improved across many areas, including race, gender, sexuality, physical disabilities, age, consumption of goods, voting, and more. During this time, there has also been a degradation in economic rights, such as economic inequality. Is there a reason for this contradiction? Is it possible for American citizens to experience rights and equality?At the center of natural rights theories lies the “inalienable” right to private property, and the concepts and practices of the accumulation of private property always defeat personal liberties. Modern political philosophers who espouse natural rights, including liberal John Rawls and conservative James M. Buchanan, share nearly identical premises and goals. The two sides do not often recognize that the free-standing individual at the center of mainstream theorizing in economics and politics simply does not exist. We are social animals, all embedded in (unequal) networks of social and economic relations, requiring very different explanatory frameworks from those given by individual rights theorizing.This book explores the ways in which the foundational ideology of individual rights belies the actualities of economic inequality. It argues that “individual rights” philosophy offers the main ideological basis for the astronomical accumulation of wealth that produces this inequality. Investigating the defects of rights theory, the book examines key concepts related to social progress and economic stability. The resulting text presents and analyzes the networks of contemporary corporate, business, and financial power that structurally and systemically limit the lives and choices of citizens in the United States.

This book argues that economic activity in the public sphere now underwrites private corporations, and rejects rigid adherence to traditional economic theories that no longer apply.