Economics are often considered a drab and meticulous study reserved for those with a few degrees under their belt. Zen Economics proposes a different approach: instead of leaving economics to the "experts," we should embrace economics as part of our everyday lives, and merge our intellectual understanding with our intrinsic desire to be unified with the natural world. What if economics was an intuitive field that considered the needs of the many against those of the few?
Capitalist economics is premised on a narrow, anti-historical concept of what people are and what motivates us. Its broader context is Western "idealism," the view that the life of "the mind," as conceived in Western philosophy, is the fundamental locus and determinant of existence. "Zen," as taken from the dialogue between D.T. Suzuki and philosopher Martin Heidegger, removes the partitions that separate "us" from each other, "the world," and ourselves. Rob Urie develops a post-Marxian (non-deterministic) materialism to reimagine the fundamental premises of economics and places them into debate over key economic issues—work and labor, income and wealth distribution, environmental degradation and animal rights.
Rob Urie is an artist and political economist living and writing in New York.
One of the earliest memoirs of an American capitalist, this 1920 volume appeared shortly after the 84-year-old author's death. Recounts an immigrant boy's rise from telegrapher's clerk to captain of industry and steel magnate.
Make Money Doing What You Love, Even in Tough Times
Lifestyle Entrepreneur is the result of having lived a non-traditional life. In my twenties, I launched five businesses and sold the last two. I have been in a rock band touring America, and I’ve been flown around the world as a professional dating coach. I have traveled to and lived in over twenty-five countries, learning the local languages while there. I feel very blessed to have friends all over the world, a family that loves me at home, and generally able to live the life that I’ve always dreamed of.
But this book isn’t about me. It’s about you!
If you take only 10 percent of the information and ideas in this book and put them into practice, it will change your life. I promise.
Lifestyle Entrepreneur contains the essence of everything I’ve learned over the last ten years of starting businesses, traveling the world, and exploring the things I’m passionate about. Now I would like to share a blueprint for how you can do all of these things and more.
Almost no one had heard of social media a decade ago, but today websites such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn have more than 1 billion users and account for almost 25 percent of Internet use. Practically overnight, social media seems indispensable to our lives--from friendship and dating to news and business.
What makes social media so different from traditional media? Answering that question is the key to making social media work for any business, argues Miko?aj Piskorski, one of the world's leading experts on the business of social media. In A Social Strategy, he provides the most convincing answer yet, one backed by original research, data, and case studies from companies such as Nike and American Express.
Drawing on his analysis of proprietary data from social media sites, Piskorski argues that the secret of successful ones is that they allow people to fulfill social needs that either can't be met offline or can be met only at much greater cost. This insight provides the key to how companies can leverage social platforms to create a sustainable competitive advantage. Companies need to help people interact with each other before they will promote products to their friends or help companies in other ways. Done right, a company's social media should benefit customers and the firm. Piskorski calls this "a social strategy," and he describes how companies such as Yelp and Zynga have done it.
Groundbreaking and important, A Social Strategy provides not only a story- and data-driven explanation for the explosion of social media but also an invaluable, concrete road map for any company that wants to tap the marketing potential of this remarkable phenomenon.
