Intensifying economic and political inequality poses a dangerous threat to the liberty of democratic citizens. Mounting evidence suggests that economic power, not popular will, determines public policy, and that elections consistently fail to keep public officials accountable to the people. McCormick confronts this dire situation through a dramatic reinterpretation of Niccolò Machiavelli's political thought. Highlighting previously neglected democratic strains in Machiavelli's major writings, McCormick excavates institutions through which the common people of ancient, medieval and Renaissance republics constrained the power of wealthy citizens and public magistrates, and he imagines how such institutions might be revived today. It reassesses one of the central figures in the Western political canon and decisively intervenes into current debates over institutional design and democratic reform. McCormick proposes a citizen body that excludes socioeconomic and political elites and grants randomly selected common people significant veto, legislative and censure authority within government and over public officials.
This is the first in-depth critical appraisal in English of the political, legal, and cultural writings of Carl Schmitt, perhaps this century's most brilliant critic of liberalism. It offers an assessment of this most sophisticated of fascist theorists without attempting either to apologise for or demonise him. Schmitt's Weimar writings confront the role of technology as it finds expression through the principles and practices of liberalism. Contemporary political conditions such as disaffection with liberalism and the rise of extremist political organizations have rendered Schmitt's work both relevant and insightful. John McCormick examines why technology becomes a rallying cry for both right- and left-wing intellectuals at times when liberalism appears anachronistic, and shows the continuities between Weimar's ideological debates and those of our own age.
The Weimar Moment’s evocative assault on closure and political reaction, its offering of democracy against the politics of narrow self-interest cloaked in nationalist appeals to Volk and “community” – or, as would be the case in Nazi Germany, “race” – cannot but appeal to us today. This appeal –its historical grounding and content, its complexities and tensions, its variegated expressions across the networks of power and thought – is the essential context of the present volume, whose basic premise is unhappiness with Hegel’s remark that we learn no more from history than we cannot learn from it. The challenge of the papers in this volume is to provide the material to confront the present effectively drawing from what we can and do understand.
Recent interest in interior point methods generated by Karmarkar's Projective Scaling Algorithm has created a new demand for this book because the methods that have followed from Karmarkar's bear a close resemblance to those described. There is no other source for the theoretical background of the logarithmic barrier function and other classical penalty functions. Analyzes in detail the "central" or "dual" trajectory used by modern path following and primal/dual methods for convex and general linear programming. As researchers begin to extend these methods to convex and general nonlinear programming problems, this book will become indispensable to them.
Actionable, intelligent CFO training for the Chief Family Financial Officer Family Inc. is a roadmap to financial security for the family CFO. Too much personal wealth management advice essentially boils down to goal-setting, which isn't helpful or effective in terms of overall financial planning. This book takes a different track, giving you a crash course in corporate finance and the tools to apply the field's proven, time-tested principles in the context of your family's financial situation. You'll learn the key principles of wealth creation and management, and learn how to make your intellectual and real capital work for you. Your family situation is unique, and your principles must sometimes differ from the standard financial advice—and that's okay. Life is not a template, and even the best strategy must be able to adapt to real-life situations. You'll learn to chart your own path to financial security, utilizing the author's own tools that he developed over 15 years as an active board member, chairman of the board, or chief financial officer of multiple companies. Oversimplified wealth management advice does not leave you equipped to manage your real-world finances. This guide is written with intellectual rigor, but in the language of family discussion, to give you a real, practical guide to being an effective family CFO. Create your own financial prosperity and security Align financial acumen with your family's specific situation Adapt to real-world situations and make your financial advisor work for you Utilize powerful financial tools to help you build financial independence Every family needs a CFO to manage wealth, and the principles of corporate finance apply from the boardroom to the living room. Family Inc. delivers actionable advice in the form of CFO training to help you plot a real-world family financial plan.
