Charles Derber

William A. Schwartz

Yale R. Magrass

Yale Magrass

Power in the Highest Degree, one of the most comprehensive studies of professionals ever undertaken, exposes professionalism as a double-edged sword that is transforming capitalist and socialist societies alike. Drawing on interviews with over 1,000 practicing professionals--about their work, politics, and personal lives--the authors show how, by dispensing self-interested and morally colored judgments as scientific truth, modern professionals are trying to monopolize what passes for objective knowledge.

Professionals and the Rise of a New Mandarin Order

Power in the Highest Degree

While security stories often point to real threats, the narratives of leaders are as much about legitimating the power of rulers and the political and economic system that brought them to power. Derber and Magrass offer a penetrating examination of this phenomenon across history and types of societies. Their analysis reveals the great irony about security stories: they historically increase insecurity, imperiling citizens and nation. In the US today, the contradiction is especially acute, as security stories told by Trump divide US citizens against one another. The book builds from an analysis of the extreme dangers of the prevailing security stories to a new paradigm of true security. The authors develop new approaches as our best hope for avoiding catastrophe and creating a socially just society based on real security for a nation and for humans across the planet.

Upending the Security Tales in Capitalism, Fascism, and Democracy

Moving Beyond Fear

Drawing on historical cases of the American South before and after the Civil War, Europe – especially Germany – between the world wars, and the United States in Vietnam and its aftermath, this book takes a historical approach to explain the problems of capitalism and democratic leadership in western democracies today. Capitalist democracies proclaim equality, material prosperity and comfort but produce extreme differences in wealth and power. They promise security and peace, but deliver frequent wars. The promises broken, elites often turn to other visions- partially borrowed from feudalism- to win public support. Nations turn to honor, nobility and war as a way of winning over workers and legitimating the capitalist system itself. Capitalism’s contradictions often have produced a cultural divide. One side, "cosmopolitans" – urban, see themselves as citizens of the world, not one region or country – identify as secular, preach multi-culturalism, entertain state welfare systems, and are cautious about going to war. Their opponents, "traditionalists," breed among people who feel left behind, anxiousness and insecurity, often embracing community, tradition, God and family. The devastation of the world wars and the Third Reich led Europe to forgo visions of empire, militarism and glory and focus upon improving the quality of life for their own citizens. Although the United States does not need to experience comparable trauma, they should follow Europe’s example- forget glory and instead build a better life for the American people. The last chapter will consider how such a change could emerge in the US and who might help fight for it.

The Irrationality of Capitalism, War and Politics

Glorious Causes

Bullying does not just affect children; adults do it and suffer from it too. It goes beyond the schoolyard into the corporation, the military, the police, the government, the family, and the media. In a society where wealth and power are unequally distributed bullying is institutional.

How the American Establishment Creates a Bullying Society

Bully Nation

Bully Nation is the most comprehensive analysis of bullying yet published. It is a brilliant book that refused to define bullying as merely a psychological concept. Instead, it addresses in great detail the interplay of bullying as having its roots in a range of historical, economic, political, and social conditions. In this instance, bullying functions as a metaphor to connect the private the public, specific acts of violence to larger forms of systemic violence. Rather than treat bullying as part of a rite of passage confined to the often difficult process of growing up, Derber and Magrass treat it as a systemic force that produces values, social relations, structures, and collective identities steeped in violence and aggression. This is a powerful and compelling book that addresses one of the most important social problems of our time.

Before there was economics, there was political economy, an interdisciplinary adventure boldly and critically seeking to understand capitalism. Over time, the social sciences evolved into specific disciplines - economics, sociology, political science - that less often questioned capitalist perspectives and the state. Contrasting three traditions - neoclassicism, Keynesianism, and neo-Marxism - Capitalism: Should You Buy It? traces the historical development of each and evaluates whether they view capitalism as the root cause of or the solution to the pressing problems now facing humanity. This accessible and hopeful book is a call to everyone - citizen, student, public intellectual - to revive the critical edge towards capitalism.

Yale R. Magrass

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