Beyond Individualism by Michael J Piore

Beyond Individualism by Michael J Piore

The Reagan and Bush years have left us with a troublesome dilemma: how to balance our budget deficit against our social deficit. This book takes up the urgent question of how, in a time of economic crisis and constraint, we can meet the pent-up demand for spending on our nation’s neglected poor, infirm, and disadvantaged, old and young. Michael Piore’s ambitious response is to develop a new social theory that balances individual preferences against the claims and responsibilities of the community. By explaining the role of groups in economic and social life, this theory makes sense of a host of perplexing social phenomena and policy issues, from equal employment opportunity to international competitiveness to the decline of organized labor, from multicultural education to health insurance to the underclass. Piore traces our difficulties in addressing these issues to the limits of liberal social theory, particularly its sharp distinctions between individuality and community. He offers an alternative view of individuality as emerging through the discussions and debates conducted among a community’s members. These discussions, Piore suggests, have turned inward, away from the borderlands where social groups and economic organizations meet—and therein lies the crux of some of the country’s deepest political and economic problems. His book points beyond the liberal conception of politics as a negotiation among competing interests and of policymaking as technical decisionmaking. Instead, it prescribes a politics focused on the process of discussion and debate itself, a politics that enlarges the borderlands by broadening the range of people who talk to one another and the range of topics they address.

Piore’s new book may be brief, its arguments compressed, but it provocatively combines two sizable ambitions: to serve as a theoretical orientation to identify identity-based movements and to address their weaknesses… He makes many valuable arguments along the way, raising considerably the level of discussion in a territory that, for several years now, has been marked by advocacy more than by critical reflection-- Stephen Cole * Contemporary Sociology *
Most books are lucky if they have one important, original idea. Beyond Individualism has many. It explores the political and economic challenge which the new identity groups in the United States have generated. Its synthesis of cognitive psychology and economic theory to resolve the conflict between individualism and collective community is brilliant. -- Alice H. Amsden, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Beyond Individualism is a Tocquevillian meditation on profound developments in American politics and society. Piore has a fresh and informed view of the dilemmas that the emergence of a politics of identity poses for a system that has evolved to cope with contradictions of class and region. This book will play a significant role in shaping our thinking on fundamental issues of economic policy and social justice in this new era. -- Duncan Foley, Barnard College of Columbia University

Michael J. Piore is David W. Skinner Professor of Political Economy, Emeritus, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780674068971
ISBN 10	0674068971
Title	Beyond Individualism
Author	Michael J Piore
Condition	Unavailable
Publisher	Harvard University Press
Year published	1995-03-19
Number of pages	220
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.