Perhaps you thought it was fantasy. Perhaps you thought it was a ruse. Perhaps you thought it was the actions of an immature heart and love that had yet to be "educated" by reality. Wrong! Actually your first answer was right. Now you have to be unschooled and learn love all over again, and you might want to start here at that foundation of love. But you forgot, after all it only lasted a couple of seconds, a couple of days and then that place that those eyes took you disappeared like a mirage. You no longer have what it takes to graduate to love's stage seven. Don't worry, Illuminations will take you back. If infatuation is oft the cornerstone with which we set the foundation of love, why do we throw away that foundation when we build the school of our convictions as to what love is? But remember when we thought a love was perfect and we thought that love was supreme? Remember when we thought love would find ourselves in a perfect plot and we could reside there forever? Remember when love was the most beautiful thing in existence and so was our love? Might I ask, what is wrong with that? And if there is nothing wrong with that, why isn't it considered right? If the school of love in which the world learns fails, and we are unable to graduate to love's better vision. If indeed, we fail to take our love to a higher grade, perhaps we aught to find a better school. Love instinctively knows better, and the new foundation upon which love will be reschooled goes back to our original convictions when we thought love was perfect, that love was supreme, that love would deliver and that love is perfect. There is a reason for that original conviction and it is because, love is.

Corporate capitalism is increasingly blamed for the social, economic, and environmental decline apparent in today's world. Millions of us hope for a more equitable society with a new shared economy in which all people have access to food, clothing, affordable housing, living-wage jobs, medical care, education, and opportunities to improve their lives together on a planet in which: * The condition of the environment is improving * Local economies are vibrant, democracy is growing stronger, a greater sense of community is developing in cities and towns, small businesses are flourishing, family farmers are profitable, poverty is in sharp decline, and children do not go to bed hungry * The economically powerful special interests that receive favorable treatment from governments are communities, rather than lobbyists for wealthy private interests * The purpose of the shared economic system is not to produce maximum profits and growth for the few, but adequate profits and sustainable growth for the good of all-to create a brighter future You may think this a utopian dream, but it is not. Community Capitalism details how we can create this shared economy anytime we want - without the need for any new legislation, any government action, or the approval of the wealthiest, most powerful elite. Most surprising is that, when used in a different way by the community itself, it is the much maligned tool of capitalism that can bring us the shared economy and society we are hoping for! In fact, it is ours for the taking! If you are open to the idea that a new beginning is possible, this just might be what you've been looking for.

Capitalism is the only complex system known to us that can provide an efficient and innovative economy, but the financial crisis has brought out the pernicious side of capitalism and shown that it remains dependent on the state to rescue it from its own deficiencies. Can capitalism be reshaped so that it is fit for society, or must we acquiesce to the neoliberal view that society will be at its best when markets are given free rein in all areas of life? The aim of this book is to show that the acceptance of capitalism and the market does not require us to accept the full neoliberal agenda of unrestrained markets, insecurity in our working lives, and neglect of the environment and of public services. In particular, it should not mean supporting the growing dominance of public life by corporate wealth. The world’s most successful mature economies are those that fully embrace both the discipline of the market and the need for protection against its negative outcomes. Indeed, a continuing, unresolved clash between these two forces is itself a major source of vitality and innovation for economy and society. But maintenance of that tension depends on the enduring strength of trade unions and other critical groups in civil society - a strength that is threatened by neoliberalism’s increasingly intolerant onward march. Outlining the principles for a renewed and more assertive social democracy, this timely and important book shows that real possibilities exist to create a better world than that which is being offered by the wealthy elites who dominate our public and private lives.

Corporate capitalism is increasingly blamed for the social, economic, and environmental decline apparent in today's world.Millions of us hope for a more equitable society with a new shared economy in which all people have access to food, clothing, affordable housing, living-wage jobs, medical care, education, and opportunities to improve their lives together on a planet in which:* The condition of the environment is improving * Local economies are vibrant, democracy is growing stronger, a greater sense of community is developing in cities and towns, small businesses are flourishing, family farmers are profitable, poverty is in sharp decline, and children do not go to bed hungry* The economically powerful special interests that receive favorable treatment from governments are communities, rather than lobbyists for wealthy private interests * The purpose of the shared economic system is not to produce maximum profits and growth for the few, but adequate profits and sustainable growth for the good of all-to create a brighter future You may think this a utopian dream, but it is not.Community Capitalism details how we can create this shared economy anytime we want - without the need for any new legislation, any government action, or the approval of the wealthiest, most powerful elite.Most surprising is that, when used in a different way by the community itself, it is the much maligned tool of capitalism that can bring us the shared economy and society we are hoping for!In fact, it is ours for the taking! If you are open to the idea that a new beginning is possible, this just might be what you've been looking for.

