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Political constitutions alone do not guarantee democracy; a degree of economic equality is also essential. Yet contemporary economies, dominated as they are by global finance and political rent-seekers, often block the realization of democracy. The comparative essays and case studies of this volume examine the contradictory relationship between the economy and democracy and highlight the struggles and visions needed to make things more equitable. They explore how our collective aspirations for greater democracy might be informed by serious empirical research on the human economy today. If we want a better world, we must act on existing social realities.
“Economy for and Against Democracy is a must-read for economists, political scientists, anthropologists, and anyone interested in the true meaning of democracy and searching for initiatives to promote a more democratic world society.” • International Social Science Review
“[This book] sets out debates and insights that have been long forgotten in social science as a result of the domination of orthodox economics. Absent is the arcane mathematical formalism that commands mainstream enquiry into economics; in these chapters, the study of economics speaks to – and of – people and their daily struggles. In a phrase not to be killed with over-use: this is a liberating read.” • Peter Vale, University of Johannesburg
Introduction
Keith Hart
PART I: ECONOMY VERSUS DEMOCRACY
Chapter 1. Habits of austerity: financialization and new ways of dealing with money
Jürgen Schraten
Chapter 2. What financial crisis? The global politics of finance: distributional consequences and legitimizing narratives
Horacio Ortiz
Chapter 3. Party funding for and against democracy in Zimbabwe and South Africa
Booker Magure
PART II: THE STRUGGLE FOR ECONOMIC DEMOCRACY
Chapter 4. Women as mediators in post-war Mozambique: pushing lobolo from price to propriety
Albert Farré
Chapter 5. Negotiating state and market: the South African HIV/AIDS movement and social change
Theodore Powers
Chapter 6. Beyond the market: the case of white workers in Pretoria
John Sharp & Stephan Van Wyk
Chapter 7. Waves of unrest: wildcat strikes and possible democratic change in Swaziland
Vito Laterza
PART III: VISIONS OF HUMAN ECONOMY AND DEMOCRACY
Chapter 8. Solidarity economy in contemporary Greece: ‘movementality’, economic democracy and social reproduction
Theodoros Rakopoulos
Chapter 9. Money for a human economy: a reflection from Argentina
Hadrien Saiag
Chapter 10. Human economy: the revolutionary struggle for happiness
Keith Hart
Chapter 11. Building a human economy movement: the precedent of transnational feminism
Camille Sutton-Brown
Notes on authors
References
Index