Third Ways: How Bulgarian Greens, Swedish Housewives, and Beer-swilling Englishmen Created Family-centered Economies--and Why They Disappeared

Synopsis

This volume examines a very different search among some Europeans and North Americans for a Third Way, a form of social and economic organization that in important respects would be neither capitalist nor Communist. Freewheeling capitalism or collectivist communism: when it came to political-economic systems, did the twentieth century present any other choice? Does our century? InThird Ways,social historian Allan Carlson tells the story of how different thinkers from Bulgaria to Great Britain created economic systems during the twentieth century that were by intent neither capitalist nor communist. Unlike fascists, these seekers were committed to democracy and pluralism. Unlike liberal capitalists, they refused to treat human labor and relationships as commodities like any other. And unlike communists, they strongly defended private property and the dignity of persons and families. Instead, the builders of these alternative economic systems wanted to protect and renew the "natural" communities of family, village, neighborhood, and parish. They treasured rural culture and family farming and defended traditional sex roles and vital home economies. Carlson's book takes a fresh look at distributism, the controversial economic project of Hilaire Belloc and G. K. Chesterton which focused on broad property ownership and small-scale production; recovers the forgotten thought of Alexander Chayanov, a Russian economist who put forth a theory of "the natural family economy"; discusses the remarkable "third way" policies of peasant-led governments in post-World War I Bulgaria, Poland, and Romania; recounts the dramatic and largely unknown effort by Swedish housewives to defend their homes against radical feminism; relates the iconoclastic ideas of economic historian Karl Polanyi, including his concepts of "the economy without markets" and "the great transformation"; and praises the efforts by European Christian Democrats to build a moral economy on the concept ofhomo religious-"religious man. " Finally, Carlson's work explains why these efforts-at times rich in hope and prospects-ultimately failed, often with tragic results. The tale inspires wistful regret over lost opportunities that, if seized, might have spared tens of millions of lives and forestalled or avoided the blights of fascism, Stalinism, socialism, and the advent of the servile state. And yet the book closes with hope, enunciating a set of principles that could be used today for invigorating a "family way" economy compatible with an authentic, healthy, and humane culture of enterprise.

Copyright:

2007

Book Details

Book Quality:

Excellent

Book Size:

226 Pages

ISBN-13:

9781933859408

Publisher:

ISI Books

Date of Addition:

11/30/12

Copyrighted By:

ISI Books

Adult content:

No

Language:

English

Has Image Descriptions:

No

Categories:

Nonfiction, Business and Finance, Technology

Submitted By:

Daproim Africa

Proofread By:

Daproim Africa

Usage Restrictions:

This is a copyrighted book.