1st Edition
Contemporary Critiques of Political Economy Mapping Alternative Planetary Futures
This book analyzes contemporary critiques of political economy and highlights the challenges to rethinking contemporary discourses and practices. It carries out a multipronged critical and transformative dialogue involving political economy, moral economy, moral sociology, moral anthropology, and spiritual ecology. The authors discuss diverse themes such as the relationship between consciousness and society, the dialogue between Karl Marx and Carl Gustav Jung, a critical sociology of morality and property relations, moral and political economy of the Indigenous peoples and a critique of modern civilization, economic evaluation, as well as alternative traditions of thinking in Marx, Thoreau, Gandhi, J.C. Kumarappa, Rammanohar Lohia, B.R. Ambedkar and Jayaprakash Narain. A unique transdisciplinary text, the book brings together authors and approaches from both the Global North and South. It will be indispensable to students, research scholars and teachers of humanities and social sciences in such fields as economics, sociology, philosophy, cultural studies and development studies.
Contemporary Contributions to Critiques of Political Economy: An Introduction and an Invitation - Ananta Kumar Giri Part I: Contemporary Contributions to Critiques of Political Economy 1. Contemporary Contributions to Critiques of Political Economy and Alternative Planetary Futures: Political Economy, Moral Economy, Moral Sociology, Spiritual Ecology and Beyond- Ananta Kumar Giri 2. Moral Sociology and the Marxist-Humanist Critique of Property: Toward a Critical Social-Psychology of Morality- Robert Nonomura 3. Ensouling the Critique of Political Economy: From Marx and Jung to Degrowth - Julien-François Gerber 4. From Gift to Debt: Rethinking Political Economy from a Radical Anthropological and Indigenous Perspective- Felix Padel Part II: Further Engagement with Contemporary Critiques of Political Economy 5. Economic (e)valuation: household and catallaxy- Andrew Sayer 6. Lands of Plenty, Realms of Freedom: Imagining An Automatic Life- Ronald Stade 7. Self, Pathogen and Climate: Rethinking Political Economy Today- Khirod Chandra Moharana 8. India’s Crisis of Development: A Political Economy Critique and Beyond- Pulin Nayak 9. A Relational Approach to Political Economy: Making Sense of What We Know, Towards a Society of Living - Carlos Alvarez Pereira 10. Creative Contributions to Critiques of Political Economy and Moral Economy: Cooperative Settlement and Utopian Community Projects as Modes of Conviviality for Thoreau, Ruskin, Tolstoy, and Gandhi- Christian Bartolf, Dominique Miething, Vishnu Varatharajan 11. Broken but Not Useless: Revisiting Marx’s Workshop and a New Ecology of Hope- Abhijeet Paul 12. Rethinking and Transforming Critiques of Political Economy: Gandhi – Kumarappa Pathways - Jos Chathukulam and Manasi Joseph 13. International Political Economy at the Crossroads: Questions of World Order and Other Pressing Issues of International Politics - Suman Bagisha 14. Deconstructing/Reconstructing Liberal World Order for the 21st Century - Johannes D Schmidt. Index
Biography
Ananta Kumar Giri is a Professor at the Madras Institute of Development Studies, Chennai, India. He has taught and done research in many universities in India and abroad. He has an abiding interest in social movements and cultural change, criticism, creativity and contemporary dialectics of transformation, theories of self, culture and society, and creative streams in education, philosophy and literature. Dr. Giri has written and edited around two dozen books in Odia and English, including Global Transformations: Postmodernity and Beyond (1998); Knowledge and Human Liberation (2013), Practical Spirituality and Human Development: Creative Experiments for Alternative Futures (editor, 2019); Mahatma Gandhi and Sri Aurobindo (editor, 2022); The Calling of Global Responsibility: New Initiatives in Justice, Dialogues and Planetary Realizations (2023); and Social Healing (2023).
"Political economy was central to the revolutionary capitalist thinkers, Marx’s more revolutionary critique, and Gandhi’s revolutionary moral and spiritual critique. Ananta Kumar Giri has assembled a remarkable collection of diverse, wide-ranging, multi-disciplinary essays that restore the centrality of critiques of political economy. These essays most significantly challenge us to rethink our understanding of our contemporary world and of our potential for creating a flourishing planetary future."
Professor Douglas Allen, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy, The University of Maine, USA
"A critique is both an appreciation, a stretching, and a transcendence. Here is a critique of the critique. The volume is a treasure trove, which imbricates and complicates political economy through moral, humanist, ethical, indigenous, psychological, ecological, and spiritual aspects of life. The gift is that of rethinking and unthinking approaches to society and the opening of intellectual gestures towards planetary futures."
Professor Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni, Professor/Chair in Epistemologies of the Global South, University of Bayreuth
"Contemporary Contributions to Critiques of Political Economy honours the Club of Rome’s tradition of thinking through the “human problématique” and fostering diverse perspectives to understand the complexity of today’s world and possible alternative futures. This book is a valuable multi-disciplinary, geographically diverse set of contributions unpacking rooted barriers to the re-design of the current political economy. The compound effects of the poly crisis and the calls for a deep transformation of our extractive economy to match the planetary emergency require a complete re-set of our vision of relevant political economies for 21st c challenges. This pioneering work helps us in this epochal task of re-envisioning and transformative action."
Sandrine Dixson-Decleve, Co-President, The Club of Rome.
"This collection of contemporary essays is an outstanding contribution to the critique of capitalism, bringing together - for the first time - the Marxian critique of political economy, moral economy, and ecological spirituality."
Michael Löwy, ecosocialist philosopher
