Africa: A Biography of the Continent
by John Reader · 5 Nov 1998 · 1,072pp · 297,437 words
influence in this transformation – most especially the export of commodities for which Africans had no use but which were in demand abroad, such as ivory, ‘surplus’ human beings, and gold. It is no accident that the development of the first indigenous African states coincides with the rising importance of gold as a
Basic Economics
by Thomas Sowell · 1 Jan 2000 · 850pp · 254,117 words
the preponderance of evidence indicates that labor is not exempt from the basic economic principle that artificially high prices cause surpluses. In the case of surplus human beings, that can be a special tragedy when they are already from low-income, unskilled, or minority backgrounds and urgently need to get on the
The Empathic Civilization: The Race to Global Consciousness in a World in Crisis
by Jeremy Rifkin · 31 Dec 2009 · 879pp · 233,093 words
. In Chapter 1, we noted that neolithic life brought with it the pivotal invention of containers—pots, baskets, and bins—to store grain. With stored surplus, human beings created the possibility, for the first time, of planning ahead, establishing a bulwark against the vagaries of nature and gaining control over their environment
Energy and Civilization: A History
by Vaclav Smil · 11 May 2017
only to tasks or processes directly relevant to species survival. But as soon as our mastery of the physical world began to yield modest energy surpluses, human ingenuity used them to create a man-made world of diversity and (for some) leisure, even though more energy could be used to secure basic
Free Money for All: A Basic Income Guarantee Solution for the Twenty-First Century
by Mark Walker · 29 Nov 2015
a competitive edge over them. So, unlike the displacement of labor during the First Great Transformation, there is no untapped category of jobs left for surplus human labor to migrate to. A couple of caveats are in order. First, the distinction between occupations that use one’s brawn or brain is best
A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things: A Guide to Capitalism, Nature, and the Future of the Planet
by Raj Patel and Jason W. Moore · 16 Oct 2017 · 335pp · 89,924 words
. And if wageworkers in this expanded sense bear the costs—often horrifically, in the case of the billion-plus informal workers whom Mike Davis calls “surplus humanity”12—so too must capitalists. Every act of producing surplus value depends on a greater act of appropriating human and extrahuman life beyond the cash
No More Work: Why Full Employment Is a Bad Idea
by James Livingston · 15 Feb 2016 · 90pp · 27,452 words
MIT economists in a book from 2012 called Race against the Machine. Meanwhile, the Silicon Valley types who give TED talks have started speaking of “surplus humans” as a result of the same process—cybernated production. Rise of the Robots, the title of a new book that cites these very sources, is
Inventing the Future: Postcapitalism and a World Without Work
by Nick Srnicek and Alex Williams · 1 Oct 2015 · 357pp · 95,986 words
often derided. During the ‘golden age’ of capitalism, low unemployment, stable jobs, rising wages and rising living standards meant the idea that capitalism produced a surplus humanity enjoyed little material support. Yet, while most leftist thinkers turned to the economic problems of growth for capitalism, an occluded intellectual tradition has instead emphasised
Tobacco: A Cultural History of How an Exotic Plant Seduced Civilization
by Iain Gately · 27 Oct 2001 · 434pp · 124,153 words
.e. selling anything in the company that had a true market value, by removing any excess monies from the victim’s pension funds, by firing surplus human assets and by making the remainder travel second class. Tobacco companies were ideal HLT targets. Their cigarette businesses generated enormous and stable cash flows, which
Planet of Slums
by Mike Davis · 1 Mar 2006 · 232pp
50 4. Illusions of Self-Help 70 5. Haussmann in the Tropics 95 6. Slum Ecology 121 .7. SAPing the Third World 151 •8. A Surplus Humanity? 174 Epilogue: Down Vietnam Street 199 Acknowledgments 207 Index 209 The Urban Climacteric We live in the age of the city. The city is everything
Cities Under Siege: The New Military Urbanism
by Stephen Graham · 30 Oct 2009 · 717pp · 150,288 words
Squeezed: Why Our Families Can't Afford America
by Alissa Quart · 25 Jun 2018 · 320pp · 90,526 words
Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel
by Max Blumenthal · 27 Nov 2012 · 840pp · 224,391 words
Seven Crashes: The Economic Crises That Shaped Globalization
by Harold James · 15 Jan 2023 · 469pp · 137,880 words
Practical Anarchism: A Guide for Daily Life
by Scott. Branson · 14 Jun 2022 · 198pp · 63,612 words
Rationality: From AI to Zombies
by Eliezer Yudkowsky · 11 Mar 2015 · 1,737pp · 491,616 words