Larry Patriquin – författare

This book examines the evolution of public assistance for the poor in England from the late medieval era to the Industrial Revolution. Placing poor relief in the context of the unique class relations of agrarian capitalism, it considers how and why relief in England in the early modern period was distinct.

Inequality is everywhere, while at the same time, “representative democracy” is under attack. This book considers what we are doing wrong and how we can put it right. The author argues that our inability to create and entrench social rights, which would help make societies more equal, is rooted in the structures of our political institutions and concludes that our politics, regardless of the presence of elections, cannot carry the mantle democratic. This is why substantial social rights are almost nowhere to be seen, especially in “liberal” welfare regimes like the United States and the United Kingdom. The main lesson is that all social-change activists must make the creation of democracy a priority, because without new institutions most of their activism will prove futile. If there are no meaningful changes to our political systems, then decades from now, despite our brilliant blueprints for reform and our frequent marches in the streets, people will find themselves in familiar surroundings, in the same places we are today.

This book argues that ancient democracy did not stop at the door of economic democracy, and that ancient Athens has much to tell us about the relationship between political equality and economic equality. Athenian democracy rested on a foundation of general economic equality, which enabled citizens to challenge their exclusion from politics.

This book examines the evolution of public assistance for the poor in England from the late medieval era to the Industrial Revolution. Placing poor relief in the context of the unique class relations of agrarian capitalism, it considers how and why relief in England in the early modern period was distinct.

During the National Post's first year of publication, it claimed that Canada's supposedly exorbitant taxes were causing great damage to the economy and had produced a form of "tax rage" among the middle class. In contrast, Larry Patriquin suggests that the paper's writers were engaged in a dubious form of "reasoning" in order to promote an ideology that mostly benefits the wealthy. This involved presenting the Post's aspiration for tax cuts as the "agenda of the people" when, as this book demonstrates, the vast majority of citizens receive little or no benefit from low levels of taxation. In advancing its case, the Post published a stunning collection of factual and logical errors that were incessantly repeated in editorials and columns. Yet in 2000, the federal Liberal Party surrendered completely to the bogus "tax rage" invented by the Post and, as a result, the Liberal's fiscal policy became inseparable from right-wing platforms. Patriquin categorizes these errors to better illustrate why the arguments are flawed. He structures the chapters in a point-counterpoint format to serve as a guide for readers on how to, and how not to, develop and defend an argument.

Ellen Meiksins Wood is a leading contemporary political theorist who has been described as the founder, together with Robert Brenner, of 'Political Marxism,' a distinct version of historical materialism which has inspired a research program that spans a number of academic disciplines. Organized thematically, this Reader provides an overview of her original interpretations of capitalism, and many different topics.

For a growing number of people, democracy has become synonymous with broken promises and abandoned commitments. Governments everywhere are not listening to their citizens’ concerns on matters of fundamental importance. As a result, ordinary men and women of all political persuasions are demanding transformations, not just to government policies, but to the methods of governance themselves. They realize that in the periods between general elections, they have great difficulty having their voices heard, because they have no formal role in constructing political agendas.This open access book focuses on one way to address this problem, by establishing a continual dialogue between individuals and their governments, hence forcing politicians to constantly pay attention to “the people.” Larry Patriquin argues for the creation of permanent citizens’ assemblies, which would be charged with examining issues of public concern and giving advice to governments. For those troubled by our current democratic impasse, Permanent Citizens’ Assemblies: A New Model for Public Deliberation will give hope that practical reforms are possible and that new institutions can become effective components of governance in nations across the globe.The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com.