Not For Sale: In Defense Of Public Goods

by Anatole Anton (Editor), Milton Fisk (Editor), Nancy Holmstrom (Editor)

Not for Sale: In Defense of Public Goods contains a variety of essays aimed at developing a timely philosophical defense of public goods against neo-liberal criticisms. The defense proceeds on both a conceptual level with essays treating such concepts as collective action, collective provision, common property, intellectual property and a substantive level with essays treating issues such as health, education, welfare, environment, media, cities, and the prison industrial complex. The scope of the book is broad-- aiming to encompass the main questions that crop up in contemporary controversies about public goods-- and should be of interest to both scholars and students of philosophy, the social sciences, law, policy studies. The anthology, consisting mostly of original essays, includes authors such as Richard Rorty, Iris Young, Angela Davis, Robert McChesney, Subcommadante Marcos, Nel Nodding, Stanley Aronowitz, and Nancy Folbre. It is suitable for upper division courses in any of these areas and is designed to be student friendly as well as current.

468 pages, Paperback

First published November 10, 2000

Reviews

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

Highly recommended. Nancy Holmstrom's critique of the individualist reduction of rationality to self-interest is worth the price of the book. Milt Fisk's article on health care is good but not as good as his book. The basic thrust of this book is that through the defense of things provided as public goods, we can work towards a society based, at least to some extent, on the principle "to each according to need," tho this is not what the editors (all Marxists) say explicitly.

In other words, they see defense of public goods as a strategy for social change. Public goods include things like comprehensive health provided through at public expense, defense of the environment, a democratic media, accessible education, a "right to the city", and so on.