Revised and updated Shortlisted for the Financial Times/McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award From one of the most important economic thinkers of our time, a brilliant and far-seeing analysis of the current populist backlash against globalization. Raghuram Rajan, distinguished University of Chicago professor, former IMF chief economist, head of India's central bank, and author of the 2010 FT-Goldman-Sachs Book of the Year Fault Lines, has an unparalleled vantage point onto the social and economic consequences of globalization and their ultimate effect on our politics. In The Third Pillar he offers up a magnificent big-picture framework for understanding how these three forces--the state, markets, and our communities--interact, why things begin to break down, and how we can find our way back to a more secure and stable plane. The "third pillar" of the title is the community we live in. Economists all too often understand their field as the relationship between markets and the state, and they leave squishy social issues for other people. That's not just myopic, Rajan argues; it's dangerous. All economics is actually socioeconomics - all markets are embedded in a web of human relations, values and norms. As he shows, throughout history, technological phase shifts have ripped the market out of those old webs and led to violent backlashes, and to what we now call populism. Eventually, a new equilibrium is reached, but it can be ugly and messy, especially if done wrong. Right now, we're doing it wrong. As markets scale up, the state scales up with it, concentrating economic and political power in flourishing central hubs and leaving the periphery to decompose, figuratively and even literally. Instead, Rajan offers a way to rethink the relationship between the market and civil society and argues for a return to strengthening and empowering local communities as an antidote to growing despair and unrest. Rajan is not a doctrinaire conservative, so his ultimate argument that decision-making has to be devolved to the grass roots or our democracy will continue to wither, is sure to be provocative. But even setting aside its solutions, The Third Pillar is a masterpiece of explication, a book that will be a classic of its kind for its offering of a wise, authoritative and humane explanation of the forces that have wrought such a sea change in our lives.

"Vexed!" Every American's "Bitch List", "Community Capitalism"—market-driven, community-centric, entrepreneurial capitalism—lays out the problems confronting Capitalism, those threatening once again to destroy the economic well-being of the American Nation and all of its allies and associates in Western and World Civilization. From "the Stock Market" to derivatives to banks to lawyers in politics to patenting intangibles to educational failures to unions, "Community Capitalism" lays bare the issues: the internals, the problems and the illogical, human-destructive hubris of profit-before market, divine-right "Greed Capitalism." All American legislation (and that of Western Europe, too) of the past couple of decades has favored the big corporations while putting ever more insufferable demands on small businesses. At the same time, the programs of the first eight years of the century have helped to destroy American education by forcing it into what can only be called Stalinist regimentation. No one is taking responsibility for the multi-billion dollar (and euro) financial fiascos forced on the taxpayers. This has hit the American and the Greek people with taxation imposed without their consent for actions they never agreed to-the gambling that resulted in those horrendous fees. To get the world out of this condition, "Community Capitalism" proposes a basic rethinking, and redirected application of the strengths of Capitalism, to return to community-enriching, stable, progressive commerce allied with the human-centered methods of traditional, pre-"Spreadsheet-Capitalism," pre-derivative-deranged business sensibilities. The primary concept around which this is based is that of "Fiducium," a name coined to encapsulate the spirit of fiduciary responsibility, extended into all aspects of human endeavor. Eduard Qualls calls not only on his advanced business degree, but on his extensive Humanities, historical and linguistic/cultural education, heightened and honed by the experience bestowed by his almost 30 successful years within the computer science industry. Yet it was also his experience of being misused and mal-used by the mindless machinations of fatally financial-operative, mindless mega-corporate America that spurred him to organize within this volume an exposition of that damnable, destructive dysfunction he has been witnessing as it has metastasized during these past 12+ years into the consumptive calamity we must all now contend against. This book will please neither the ultra-conservative nor the ultra-liberal. But it will ring true to all those who in free and generous equanimity love their families, their neighbors and neighborhoods, their commmunities, and their Nation-indeed, all those who cherish the fond hope of a more human, more humane world of opportunity for themselves, their children, and the future of their communities. In this book Mr. Qualls gives voice to all the people in the Western World who are utterly, angrily exasperated with the way the economy and sociable life are being wrecked by wantons, gamblers and wastrels, yet who must remain quiet, silently feeding that frustration because of fear of losing their jobs if they speak out. Yes, he's "Vexed!" And you should be, too!

