Wealth and Power: Survival in a Time of Global Accumulation - Softcover

Bell, Duran

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0759104905 ISBN 13: 9780759104907

Publisher: Altamira Press, 2003

Synopsis

In Wealth and Power Duran Bell presents a key reconception of wealth as a globally-managed social resource. By observing the implications of wealth on a cross-cultural and multisocietal basis, Bell offers new insights into the implications of capital formation during a period of global accumulation. He analyzes the way in which leading centers of capitalist enterprise are transforming systems of state-managed capitalism into a global system of control. This evolving system results in severe inequalities in access to capital and, consequently, in the ability and power of individuals to survive. He provides a broader conception of the social processes that non-Western societies must undergo to participate in this phase of capitalist expansion, and explains the consequences of a hegemonic Western approach to social relations. This is essential reading for any scholar interested in the effects of wealth and power on global social processes.

About this title

About the Author:

Duran Bell is professor of economics and anthropology at the University of California, Irvine. He specializes in the dynamics of social formation, the structure of corporate groups, and marriage and marriage payments.

Review:

The book is truly original in conception and persuasive in execution. It has the potential to deliver a lethal blow to pervasive and . . . moribund theories of exchange and wealth accumulation in anthropology, economics, and related disciplines. . . . The author is an accomplished ethnologist, first, but he draws competently from jurisprudence, political economy, and economics to achieve his goals. The work has implications for each of these fields, [and] will certainly spark debate (Kalman Applbaum)

This manuscript . . . [is] politically significant for an era of extreme wealth accumulation. The discussion of ways that social relations of inequality and accumulation penetrate intimate domains (e.g., marriage) is important and will receive recognition and debate. (Josiah McC. Heyman)

About this edition

• Publisher: Altamira Press
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0759104905
• ISBN 13: 9780759104907
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 224