Charles Derber shows how the US is moving toward sociocide – the erosion of durable, positive social relations in the economy, family, politics, and civil society essential to sustaining society itself – while offering pragmatic solutions.Bonfire: American Sociocide, Broken Relations, and the Quest for Democracy examines how new technologies and financial strategies are part of broader economic, environment, cultural, and political shifts that create tipping points generat...

Foreword by Ralph Nader. In Corporation Nation Derber addresses the unchecked power of today's corporations to shape the way we work, earn, buy, sell, and think—the very way we live. Huge, far-reaching mergers are now commonplace, downsizing is rampant, and our lines of communication, news and entertainment media, jobs, and savings are increasingly controlled by a handful of global—and unaccountable—conglomerates. We are, in effect, losing our financial and emotional security, dep...

In contrast to much of the current literature that treats Trump’s authoritarianism as new and singular, this book shows that authoritarianism in the United States instead has a long history that explains the extent to which authoritarianism has been embraced by large sections of US voters.Wired for Authoritarianism combines historical analysis with an innovative conceptual analysis of the “wiring” of power, drawing on the study of the power elite developed by the sociologi...

Globalization's Dark Side: Redesigning a System That Has Failed UsThe issue of globalization—its promises, and more often, its shortcomings—commands worldwide attention. Recent events, from the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 to the rise of anti-globalization movements and the deteriorating global economy, illuminate the dark side of globalization and underscore the urgent need to redesign its basic principles.In People Before Profit, Charles...

This book offers a new analysis of why Trump’s Far Right populism helped him win the Presidency twice, and how it enshrined a corporate establishment that he claimed to run against. Charles Derber presents a counter history of positive left populism and argues that populist parties gain power in eras of hard times for working people while mainstream parties lose voter support as they defend the existing system.Fighting Oligarchy: How Positive Populism Can Reclaim America m...

Renowned American sociologist Charles Derber imagines a surprise encounter with Karl Marx's ghost in London's Highgate cemetery, leading to a night-long conversation about the problems plaguing the world. The economic crisis, climate change, war, the future of capitalism and the 'Arab Spring' are all discussed. The ghost reconsiders his theories as he speaks eloquently about American labour, environmental, gender and anti-racist struggles. The engrossing, funny and provocative conversation...

Charles Derber shows how the United States is moving toward sociocide—the erosion of durable, positive social relations in the economy, family, politics, and civil society essential to sustaining society itself—while offering pragmatic solutions.Bonfire: American Sociocide, Broken Relations, and the Quest for Democracy examines how new technologies and financial strategies are part of broader economic, environment, cultural, and political shifts that create tipping points ...

Political parties and elections are increasingly political theatre, with real power hidden behind a smokescreen of propaganda, carefully manipulated cultural and religious wars, and voting rituals. But there is another kind of hidden power in America: the grassroots social movements working for progressive change. If the Democratic Party can ally with these movements, America can be returned to its people. Derber sees American history as a succession of regimes, each spanning several admin...

Thomas Piketty's blockbuster 2014 book, Capital in the 21st Century, may prove to be a game-changer, one of those rare books such as Friedan's The Feminine Mystique, which helped spark a new feminist movement. The world-wide flood of commentary suggests Piketty's book has already opened a new conversation not only about inequality, but about class, capitalism and social justice. Inherited wealth is at the heart of Capital in the 21st Century, and Derber shows how the 'disinherited majority...

Political parties and elections are increasingly political theatre, with real power hidden behind a smokescreen of propaganda, carefully manipulated cultural and religious wars, and voting rituals. But there is another kind of hidden power in America: the grassroots social movements working for progressive change. If the Democratic Party can ally with these movements, America can be returned to its people. Derber sees American history as a succession of regimes, each spanning several admin...

When the Women’s March gathered millions just one day after Trump’s inauguration, a new era of progressive action was born. Organizing on the far Right led to Trump’s election, bringing authoritarianism and the specter of neo-fascism, and intensifying corporate capitalism’s growing crises of inequality and injustices. Yet now we see a new universalizing resistance among progressive and left movements for truth, dignity, and a world based on democracy, equality, and sustainability.D...

This book uniquely reverses today’s MAGA conspiratorial concept of the deep state to reveal how a very real “deeper state” is evident throughout history, back to the founding of American democracy.Class and caste-based elites and their political allies have held dominant power in the US. Large corporations, Wall Street, and other sectors of the capitalist class outsource day-to-day governance to the mainstream political parties, which can compete vigorously and create a credible ve...