Connects the Marxist construct of capitalism to systems of community In this book, Michael Lebowitz deepens the arguments he made in his award-winning, Beyond Capital. Karl Marx, in Capital, focused on capital and the capitalist class that is its embodiment. It is the endless accumulation of capital, its causes and consequences that are central to Marx’s analysis. In taking this approach, Marx tended to obscure not only the centrality of capital’s “immanent drive” and “constant tendency” to divide the working class but also the political economy of the working class (“social production controlled by social foresight”). In Between Capitalism and Community, Lebowitz demonstrates that capitalism contains within itself elements of a different society, one of community. Whereas Marx’s intellectual construct of capitalism treats it as an organic system that reproduces its premises of capital and wage-labor (including a working class that looks upon the requirements of capital “as self-evident natural laws”), Lebowitz argues that the struggle of workers in common and activities based upon solidarity point in the direction of the organic system of community, an alternative system that produces its own premises, communality, and recognition of the needs of others. If we are to escape the ultimate barbarism portended by the existing crisis of the earth system, the subordination of the system of capitalism by that of community is essential. Since the interregnum in which capitalism and community coexist is marked by the interpenetration and mutual deformation of both sides within this whole, however, the path to community cannot emerge spontaneously but requires a revolutionary party that stresses the development of the capacities of people through their protagonism.

The bestselling book, now with a new preface by the authors At once a bold defense and reimagining of capitalism and a blueprint for a new system for doing business, Conscious Capitalism is for anyone hoping to build a more cooperative, humane, and positive future. Whole Foods Market cofounder John Mackey and professor and Conscious Capitalism, Inc. cofounder Raj Sisodia argue that both business and capitalism are inherently good, and they use some of today’s best-known and most successful companies to illustrate their point. From Southwest Airlines, UPS, and Tata to Costco, Panera, Google, the Container Store, and Amazon, today’s organizations are creating value for all stakeholders—including customers, employees, suppliers, investors, society, and the environment. Read this book and you’ll better understand how four specific tenets—higher purpose, stakeholder integration, conscious leadership, and conscious culture and management—can help build strong businesses, move capitalism closer to its highest potential, and foster a more positive environment for all of us.

Reimagining our global economy so it becomes more sustainable and prosperous for all Our global economic system is broken. But we can replace the current picture of global upheaval, unsustainability, and uncertainty with one of an economy that works for all people, and the planet. First, we must eliminate rising income inequality within societies where productivity and wage growth has slowed. Second, we must reduce the dampening effect of monopoly market power wielded by large corporations on innovation and productivity gains. And finally, the short-sighted exploitation of natural resources that is corroding the environment and affecting the lives of many for the worse must end. The debate over the causes of the broken economy—laissez-faire government, poorly managed globalization, the rise of technology in favor of the few, or yet another reason—is wide open. Stakeholder Capitalism: A Global Economy that Works for Progress, People and Planet argues convincingly that if we don't start with recognizing the true shape of our problems, our current system will continue to fail us. To help us see our challenges more clearly, Schwab—the Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum—looks for the real causes of our system's shortcomings, and for solutions in best practices from around the world in places as diverse as China, Denmark, Ethiopia, Germany, Indonesia, New Zealand, and Singapore. And in doing so, Schwab finds emerging examples of new ways of doing things that provide grounds for hope, including: Individual agency: how countries and policies can make a difference against large external forces A clearly defined social contract: agreement on shared values and goals allows government, business, and individuals to produce the most optimal outcomes Planning for future generations: short-sighted presentism harms our shared future, and that of those yet to be born Better measures of economic success: move beyond a myopic focus on GDP to more complete, human-scaled measures of societal flourishing By accurately describing our real situation, Stakeholder Capitalism is able to pinpoint achievable ways to deal with our problems. Chapter by chapter, Professor Schwab shows us that there are ways for everyone at all levels of society to reshape the broken pieces of the global economy and—country by country, company by company, and citizen by citizen—glue them back together in a way that benefits us all.