Market Killing: What the free market does and what social scientists can do about it - Softcover

Philo, Greg

Softcover

ISBN 10: 058238236X ISBN 13: 9780582382367

Publisher: Routledge, 2000

Synopsis

This book shows how the release of the free market in the last part of the twentieth century produced a rise in inequality and violence, the development of a huge criminal economy and the degradation of social and cultural life. 

It questions the silence of academics in the face of these changes and asks how much they have been incorporated into the priorities of commerce and governments. Many academics in the social sciences, media and cultural studies have avoided critical issues and become occupied in obscure theoretical debates such as post-modernism. The effect was to draw inellectuals and students away from the engaged and empirical work needed to identify key social problems and possibilities for change. 

The authors of this book point to the need for independent research which can criticise political policies and reveal their effects. They show, for example, why contemporary policies on drugs and education are creating more problems than they solve. The book features contributions from a wide range of academic disciplines including mass communications, sociology, politics, geography, philosophy and economics, and points to new directions for radical science. It also examines the possibilities for a free and democratic media and calls for the development of critical and open debate.

About this title

Review:

'Market Killing is an invitation to reflect on what type of liberation we are engaged in, and what type of knowledge we want to produce'.

Journal of Community and Applied Social Psychology, Vol 13, No 1, January 2003.

From the Author:

The free market, inequality and academic responses

This book shows how the release of the free market in the last part of the twentieth century produced a rise in inequality and violence, the development of a huge criminal economy ad the degradation of social and cultural life.

It questions the silence of academics in the face of these changes and asks how much they have been incorporated into the priorities of commerce and governments. Many academics in the social sciences and media and cultural studies have avoided critical issues and become occupied in obscure theoretical debates such as post-modernism. The book contains a detailed analysis of the post-modern turn and looks specifically at related areas such as the active audience, discursive practice, popular culture, identity and difference, the focus on pleasure and consumption. The authors argue that the effect of much of this work was to draw intellectuals and students away from the engaged and empirical work needed to identify key social problems and possibilities for change.

The authors point to the need for independent research which can criticise political policies and reveal their effects. It also examines the possibilities for a free and democratic media and calls for the development of critical and open public debate.

With additional essays by Noam Chomsky, Derek Bouse Angela McRobbie, John Corner, Chris Hamnett, Andrew Gamble, Philip Schlesinger, Barbara Epstein, James Curran, Danny Schechter and Hilary Wainwright

Greg Philo is Research Director of the Glasgow University Media Unit, University of Glasgow David Miller is a member of Stirling Media Research Institute, University of Stirling...

About this edition

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 058238236X
• ISBN 13: 9780582382367
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 280