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Property for People, Not for Profit: Alternatives to the Global Tyranny of Capital
The issue of private property and the rights it confers remain almost undiscussed in critiques of globalization and free market economics. Yet property lies at the heart of an economic system geared to profit maximization. The authors describe the historically specific and self-consciously explicit manner in which it emerged. They trace this history from earliest historical times and show how, in the hands of Thomas Hobbes and John Locke in particular, the notion of private property took on its absolutist nature and most extreme form - a form which neoliberal economics is now imposing on humanity worldwide through the pressures of globalization. They argue that avoiding the destruction of people's ways of living and of Nature requires reshaping our notions of private property. They look at practical ways for social and ecumenical movements to press for alternatives.
- GenresTheology
256 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2004
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
December 27, 2019
I read this for a Liberation Theology class at Seminary. It is very dense, as books for class tend to be, but it shined a light on the issues associated with capitalism - how it has developed, the rhetoric around it, etc. I found it helpful in understanding economics from a human perspective better, and have some ideas out of it on how I'd like to see economies change to become more human centered.
November 17, 2009
I had to toss this book aside about a third of the way through, because the argument was so slipshod and the writing so poor I couldn't handle it anymore.
I was literally forced to read at a glacial pace simply in order to try to decode what the poorly phrased and punctuated sentences were trying to say; it felt like reading sophomore research papers. Particularly reminiscent of the undergraduate writing style was the tendency to use words that sounded scholarly when the author clearly did not really know what they meant; such as when, in spelling out an argument by John Locke, he said, "Each war of the bourgeoisie is therefore a priori a just war." If something is "therefore" the case, as in, the consequence of an earlier step in the argument, then it is true a posteriori, the opposite of a priori. "Therefore a priori" is like saying "afterwards at the beginning." A bit later, the author equated a "deductive argument" with a "tautology." Even Derrida would have trouble cooking up something like that.
My favorite sample of the slipshod argument was when the author claimed that the combination of the Black Death and of firearms, which allowed people to kill at a distance, led to an increased tolerance of mass death and killing, as was justified in the Crusades, and by the conquistadors. That is to say, a 14th-century event, coupled with a 16th-century phenomenon, combined to encourage a 12th-century event and an early 16th-century event.
Of course, it didn't help that the authors started things out on such a terrible footing, with a laughably fairy-tale account of Old Testament history, which destroyed any of the potentially rich value that the authors might glean from the OT economic laws. Theories about the dates of Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy which are at best highly-debated hypotheses, increasingly rejected even by liberal scholars, were put forth as simple facts, upon the basis of which other claims might be argued. That made me so skeptical that I read everything that came afterward even more critically than I otherwise would have. Hence chucking the book a third of the way through. But apparently that was a good decision, since Doug Jones made it all the way through and gave it just one star as well.
This is the kind of book that makes anti-capitalists and ecumenists (this was published by the World Council of Churches) so painfully easy to mock and dismiss. Gosh, capitalism isn't that hard to critique...justice and mercy aren't that hard to argue for...why do people have to do such an awful job of it?
(I apologize that this review is so poorly written...the writing style of whatever I read tends to rub off on me.)
I was literally forced to read at a glacial pace simply in order to try to decode what the poorly phrased and punctuated sentences were trying to say; it felt like reading sophomore research papers. Particularly reminiscent of the undergraduate writing style was the tendency to use words that sounded scholarly when the author clearly did not really know what they meant; such as when, in spelling out an argument by John Locke, he said, "Each war of the bourgeoisie is therefore a priori a just war." If something is "therefore" the case, as in, the consequence of an earlier step in the argument, then it is true a posteriori, the opposite of a priori. "Therefore a priori" is like saying "afterwards at the beginning." A bit later, the author equated a "deductive argument" with a "tautology." Even Derrida would have trouble cooking up something like that.
My favorite sample of the slipshod argument was when the author claimed that the combination of the Black Death and of firearms, which allowed people to kill at a distance, led to an increased tolerance of mass death and killing, as was justified in the Crusades, and by the conquistadors. That is to say, a 14th-century event, coupled with a 16th-century phenomenon, combined to encourage a 12th-century event and an early 16th-century event.
