They Rule: The 1% vs. Democracy

They Rule: The 1% vs. Democracy
Paul Street (Author)

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Human Rights

Missing Class: How Seeing Class Cultures Can Strengthen Social Movement Groups

Missing Class: How Seeing Class Cultures Can Strengthen Social Movement Groups
Betsy Leondar-Wright (Author)
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Human Rights

Many activists worry about the same few problems in their groups: low turnout, inactive members, conflicting views on racism, overtalking, and offensive violations of group norms. But in searching for solutions to these predictable and intractable troubles, progressive social movement groups overlook class culture differences. In Missing Class, Betsy Leondar-Wright uses a class-focused lens to show that members with different class life experiences tend to approach these problems differently. This perspective enables readers to envision new solutions that draw on the strengths of all class cultures to form the basis of stronger cross-class and multiracial movements.

The first comprehensive empirical study of US activist class cultures, Missing Class looks at class dynamics in 25 groups that span the gamut of social movement organizations in the United States today, including the labor movement, grassroots community organizing, and groups working on global causes in the anarchist and progressive traditions. Leondar-Wright applies Pierre Bourdieu’s theories of cultural capital and habitus to four class trajectories: lifelong working-class and poor; lifelong professional middle class; voluntarily downwardly mobile; and upwardly mobile.

Compellingly written for both activists and social scientists, this book describes class differences in paths to activism, attitudes toward leadership, methods of conflict resolution, ways of using language, diversity practices, use of humor, methods of recruiting, and group process preferences. Too often, we miss class. Missing Class makes a persuasive case that seeing class culture differences could enable activists to strengthen their own groups and build more durable cross-class alliances for social justice.

• Rank: #37665 in Books
• Published on: 2014-04-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: .69" h x 6.33" w x 9.22" l, .86 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

The Path to Hope

The Path to Hope
Stephane Hessel (Author), Edgar Morin (Author)
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Human Rights

A short, incisive political tract that criticizes the culture of finance capitalism and calls for a return to the humanist values of the enlightenment: equality, liberty, freedom as defined in the Declaration of the Rights of Man, a return to community, mutual respect, freedom from poverty, and an end to theocracy and fundamentalism. The authors argue that a return to these values constitutes “a path to hope,” leading the way out of the present worldwide malaise brought on by economic collapse, moral failure, and an ignorance of history.
 
For the authors, 20th-century fascism was no mere abstraction—it was a brutal system brought on by a similar malaise, a system they fought against. This gives their book special urgency.
 
The Path to Hope is written by two esteemed French thinkers—94-year-old Stephane Hessel and 90-year-old Edgar Morin, following on the heels of Hessel’s Indignez-vous! (Time for Outrage!). Both books have become bestsellers in France and throughout Europe. Both have also become foundational documents underpinning the worldwide protest movement of which Occupy Wall Street is the American subset.

• Rank: #15709 in Books
• Published on: 2012-04-24
• Released on: 2012-04-24
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: 6.27" h x .46" w x 4.27" l, .25 pounds
• Binding: Hardcover
• 112 pages