[artinfo] Launching the Ethical Economy Book

[Adam Arvidsson]

We're proud to announce a new website for the Ethical Economy book project. At
http://www.ethicaleconomy.com, you can download a final version of 
the first chapter that introduces and summarizes the argument (the 
second chapter, The Ethical Economy is Already Here, on how 
capitalism is no longer 'capitalist' but something else, will be 
available int he end of November). There is also a wiki where you can 
contribute and comment and a blog.

Abstract:

This book suggests that we are facing an epochal economic and social 
shift, perhaps of an importance unsurpassed since the bourgeois 
revolution that gave birth to the capitalist economy that we have 
today. The next economy will be an ethical economy where value is no 
longer based on labour as in the capitalist economy (nor on land as 
in the feudal economy that preceded it), but on the ability to 
construct ethically significant social relations. This is no utopia: 
the ethical economy is already here, in brand management, in advanced 
forms of knowledge work, on financial markets, and in the expanding 
range of autonomous forms of social production- ranging from P2P 
software, via fan communities to alternative forms of agriculture and 
food distribution- that have evolved around new information and 
communication technologies. And its impact is set to grow with the 
further diffusion and evolution of those technologies. This book 
offers a first coherent theory of the ethical economy, examining its 
origins, its present dynamics and its future potential. It draws out 
the implications of this epochal shift for business, politics and 
society. 


Adam Arvidsson Associate Professor Department of Social and Political 
Sciences University of Milano via Conservatorio 7 20122 Milano, Italy 
tel. +39-02.503.21209 fax.+39-02.503.21240