Search results

This paper collects together quotations and extracts from 19th and 20th century thinkers who were little-known for being supporters of workplace democracy.

I. Introduction On January 1, 1986, Mikhail Gorbachev, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), who has been described by Andrei Gromyko as a man who “has a nice smile, but he has iron teeth,” (Goldman, 1) gave an address to the people of the United States in which he informed them that the “Soviet people are dedicated to peace — that supreme value equal to the gift of life.” (Gorbachev, 1986(a),5). Gorbachev appealed to all that is good in the American people when he said:

THE Programme of the Library Association Conference which reached us on April 22nd is one of much interest. Every year increases the difficulty of providing matter which has such appeal that members can say at the close that the time has been spent profitably. The pre‐print of the papers—a rather incomplete affair—raises the thought that Conference time could be better used than in discussions on such “Research Committee” matters as library vans and temporary buildings, excellent as we admit the enquiries and results of them to be. Yet this reflection is accompanied by the certainty that there have been few conferences which have not contributed something of material use to every participator and we still hold the view that more is learned in “a week at one than in months of hermit‐like seclusion.” That last quotation was written in the first edition of Brown's Manual and is valid to this day. Our representatives will write impressions after the event, not by way of detailed report, but as endeavouring to sum up what, if anything, material has been achieved. The report published by the Association usually gives the papers in extenso, but we wish its issue could be delayed long enough to provide more informative records of the discussions. As the best contributions occasionally come from the floor, the bare‐bones notes of the names of speakers and almost telegram‐like utterances they are supposed to have made, which have been the customary report, could be greatly improved.

A collection of essays by a social economist seeking to balance economics as a science of means with the values deemed necessary to man′s finding the good life and society enduring as a civilized instrumentality. Looks for authority to great men of the past and to today′s moral philosopher: man is an ethical animal. The 13 essays are: 1. Evolutionary Economics: The End of It All? which challenges the view that Darwinism destroyed belief in a universe of purpose and design; 2. Schmoller′s Political Economy: Its Psychic, Moral and Legal Foundations, which centres on the belief that time‐honoured ethical values prevail in an economy formed by ties of common sentiment, ideas, customs and laws; 3. Adam Smith by Gustav von Schmoller – Schmoller rejects Smith′s natural law and sees him as simply spreading the message of Calvinism; 4. Pierre‐Joseph Proudhon, Socialist – Karl Marx, Communist: A Comparison; 5. Marxism and the Instauration of Man, which raises the question for Marx: is the flowering of the new man in Communist society the ultimate end to the dialectical movement of history?; 6. Ethical Progress and Economic Growth in Western Civilization; 7. Ethical Principles in American Society: An Appraisal; 8. The Ugent Need for a Consensus on Moral Values, which focuses on the real dangers inherent in there being no consensus on moral values; 9. Human Resources and the Good Society – man is not to be treated as an economic resource; man′s moral and material wellbeing is the goal; 10. The Social Economist on the Modern Dilemma: Ethical Dwarfs and Nuclear Giants, which argues that it is imperative to distinguish good from evil and to act accordingly: existentialism, situation ethics and evolutionary ethics savour of nihilism; 11. Ethical Principles: The Economist′s Quandary, which is the difficulty of balancing the claims of disinterested science and of the urge to better the human condition; 12. The Role of Government in the Advancement of Cultural Values, which discusses censorship and the funding of art against the background of the US Helms Amendment; 13. Man at the Crossroads draws earlier themes together; the author makes the case for rejecting determinism and the “operant conditioning” of the Skinner school in favour of the moral progress of autonomous man through adherence to traditional ethical values.

To discuss the problem of cultural imperialism as it relates to human rights and to provide a framework for applying human rights to Library and Information Services (LIS) so as to respect diverse worldviews.

The chapter is theoretical in nature but also draws out important practical implications. The problem is described and addressed using the approach of philosophical ethics emphasizing moral pluralism. Political and moral theories are compared and lessons drawn from them for LIS practice.

Drawing on the work of philosopher Jacques Maritain (1949) as well as contemporary human rights theory, an understanding of human rights as pluralistic and evolving practical principles is developed. Using Maritain’s conception of human rights as a set of common principles of action, guidelines for applying human rights in ways that avoid cultural imperialism are provided.

The findings of this chapter should assist LIS professionals in understanding the relationship between human rights and cultural diversity. In addition, it gives professionals a framework for understanding and applying human rights in a ways that respects cultural diversity.

This chapter develops an original approach to applying human rights in a way that respects cultural diversity.

It is appropriate in these sessions called in honour of Anghel N. Rugina to consider the nature of money, a topic that he has concerned himself with during much of his career and that forms a significant link in his current major project, “Toward a New Principia Politica”.

The purpose of this article is expository in the main; critical to a lesser degree. It will attempt to show how Karl Marx, enraged by the imperfections and inhumanity of the capitalist society, “fought” for its supersession by the communist society on which he dwelt so fondly, that society which would emerge from the womb of a dying capitalism. It asks such questions as these: Is it possible to create the truly human society envisaged by Marx? Is perfection of man and society a mere will‐o'‐the‐wisp? A brief analysis, therefore, of the imperfections of capitalism is undertaken for the purpose of revealing the evils which Marx sought to eliminate by revolution of the most violent sort. In this sense, the nature of man under capitalism is analysed. Marx found the breed wanting, in a word, dehumanised. An attempt is, therefore, made to discuss the new man of Marxism, man's own creation, and the traits of that new man, one freed at last from the alienating effects of private property, division of labour, money, and religion. Another question that springs to mind is this: how does Marx propose to transcend alienation?

Beyond the purview of religious teachings, I find the Marxian conception of the New Man the most intriguing one in the whole secular world. Is it chimerical to hope for the coming of this New Man, I ask myself? Is Marx the vaunt‐courier of this ideal really naive and the New Man nothing other than the last straw he could grasp, considering his philippics against capitalism and his traduction of Christianity? Was the New Man his only hope? The votaries of the free enterprise system have rejected him out of hand. Are the beaux esprits of Marxian doctrine no less naive than Karl Marx himself, clinging as they do to this fantastic belief? I would like here today briefly to review the Marxian concept of the instauration, the founding, the advent of the New Man, to examine its possibilities. Most of the authorities to whom I shall here have recourse are sons of France, forbidding me therefore from denying the French connection.

Neither Marxists and Hegelians nor most supporters of market economies believe that we can really choose an economic system. Historical laws and economic realities undermine our attempts. Explores the problem of predicting any human future and examines background views of human nature which influenced classical economics. Revives Malebranche′s view that man is necessarily an ordering creature. Man must make decisions, but tends towards a natural good which would be instantiated in a social system which reconciled self‐interest and the public interest so that everyone′s rational needs and reasonable desires were given proper weight. In these terms there are choices we can make, especially about how property is to be used and shared.