This innovative text focuses on an American icon, central to United States culture, that is rapidly becoming a global expression of prosperity - the credit card. George Ritzer explains what the credit card tells us, both good and bad, about the essence of the modern US and why and how the credit card is helping to transform much of the world. Drawing on the insights of both classic and contemporary social thinkers, including Georg Simmel, C Wright Mills, Karl Marx and Max Weber, as well as micro-macro, agency-structure and Americanization theories, Ritzer also reveals to students the powerful insights gained from using the sociological `imagination' applied to a topic that students know about and are interested in.
This innovative text focuses on an American icon, central to United States culture, that is rapidly becoming a global expression of prosperity - the credit card.
A Critique of the 'clash of Civilizations' in the New World Order
In the post '9/11' legal and political environment, Islam and Muslims have been associated with terrorism. Islamic civilization has increasingly been characterized as backward, insular, stagnant and unable to deal with the demands of the twenty first century and differences and schisms between Islam and the west are being perceived as monumental and insurmountable. '9/11' terrorist attacks have unfortunately provided vital ammunition to the critics of Islam and those who champion a 'clash of civilizations'.In this original and incisive study, the author investigates the relationship between Islamic law, States practices and International terrorism. It presents a detailed analysis of the sources of Islamic law and reviews the concepts of Jihad, religious freedom and minority rights within Sharia and Siyar. In eradicating existing misconceptions, the book provides a thorough commentary of the contributions made by Islamic States in the development of international law, including norms on the prohibition of terrorism. It presents a lucid debate on such key issues within classical and modern Islamic State practices as diplomatic immunities, prohibitions on hostage-taking, aerial and maritime terrorism, and the financing of terrorism.The book surveys the unfairness and injustices within international law - a legal system dominated and operated at the behest of a select band of powerful States. It forewarns that unilateralism and the undermining of human rights values in the name of the 'war on terrorism' is producing powerful reactions within Muslim States: the 'new world order' presents a dangerous prognosis of the self-fulfilling prophecy of an inevitable 'clash of civilizations' between the Islamic world and the west.
We must be aware of the superiority of our civilisation, a system that has
guaranteed well-being, respect for human rights—and in contrast with Islamic
countries—respect for religious and political rights. Islamic civilisation is stuck
where it was fourteen hundred years ago.1 It gives us great credibility to say to
the Muslim world: Where have you been since 9/11? Where are your voices of
reason? You humbly open all your prayers in the name of God of mercy and
compassion. But when ...
Das Kapital, Karl Marx's seminal work, is the book that above all others formed the twentieth century. From Kapital sprung the economic and political systems that at one time dominated half the earth and for nearly a century kept the world on the brink of war. Even today, more than one billion Chinese citizens live under a regime that proclaims fealty to Marxist ideology. Yet this important tome has been passed over by many readers frustrated by Marx’s difficult style and his preoccupation with nineteenth-century events of little relevance to today's reader. Here Serge Levitsky presents a revised version of Kapital, abridged to emphasize the political and philosophical core of Marx’s work while trimming away much that is now unimportant. Pointing out Marx’s many erroneous predictions about the development of capitalism, Levitsky's introduction nevertheless argues for Kapital's relevance as a prime example of a philosophy of economic determinism that "subordinates the problems of human freedom and human dignity to the issues of who should own the means of production and how wealth should be distributed." Here then is a fresh and highly readable version of a work whose ideas provided inspiration for communist regimes' ideological war against capitalism, a struggle that helped to shape the world today.
rowth of capital involves growth of its variable constituent or of the part invested in
labor-power. A part of the sur- plus-value turned into additional capital must
always be retransformed into variable capital, or additional labor-fund. If we
suppose that, all other circumstances remaining the same, the com- position of capital also remains constant (i.e., that a definite mass of means of production
constantly needs the same mass of labor-power to set in motion), then the
demand for labor ...
