The American founders designed a Constitution for governance of the United States based on the idea that citizens are sovereign and that function of government is to protect their pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness. This book calls the original system "version 3.0," and discusses five basic political principles required for a modern government to accomplish that function. These principles were either explicit or implicit at the founding. However, the United States has deviated from these principles over time, and today the federal government is doing many of the things the Constitution sought to protect against. Congress is in a position much like the programmers of a computer operating system that seek to increase the functionality of the system and to ward off attacks from viruses. However, not only have they passed laws that take away from the citizen's abilities to pursue life, liberty, and happiness, they have also introduced various viruses that threaten the existence of the entire system. This book describes how we can eliminate these viruses infecting the system and update the U.S. government to "version 4.0," allowing U.S. citizens to pursue life, liberty, and happiness, thereby producing a solid foundation for a strong and durable society in which all can freely prosper. There are several conclusions that run against the current prevailing views. The most significant conclusion involves the relationship of the government to the economy. Several principles adopted as prevailing economic wisdom in both the Republican and Democratic Parties are considered harmful to the pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness of citizens, and harmful to the society as a whole. There are many books on reforming the U.S. government, which a majority of Americans consider to be broken. However, there is no comprehensive systematic vision based on these core principles of government. Rather, most approaches are patches on symptoms produced by not adhering to these fundamental principles in the first place.

Although this book was first published in 1919, it remains highly relevant to social problems encountered today. Uniquely, Steiner's social thinking is not based on intellectual theory, but on a profound perception of the archetypal spiritual nature of social life. As he suggests in this classic work, society has three distinct realms - the economic, the political (individual human rights), and the cultural (spiritual). While social life as a whole is a unity, the autonomy of these three sectors should be respected if our increasing social problems are to be resolved. Steiner relates the ideals of 'liberty, equality and fraternity' to modern society. Economics calls for fraternity (brotherhood), political rights require equality, while culture should be characterised by liberty (freedom). The slogans of the French Revolution, he suggests, can only become truly manifest if our social thinking is transformed to correspond to the spiritual reality.

This major work retraces the emergence and development of the Bourgeois public sphere - that is, a sphere which was distinct from the state and in which citizens could discuss issues of general interest. In analysing the historical transformations of this sphere, Habermas recovers a concept which is of crucial significance for current debates in social and political theory. Habermas focuses on the liberal notion of the bourgeois public sphere as it emerged in Europe in the early modern period. He examines both the writings of political theorists, including Marx, Mill and de Tocqueville, and the specific institutions and social forms in which the public sphere was realized. This brilliant and influential work has been widely recognized for many years as a classic of contemporary social and political thought, of interest to students and scholars throughout the social sciences and humanities.

Lecture collection: January 19, 1911 - January 25, 1912 (CW 60/61) "In our long human journey, individual and collective, the journey that science calls evolution, many indeed are the turning points. But they are not so much turning points in outer, material manifestation in the fossils of paleontology, for those fossils are only the shed garments worn by humans in an earlier age, vestments designed by providence to meet the need of a changing human consciousness moving through time. Where the real evolution occurs, for which the necessary outer garments are tailored over time, is in the realm of consciousness as it transitions from spirit to matter and back to spirit." --Edward Reaugh Smith (from the introduction) Rudolf Steiner gave the six lectures in this volume between January 1911 and January 1912. Soon after Steiner's death in 1925, Marie Steiner--realizing the importance of those lectures for understanding the evolution of consciousness and the central role of the Christ event in that process--collected them under the title Turning Points in Spiritual History. According to Rudolf Steiner, Earth is the crucible of cosmic evolution, and earthly evolution is accomplished through humanity. Further, there were five turning points--or critical, transformative moments--in the process leading to the culmination of the Christ's incarnation through the Mystery of Golgotha. Each of those five points is exemplified by an individual: Zarathustra, Hermes, Moses, Elijah, and the Buddha. Each of these lectures deals in turn with one of these great beings. In them, Steiner provides us with astonishing views of esoteric history and shows the remarkable ways in which the spiritual world guided and nurtured the spiritual evolution in preparation for the Christ's appearance on Earth.

The idea of finding a 'third way' in politics has been widely discussed over recent months - not only in the UK, but in the US, Continental Europe and Latin America. But what is the third way? Supporters of the notion haven't been able to agree, and critics deny the possibility altogether. Anthony Giddens shows that developing a third way is not only a possibility but a necessity in modern politics.

Microeconomics in Context lays out the principles of microeconomics in a manner that is thorough, up to date, and relevant to students. Like its counterpart, Macroeconomics in Context, the book is uniquely attuned to economic realities. The "in Context" books offer affordability, accessible presentation, and engaging coverage of current policy issues from economic inequality and global climate change to taxes. Key features include: --Clear explanation of basic concepts and analytical tools, with advanced models presented in optional chapter appendices; --Presentation of policy issues in historical, institutional, social, political, and ethical context--an approach that fosters critical evaluation of the standard microeconomic models, such as welfare analysis, labor markets, and market competition; --A powerful graphical presentation of various measures of well-being in the United States, from income inequality and educational attainment to home prices; --Broad definition of well-being using both traditional economic metrics and factors such as environmental quality, health, equity, and political inclusion; --New chapters on the economics of the environment, taxes and tax policy, common property and public goods, and welfare analysis; --Expanded coverage of high-interest topics such as behavioral economics, labor markets, and healthcare; --Full complement of instructor and student support materials online, including test banks and grading through Canvas.