Publisher Description

It is widely held that private ownership is the preferred end state for all scarce resources. Those who hold this view have not looked closely enough at water in the American West, Barbanell contends. Because of water's special attributes, private ownership is an ineffective means for protecting individuals interests. Splitting the various rights of ownership between individual resources users and the community to which they belong can better protect those interests. Barbanell develops a conception of this form of common ownership, a common-property arrangement, and shows that it can function effectively for water in the West. More generally, he offers an expanded framework for analyzing right relationships and examining problems related to resource scarcity. Some economists argue that John Locke's account of property justifies the private ownership of water in the West. Barbanell argues, however, that because Locke did not think carefully enough about the variable nature of resources, his account does not support that conclusion. Although economists recognize that private ownership may not be perfectly suited to all resources, they are nonetheless skeptical about common ownership alternatives. Barbanell shows that this skepticism is unwarranted. When the rights relationship among members of a resource community is based on mutual expectations of reciprocal behavior, then a common-property arrangement can function effectively to control the degradation and depletion of a scarce resource. Barbanell's argument that common ownership is a conceptually sound and politically viable alternative for water will be of particular interest to public policy makers, environmentalists, resource economists, and political philosophers.

Modern management science seeks to streamline and rationalise the business process; to base decision-making on proven facts and to eliminate risk and uncertainty. Unfortunately, businesses are run by human beings and depend on other human beings for their custom. Human beings, it seems safe to say, are irredeemably selfish, greedy, short-sighted and prone to mass delusion. Time and again throughout history, business and society have been blindsided by people’s irrational and unpredictable behaviour. And it’s not just the consumers: well-respected business executives and their advisors get swept up with euphoria and panic along with the rest of us; they succumb to greed; they fail to plan for likely crises (and sometimes even for inevitable ones). Blindsided looks at the history of such outbreaks of irrational behaviour, at the occurrence of unpredictable but likely events, such as global pandemics and collapses of law and order, and at changes that have caught forecasters by surprise, such as the ageing and declining population of some affluent modern societies. This fascinating book reminds the world of business that it needs to plan for the unexpected, and to realise that neither its consumers nor even its own executives must be expected to act with cool rationality at all times.

This textbook adopts a multi-perspective approach designed specifically to allow access to the topic from a wide range of educational and professional backgrounds and to develop understanding of a diversity of approaches and traditions at different levels.

Are humans too good at adapting to the earth's natural environment? Every day, there is a net gain of more than 200,000 people on the planet--that's 146 a minute. Has our explosive population growth led to the mass extinction of countless species in the earth's plant and animal communities? Jeffrey K. McKee contends yes. The more people there are, the more we push aside wild plants and animals. In Sparing Nature, he explores the cause-and-effect relationship between these two trends, demonstrating that nature is too sparing to accommodate both a richly diverse living world and a rapidly expanding number of people. The author probes the past to find that humans and their ancestors have had negative impacts on species biodiversity for nearly two million years, and that extinction rates have accelerated since the origins of agriculture. Today entire ecosystems are in peril due to the relentless growth of the human population. McKee gives a guided tour of the interconnections within the living world to reveal the meaning and value of biodiversity, making the maze of technical research and scientific debates accessible to the general reader. Because it is clear that conservation cannot be left to the whims of changing human priorities, McKee takes the unabashedly neo-Malthusian position that the most effective measure to save earth's biodiversity is to slow the growth of human populations. By conscientiously becoming more responsible about our reproductive habits and our impact on other living beings, we can ensure that nature's services will make our lives not only supportable, but also sustainable for this century and beyond.

An argument that the commons is neither tragedy nor paradise but can be a way to understand environmental sustainability.

Our Human Herds presents a new theory in moral and political philosophy, called "dual morality." The theory proposes that just as the physical senses of sight, smell, taste, touch and hearing evolved to help us navigate our physical environment, two independent moral senses evolved to guide us to success in our social world. One prioritizes cooperation; the other, competition. The first bases moral justification on the egalitarianism that emphasizes our equal worth; the other finds moral justification in the inequalities that allow us to distinguish better from worse. "Liberal" and "conservative" are merely the names given to the political manifestations of these two forms of moral expression, just as "socialist" and "capitalist" describe their economic manifestations, and "personality" and "character" their psychological ones. Our Human Herds addresses what it means to be a human being, why we fight about the things that divide us, and why we unite behind the ideas that draw us together. The book examines all aspects of human social behavior, revealing how and why we often disagree in our approaches to education, history, war, crime, pleasure, happiness, politics, science and religion. "This is a learned, thoroughly researched study - and dazzlingly bright. The effervescent approach to writing makes its pages fly by ... Studies as brilliant as this one deserve a far wider audience. An engrossing and mind-expanding examination of morality" -Kirkus Reviews Book Review: A vast philosophical study charts the shifting moral landscape while tackling the weightiest question of human existence: what is the meaning of life? Humanity’s moral framework remains in a constant state of reconstruction. As the author points out in his opening chapter: “Two hundred years ago if a woman was raped and became pregnant we’d kill the rapist and spare the baby. Today, we spare rapist and kill the baby. Centuries ago many cultures condoned polygamy; today we put people in jail for it.” Over the course of this weighty tome, which is just shy of 1,000 pages, the author ponders what morality is (with an emphasis on humans as grouping or “herding” creatures) and the causes of its flux and reflux. Furthermore, there is an attempt to reconcile opposing philosophical theories by introducing a new conceptual model called “Dual Morality,” proposed as an “all-encompassing blueprint of human morality.” The study is logically structured, divided into four sections: “The Theory of Dual Moralism,” “The Explanation” (including investigations of the group and the self), “The Derivations” (which considers family, country, religion, and science/nature/technology), and finally “The Extrapolations” (a far-reaching look at everything from pleasure and happiness to suicide, murder, and abortion). The author possesses the rare skill of being able to explore himself with an enviable ease, drawing on palatable references to popular culture. For example: “Comedian Woody Allen said he laughs at his own jokes when they first come to him because humor originates in the unconscious. When his conscious mind hears them for the first time, it is as if they came from another place, and so we are, in a way, an audience to our own humor.” This approach, applied throughout, makes complex ideas not only accessible, but entertaining and enjoyable as well. The result is far from the predictable, dry academic thesis. This is a learned, thoroughly researched study—and dazzlingly bright. The effervescent approach to writing makes its 951 pages fly by. Fritz’s dedication is to “that miniscule fragment of humanity who read books like this.” Studies as brilliant as this one deserve a far wider audience. An engrossing and mind-expanding examination of morality. -- Kirkus Indie, Kirkus Media LLC, 6411 Burleson Rd., Austin, TX 78744 indie@kirkusreviews