Bøker av Marjorie Kelly

"Author of The Divine Right of Capital exposes the myths of capitalism today and calls for an end to wealth supremacy and capital bias. Wealth Supremacy makes a case that no one else is making: instead of pointing to billionaires as the sole problem or being another analysis of wealth inequality, it clearly articulates the pervasive, unnamed bias toward wealth that invisibly pervades the system. We know the system is rigged-what isn't commonly understood is how. Marjorie Kelly skillfully reveals how bias toward capital works, breaking down the pretenses that legitimize and obscure the deep operating system that drives large corporations and extractive investing"--

Updated paperback edition includes a new chapter and a Reader's Guide â¿¢ Explores the real causes of the Enron fiasco and other recent corporate scandals â¿¢ Explodes the myth that the stock market is ''''''''democratizing'''''''' wealth â¿¢ Gives practical guidance to help employees and communities change corporate governance and unfetter the genius of the free market. Wealth inequality, corporate welfare, and industrial pollution are symptoms - the fevers and chills of the economy. The underlying illness, says Business Ethics magazine founder Marjorie Kelly, is shareholder primacy: the corporate drive to make profits for shareholders, no matter who pays the cost. In The Divine Right of Capital, Kelly argues that focusing on the interests of stockholders to the exclusion of everyone else's interests is a form of discrimination based on property or wealth. She shows how this bias is held by our institutional structures, much as they once held biases against blacks and women. The Divine Right of Capital exposes six aristocratic principles that corporations are built on, principles that we would never accept in our modern democratic society but which we accept unquestioningly in our economy. Wealth bias is a holdover from our pre - democratic past. It has enabled shareholders to become a kind of economic aristocracy. Kelly shows how to design more equitable alternatives - new property rights, new forms of corporate governance, new ways of looking at corporate performance - that build on both free - market and democratic principles. We think of shareholder primacy as the natural law of the free market, much as our forebears thought of monarchy as the most natural form of government. But in The Divine Right of Capital, Kelly brilliantly demonstrates that it is no more ''''''''natural'''''''' than any other human creation. People designed this system and people can change it. We need a change of mind as profound as that of the American Revolution. We must question the legitimacy of a system that gives the wealthy few - the ten percent of Americans who own ninety percent of all stock - a disproportionate power over the many. In so doing, we can fulfill the democratic principles of our nation not only in the political sphere, but in the economic sphere as well.

Our economy is designed by the 1 percent, for the 1 percent. This book offers a compelling vision of an equitable, ecologically sustainable alternative that meets the essential needs of all people.We live in a world where twenty-six billionaires own as much wealth as half the planet's population. The extractive economy we live with now enables the financial elite to squeeze out maximum gain for themselves, heedless of damage to people or planet. But Marjorie Kelly and Ted Howard show that there is a new economy emerging focused on helping everyone thrive while respecting planetary boundaries. At a time when competing political visions are at stake the world over, this book urges a move beyond tinkering at the margins to address the systemic crisis of our economy. Kelly and Howard outline seven principles of what they call a Democratic Economy: community, inclusion, place (keeping wealth local), good work (putting labor before capital), democratized ownership, ethical finance, and sustainability. Each principle is paired with a place putting it into practice: Pine Ridge, Preston, Portland, Cleveland, and more.This book tells stories not just of activists and grassroots leaders but of the unexpected accomplices of the Democratic Economy. Seeds of a future beyond corporate capitalism and state socialism are being planted in hospital procurement departments, pension fund offices, and even company boardrooms. The road to a system grounded in community, democracy, and justice remains uncertain. Kelly and Howard help us understand we make this road as we walk it by taking a first step together beyond isolation and despair.