Book Selection
The books highlighted here are a first, small, incomplete selection by the section. These books are highlighted because they shed light on the challenges of the time and propose solutions.
What future does the welfare state have? A forecast by Michael Opielka
New ISÖ book published by the German Association
The German Association for Public and Private Welfare e.V., the umbrella organization of welfare in Germany, published in the series “Social work controversial” the book about the challenges of the welfare state.
On this basis Michael Opielka designs solutions for a social policy of the 21st century exemplarily with the idea of the basic income.
Social Future - The Basic Income - The Debate
Philip Kovce has now published 30 texts by 30 authors of the Basic Income Debate in the volume "Social Future"
Contributed by Heinrich Alt, Dieter Althaus, Jakob Augstein, Daniel Binswanger, Norbert Blum, Anke Domscheit-Berg, Katja Gentinetta, Adrienne Goehler, Gregor Gysi, Rainer Hank, Daniel Häni, Otfried Höffe, Urs Jaeggi, Katja Kipping, Sascha Liebermann, Wolf Lotter, Julian Nida-Rümelin, Michael Opielka, Timo Reuter, Frank Rieger, Enno Schmidt, Oswald Sigg, Ralf Stegner, Thomas Straubhaar, Hans-Christian Ströbele, Bernd Ulrich, Philippe Van Parijs, Sahra Wagenknecht, Harald Welzer and Götz W. Werner.
Manifesto on basic income
What would you work for if your income were taken care of?
The unconditional basic income is on everyone’s lips because it asks the right questions. Could not we develop our talents much better if our existence were unconditionally assured?
How would society change if each individual were financially more independent? And last but not least: how do we want to live and work together in the digital age?
A manifesto that uses 95 theses to introduce the idea of an unconditional basic income – with sharpened thoughts and surprising stories. The unconditional basic income is the humanist response to technological progress.
Blessed Unrest
How the Largest Social Movement in History Is Restoring Grace, Justice, and Beauty to the World
All over the world, many important little things happen from within, spontaneously, without guidance, without coordination, without a guide. They happen because people start acting simply out of their own truth, with the power of certainty to do the right thing. Like a self-organizing, living organism, something is spreading in the world.
The book “Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came Into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming” examines this “greatest movement of all time”. The author Paul Hawken said:
“This movement is the most diverse movement the world has ever seen. The word movement, I think, is too small to describe. No one has started this world view, no one controls it, there is no orthodoxy, it is global, classless, indestructible and tireless. The common understanding emerges spontaneously […] It is growing and spreading worldwide, without exception […] We do not know how great this movement is. […] It is everywhere, there is no center, there is no speaker. She is in every country and every city on earth. This is the first time on Earth that a powerful non-ideological movement has emerged. “
Social Revolution!
A book on the necessary rethinking of our social systems
It is becoming increasingly clear that we have to think completely differently about the relationship between work and income than in the past. Authors from all sectors of society are beginning to question the classic axioms. The book presented here is a good example of this.
Our working life is facing a fundamental revolution. Computers and robots are already working faster, more efficiently, more tirelessly and more precisely than human workers in many areas. They are doing more and more of the added value, especially in the area of productive, predictable and repeatable activities. This has enormous consequences for human biography, society and social security systems. The classic “workplace” is more and more a thing of the past. Virtually no one will be working in the same profession for more than 45 or 50 years from Monday to Friday…
Beyond capitalism and communism
Theory and practice of the economic model of the Achberger Schule
Michael W. Bader describes the theory and practice of a twenty-year field trial in dealing with new economic forms, centered on a new concept of work and property, the question of company self-management and a changed concept of money. Bader gives interesting insights into model workshops of a complementary social order, which were implemented in the years 1979 2001 together with many participants and with the participation of the artist Joseph Beuys. It is one of the few attempts to set up a model economy without power and greed and to make common good and solidarity instead of profit maximization and self-interest the basic maxim of economic action. Efforts that have lost none of their relevance since the 1980s, given the current unequal distribution of wealth, expansive financial market capitalism or the environmental burden of unbridled industrialization.
Inhabiting Interdependence: Being in the Next Economy
John Bloom
In this insightful book, John Bloom, author of The Genius of Money, explores approaches toward transforming the conventional habits of mind and practice that have led to today’s imbalance in our economic life and in society as a whole.
“The art is eternal, their shapes are changing.”
―
It is becoming increasingly clear that we have to think completely differently about the relationship between work and income than in the past. Authors from all sectors of society are beginning to question the classic axioms. The book presented here is a good example of this.
Our working life is facing a fundamental revolution. Computers and robots are already working faster, more efficiently, more tirelessly and more precisely than human workers in many areas. They are doing more and more of the added value, especially in the area of productive, predictable and repeatable activities. This has enormous consequences for human biography, society and social security systems. The classic “workplace” is more and more a thing of the past. Virtually no one will be working in the same profession for more than 45 or 50 years from Monday to Friday.
In the place of full-time jobs, a patchwork of project jobs, especially for young people, is already being negotiated and settled, mostly through the internet. How these people are to save month after month for their pensions, remains unresolved, the pension and social security of the 19th century is just as categorial revolution of working life as the classic occupational pensions, the employer at the end of a loyal working life in the business be paid.
So what social relationships do we need to meet the challenges of digitization? In the book of the same name, edited by Börries Hornemann and Armin Steuernagel, 13 well-known and internationally renowned thinkers demand no less than a “social revolution”: the authors argue from clearly different ideological perspectives. One thing they have in common is their strong connection to the idea of an “unconditional basic income” – because the initiative for this book came about in the context of the Swiss campaign for the introduction of an unconditional basic income.
The authors place this question as well as the question of the “future of work” in a larger context. The book contains contributions u.a. from the director of the libertarian Cato Institute, Mike Tanner, to brain researcher Gerald Hüther and Twitter investor Albert Wenger, to Robert Reich and Yanis Varoufakis. It is becoming increasingly clear that we have to think completely differently about the relationship between work and income than in the past. Worth reading!
Gerald Häfner