Of course, it didn't help that the authors started things out on such a terrible footing, with a laughably fairy-tale account of Old Testament history, which destroyed any of the potentially rich value that the authors might glean from the OT economic laws. Theories about the dates of Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy which are at best highly-debated hypotheses, increasingly rejected even by liberal scholars, were put forth as simple facts, upon the basis of which other claims might be argued. That made me so skeptical that I read everything that came afterward even more critically than I otherwise would have. Hence chucking the book a third of the way through. But apparently that was a good decision, since Doug Jones made it all the way through and gave it just one star as well.
This is the kind of book that makes anti-capitalists and ecumenists (this was published by the World Council of Churches) so painfully easy to mock and dismiss. Gosh, capitalism isn't that hard to critique...justice and mercy aren't that hard to argue for...why do people have to do such an awful job of it?
(I apologize that this review is so poorly written...the writing style of whatever I read tends to rub off on me.)
February 2, 2011
[Note: I read Chs. 1, 3, 6, and 7.]
Published under the auspices of Catholic poverty activists, this book is strongest when most theological. I mean that in a broad sense. Its Biblical exegesis is creative and often compelling: How often do we hear it emphasized, when rehearing the story of the rich young ruler, that the possessions Jesus asked him to sell would mostly be land? How often do we remember that Deuteronomic law assumes the relativity of all rights in real estate to both divine sovereignty and national interest? Preachers will find such nuggets throughout the first chapter, which I highly recommend.
As a work of philosophy and economics, this book is excellent activism. Its reading of John Locke as one of history's greatest monsters* strikes this American as overstated, but a reason to go back over the Second Treatise on Government is welcome. The authors' reading of globalization dynamics from the underside is likewise a worthy reminder-- really, we should all be deeply exercised by things like privatized water supplies-- but pitched at an apocalyptic urgency that makes sorting out next steps very difficult. The authors' calls for local action seem primarily aimed at the developing world; those of the global North are called, mostly, to change laws governing multi-nationals and dismantle the WTO.
Perhaps it says more about me than about the authors that, in their telling, I found the Biblical world closer to my own than their picture of the present. I hope I have chances to listen more till that changes. It's good to remember just how much of the world is actually to my left.
*Specifically, as explicit champion of African slavery and Native American genocide. The latter point is very well-founded, the former murkier, as I recall the text.
Published under the auspices of Catholic poverty activists, this book is strongest when most theological. I mean that in a broad sense. Its Biblical exegesis is creative and often compelling: How often do we hear it emphasized, when rehearing the story of the rich young ruler, that the possessions Jesus asked him to sell would mostly be land? How often do we remember that Deuteronomic law assumes the relativity of all rights in real estate to both divine sovereignty and national interest? Preachers will find such nuggets throughout the first chapter, which I highly recommend.
As a work of philosophy and economics, this book is excellent activism. Its reading of John Locke as one of history's greatest monsters* strikes this American as overstated, but a reason to go back over the Second Treatise on Government is welcome. The authors' reading of globalization dynamics from the underside is likewise a worthy reminder-- really, we should all be deeply exercised by things like privatized water supplies-- but pitched at an apocalyptic urgency that makes sorting out next steps very difficult. The authors' calls for local action seem primarily aimed at the developing world; those of the global North are called, mostly, to change laws governing multi-nationals and dismantle the WTO.
Perhaps it says more about me than about the authors that, in their telling, I found the Biblical world closer to my own than their picture of the present. I hope I have chances to listen more till that changes. It's good to remember just how much of the world is actually to my left.
*Specifically, as explicit champion of African slavery and Native American genocide. The latter point is very well-founded, the former murkier, as I recall the text.
March 10, 2010
This book held out promise by trying to determine a proper political economy via analyzing opposing views of property. If free market theologies are wrong about property (as they clearly are from a biblical angle), then their whole system fails. Though the authors of this book do some good and interesting work in exposing the dark side of John Locke, they give up on biblical categories in the end and simply resort to trendy, statist solutions.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews