Wealth inequality, corporate welfare, and industrial pollution are symptoms-the fevers and chills of the economy. The underlying illness, says Business Ethics magazine founder Marjorie Kelly, is shareholder primacy: the corporate drive to make profits for shareholders, no matter who pays the cost.

In The Divine Right of Capital, Kelly argues that focusing on the interests of stockholders to the exclusion of everyone else's interests is a form of discrimination based on property or wealth. She shows how this bias is held by our institutional structures, much as they once held biases against blacks and women.

The Divine Right of Capital exposes six aristocratic principles that corporations are built on, principles that we would never accept in our modern democratic society but which we accept unquestioningly in our economy. Wealth bias is a holdover from our pre-democratic past. It has enabled shareholders to become a kind of economic aristocracy. Kelly shows how to design more equitable alternatives-new property rights, new forms of corporate governance, new ways of looking at corporate performance-that build on both free-market and democratic principles.

We think of shareholder primacy as the natural law of the free market, much as our forebears thought of monarchy as the most natural form of government. But in The Divine Right of Capital, Kelly brilliantly demonstrates that it is no more "natural" than any other human creation. People designed this system and people can change it.

We need a change of mind as profound as that of the American Revolution. We must question the legitimacy of a system that gives the wealthy few-the ten percent of Americans who own ninety percent of all stock-a disproportionate power over the many. In so doing, we can fulfill the democratic principles of our nation not only in the political sphere, but in the economic sphere as well.

• Updated paperback edition includes a new chapter and a Reader's Guide
• Explores the real causes of the Enron fiasco and other recent corporate scandals
• Explodes the myth that the stock market is "democratizing" wealth
• Gives practical guidance to help employees and communities change corporate governance and unfetter the genius of the free market

From the founder of ACORN, the nation's largest grassroots community organization, comes this hard-hitting blueprint for helping working families establish a solid foundation of income and assets that equals true economic security—what Wade Rathke calls citizen wealth. Through compelling stories from the trenches of local, state, and national campaigns, where hardscrabble wins and smart negotiating have produced positive economic change for millions, Rathke shows how activists, government, business, and working people can join together to make citizen wealth a major priority and a visible reality.

•    By the founder of ACORN, the nation’s largest grassroots community organization of low- and moderate-income people
•    Goes beyond piecemeal solutions to present a holistic strategy for helping working people establish a solid economic foundation
•    Draws on lessons learned from Rathke’s 40 years in the field

America’s safety net is torn and tattered. Income inequality continues to grow—the gap between rich and poor has expanded fivefold in the last 25 years. For millions of working families achieving basic middle class comforts has begun to seem as distant a dream as winning the lottery. What is needed, and what veteran organizer and ACORN founder Wade Rathke provides in this hard-hitting new book, is a comprehensive grassroots strategy to create what he calls citizen wealth: an enduring foundation on which working people can build a future that extends beyond paying next month’s rent.

Rathke shares breakthrough strategies that have enabled ACORN and other organizations help people secure the basics of citizen wealth—a house and a decent income—offering from-the-trenches advice on mounting successful living wage campaigns, battling unscrupulous and predatory lending practices, and developing new forms of worker organizations to protect wages and benefits. The anti-poverty programs still out there can provide critical support for citizen wealth-building efforts, but they’re woefully underutilized. Rathke shows how to cut through government indifference and bureaucratic obstacles to provide those in need with access to these vital resources.

 But community organizations can’t do it alone. Rathke describes ACORN partnerships with HSBC Bank and H & R Block that helped these businesses see building citizen wealth as a new market opportunity—a win for them and for the people they once exploited. And he looks at other examples of strange bedfellows in the fight for citizen wealth, including Citibank, once the target of massive protests by ACORN and now, working with them, a major investor in working class communities.

“We need to create a national economic and political consensus that increasing family income, wealth and assets is not `welfare’ or an entitlement ‘give-away” program but an investment in the public good and well-being.” Rathke writes. Based on forty years of hard-won experience, Wade Rathke offers a new blueprint for helping millions to achieve the American Dream.

 

We're at a tipping point in our global movement from dirty, big-industry electricity-- countries like Germany have 25% of their power grid on clean, local energy, yet the U.S is still under 1%. Solar pioneer Danny Kennedy has written this rallying cry for the solar industry and policy makers--the only obstacle to solar power is our ignorance.The Biggest Untold Economic Story of Our Time Here is the truth that the powerful Dirty Energy public relations machine doesn’t want you to know: the ascent of solar energy is upon us. Solar-generated electricity has risen exponentially in the last few years and employment in the solar industry has doubled since 2009. Meanwhile, electricity from coal has declined to pre-World War II levels as the fossil fuel industry continues to shed jobs. Danny Kennedy systematically refutes the lies spread by solar’s opponents—that it is expensive, inefficient, and unreliable; that it is kept alive only by subsidies; that it can’t be scaled; and many other untruths. He shows that we need a rooftop revolution to break the entrenched power of the coal, oil, nuclear, and gas industries Solar energy can create more jobs, return our nation to prosperity, and ensure the sustainability and safety of our planet. Now is the time to move away from the dangerous energy sources of the past and unleash the amazing potential of the sun.

