Daniel Bell

"The rise of China, along with problems of governance in democratic countries, has reinvigorated the theory of political meritocracy. But what is the theory of political meritocracy and how can it set standards for evaluating political progress (and regress)? Can meritocracy be reconciled with democracy and if so, how? What is the history of political meritocracy and what can it teach us today? How is political meritocracy practiced in contemporary societies - in China, Singapore, and elsewhere - and what are its advantages and disadvantages in terms of producing just outcomes and contributing to good governance? To help answer these questions, this volume gathers a series of commissioned research papers from an interdisciplinary group of leading philosophers, historians, and social scientists. The result is the first book in decades to examine the rise (or revival) of political meritocracy and what it will mean for political developments in China and the rest of the world. Despite its limitations, meritocracy has contributed much to human flourishing in East Asia and beyond and will continue to do so in the future. This book is essential reading for those who wish to further the debate and perhaps even help to implement desirable forms of political change."--Publisher's description.

"Published originally in 1973, Daniel Bell's The Coming of Post-Industrial Society was the first book to identify the structural changes in American society leading to the Information Age.". "Decades later, the term, the idea and the concept of the post-industrial society have assimilated into common usage, employed by the Unabomber, Margaret Thatcher and President Clinton. Yet the concept and its ramifications have often been misunderstood and in this anniversary re-issue of the original book, Professor Bell has added a new 30,000-word Foreword exploring the future developments of post-industrial society."--BOOK JACKET.

Assesses the impact of Christian resistance to capitalism in Latin America, and the implications of the theological debates that have emerged through its evolution. Using the postmodern critical theory of Deleuze and Foucault, Bell investigates the nature of capitalism, its effect upon human desire and the response of the Church to this social phenomenon.

Since its original publication in 1976, The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism has been hailed as an intellectual tour de force that redefines how we think about the relationship among econmomics, culture, and social change. Daniel Bell, the author of such other modern classics as The End of Ideology and The Coming of Post-Industrial Society, argues that the unbounded drive of modern capitalism undermines the moral foundations of the original Protestant ethic that ushered in capitalism itself. In a major new afterword, Bell offers a bracing perspective on contemporary Western society, from the end of the Cold War to the rise and fall of postmodernism, revealing the crucial cultural fault lines we face as the twenty-first century approaches.

This book challenges the view that liberal democracy is the inevitable outcome of economic modernization. Focusing on the high-performing Asian economies, it argues that contemporary political systems are legitimated by the values of hierarchy, familism and harmony, by contrast with the Western understanding of political liberalism and the communicatory democracy it facilitates. Instead of political change resulting from a demand for autonomy on the part of interest groups in civil society, the adoption of democratic practices ought to be viewed primarily as a state strategy to manage socio-economic change.