• Written by one of the world's leading solar entrepreneurs
• Powerfully lays out the case for solar power, which author Danny Kennedy calls "the biggest untold economic story of our time"
• Filled with eye-opening insights and inspiration
• Click here to read the press release

 

Solar power's detractors have been proclaiming that the collapse of solar panel manufacturer Solyndra proves solar is just a hippie pipe dream. But as Danny Kennedy points out, Solyndra's downfall actually proves the opposite: the company failed because it wasn't able to compete in a red-hot industry, not because solar isn't ready for prime time. In this succinct, hard-hitting book, Kennedy proves that solar can save money, create jobs, and protect the environmentand only politics and perception stand in its way.

Signs of solar's ascendency are everywhere. The industry employs 100,000 people in the United States, twice as many as in 2009 and twice the number of coal miners. In 2011, Warren Buffett invested $2 billion in a solar farm, and General Electric bought a start-up solar manufacturer, announcing, "By 2020 this is going to be at least a $1 billion product line." Production of solar-generated electricity rose by 45 percent in the first three quarters of 2010, while electricity from natural gas rose only 1.6 percent and coal declined by 4.2 percent.

But powerful forces are still arrayed against solar power, and that's why Kennedy wrote this book. We need a rooftop revolution to break the entrenched power of the coal, oil, nuclear, and natural gas industries (which Kennedy calls King CONG) and their bought-and-paid-for allies. Kennedy systematically refutes the lies spread by CONGthat solar is expensive, inefficient, and unreliable; and many other untruths -- and shows that the solar industry can become a far greater source of jobs than it already is. Praising the pioneers who are pushing solar forward, Kennedy also decries the rampant political pandering that keeps us dependent on dirty and dangerous forms of energy. Now is the time to move away from the declining sources of the past and unleash the unlimited potential of the sun.

Many significant failures—from FEMA's response to Hurricane Katrina to the recent economic collapse—could have been prevented or mitigated if those lower in the hierarchy were successful at communicating to leaders the risks they saw in the system. Ira Chaleff's Courageous Follower model has facilitated healthy upward information flow in organizations for over 15 years. The Harvard Business Review called Chaleff a pioneer in the emerging field of followership—this new edition shares his latest thinking on an increasingly vital topic.
The updated third edition includes a new chapter, “The Courage to Speak to the Hierarchy.” Much of Chaleff's model is based on followers having access to the leader. But today, followers can be handed questionable policies and orders that come from many levels above them—even from the other side of the world. Chaleff explores how they can respond effectively, particularly using the power now available through advances in communications technology.
Everyone is a follower at least some of the time. Chaleff strips away the passive connotations of that role and provides tools to help followers effectively partner with leaders. He provides rich guidance to leaders and boards on fostering a climate that encourages courageous followership. The results include increased support for leaders, reduced cynicism and organizations saved from serious missteps.

Telecommuting-an increasingly common practice of working from home or away from a central office, while staying linked by phone and/or computer-has become a way of life for more than eleven million people in the United States, and the number constantly rises. But most books on the subject focus on its technological or administrative aspects rather than its human ones. What are the pros and cons of telecommuting for the legions of men and women that actually do it on a daily basis? And how can current or would-be telecommuters maximize their performance while minimizing their headaches?
In 101 Tips for Telecommuters, seasoned telecommuter Debra Dinnocenzo shares her practical, easy-to-implement "action tips" for making telecommuting as efficient and productive as possible. Written for full-time, occasional, and aspiring telecommuters, this helpful book covers everything from managing one's own time, balancing telecommuting with family demands, and working effectively with others from afar to networking the "virtual" way, getting a grip on technological overkill and even resisting the ever-beckoning refrigerator when working at home!
Dinnocenzo offers useful advice on special self-management factors to consider when telecommuting; how to keep in touch with all the people-coworkers, managers, support personnel, customers, and others-who make up your telecommuting world; and even how to nurture crucial ties with suppliers, vendors, and service providers.
In the new age of professional mobility, 101 Tips for Telecommuters is the perfect guide for the millions of Americans who want to succeed in this exciting and challenging new way of work.

• A concise, user-friendly guide for telecommuters, written by a veteran telecommuting executive with more than a decade of first-hand experience as both a telecommuter and telemanager

• Focuses on the myriad tasks and roles telecommuters must handle on a daily basis

• Includes a Telecommuter Self-Assessment Checklist so readers can determine if telecommuting is right for them, a Telecommuter Start-Up Guide, and a Telecommuter Resource Guide to refer to whenever telecommuting gets tough

“In this precise primer on firearms practices and policies, progressive talk-show host Hartmann examines the history of routine gun usage and extreme gun violence and assesses the influence of gun ownership on contemporary political, economic, and social norms…A brief but powerful analysis of a searing national crisis.” —Booklist

Thom Hartmann, the most popular progressive radio host in America and a New York Times bestselling author, looks at the real history of guns in America and what we can do to limit both their lethal impact and the power of the gun lobby.

Taking his typically in-depth, historically informed view, Hartmann examines the brutal role guns have played in American history, from the genocide of the Native Americans to the enforcement of slavery (Slave Patrols are in fact the Second Amendment's “well-regulated militias”) and the racist post–Civil War social order. He shows how the NRA and conservative Supreme Court justices used specious logic to invent a virtually unlimited individual right to own guns, which has enabled the ever-growing number of mass shootings in the United States. But Hartmann also identifies a handful of powerful, commonsense solutions that would break the power of the gun lobby and restore the understanding of the Second Amendment that the Framers of the Constitution intended. This is the kind of brief, brilliant analysis for which Hartmann is justly renowned.