Examines the complicated political legacy of our first black president Written during the presidency of Donald Trump, After Obama examines the impact President Barack Obama and his administration have continued to have upon African American politics. In this comprehensive volume, Todd C. Shaw, Robert A. Brown, and Joseph P. McCormick II bring together more than a dozen scholars to explore his complex legacy, including his successes, failures, and contradictions. Contributors focus on a wide range of topics, including how President Obama affected aspects of African American politics, how his public policies influenced the quality of Black citizenship and life, and what future administrations can learn from his experiences. They also examine the present-day significance of Donald Trump in relation to African American politics. A timely and thorough work, After Obama provides the first examination of the Obama administration in its entirety, and the lasting impact it has had on African American politics.
A new reading of Machiavelli’s major works that demonstrates how he has been previously misread To what extent was Niccolò Machiavelli a “Machiavellian”? Was he an amoral adviser of tyranny or a stalwart partisan of liberty? A neutral technician of power politics or a devout Italian patriot? A reviver of pagan virtue or initiator of modern nihilism? Reading Machiavelli answers these questions through original interpretations of Machiavelli’s three major political works—The Prince, Discourses, and Florentine Histories—and demonstrates that a radically democratic populism seeded the Florentine’s scandalous writings. John McCormick challenges the misguided understandings of Machiavelli set forth by prominent thinkers, including Jean-Jacques Rousseau and representatives of the Straussian and Cambridge schools, and he emphasizes the fundamental, often unacknowledged elements of a vibrant Machiavellian politics. Advancing fresh readings of Machiavelli’s work, this book presents a new outlook on how politics should be conceptualized and practiced.
The book presents an analysis of empirical data on immigrant child poverty in the context of a controversial debate on the European migration policy, with special reference to Switzerland and France. It presents an alternative approach based on child rights and social justice.
This book critically engages Jürgen Habermas's comprehensive vision of constitutional democracy in the European Union. John P. McCormick draws on the writings of Max Weber (and Habermas's own critique of them) to confront the difficulty of theorizing progressive politics during moments of radical state transformation. Both theorists employ normative and empirical categories, drawn from earlier historical epochs, to analyze contemporary structural transformations: Weber evaluated the emergence of the Sozialstaat with antedated categories derived from nineteenth-century and premodern historical examples; while Habermas understands the EU almost exclusively in terms of the liberal (Rechtsstaat) and welfare state (Sozialstaat) paradigms. Largely forsaking the focus on structural transformation that characterized his early work, Habermas conceptualizes the EU as a territorially expanded nation-state. McCormick demonstrates the deficiencies of such an approach and outlines a more appropriate normative-empirical model, the supranational Sektoralstaat, for evaluating prospects for constitutional and social democracy in the EU.
This book explains why the presidential selection process deviated from its originally intended course, and points out the historical disparity between the republican ideal and actual political practices.
This book is a collection of short stories, articles, poems and events. The short stories are of a drama genre collectively and individually include among other things love, murder, terrorism and a child's lonely quest for his father. The events and articles are personal experiences of the author and the poems are about guilt and romantic experience in his life. The poem "Intimate moments with a Special Person" has been very well received and although short is well worth looking at. The stand alone short story "Understanding Simon's rage" is about a young lad that with the rest of his family was in a car accident from which his mother died and his father suffered a concussion. His two younger siblings have been taken by Children's Aid, which has told him his father is dead and wants to take him as well. A nurse tells him his father is alive and helps him escape to find his father. Since he does not know who he can trust he stops speaking and goes into a rage every time someone tries to stop his quest. "A Young Lady in Trouble" Jim Ferguson while on his way to his hotel sees a young lady of the night standing shivering on a street corner on a bitterly cold night. He wisely does not stop to help her, but later feels guilty and tells his wife in his nightly phone call. She encourages him to seek help for the girl and with a local pastor and a police officer they manage to get her away from her pimp. When the pastor's wife discovers the young lady of the night is pregnant they devise a plan to help Jim take her home with him the following evening to get her away permanently from the pimp. The plan fails with deadly consequences. "An Ominous Discovery" Ahmad Jahangard was not very clever, but his mother convinced him that someone else was responsible for all his misfortunes. He accepted that and became a very obnoxious person. Because of his fathers connections he was awarded control of the largest department of the Institute of Biochemistry and Biophysics in Teheran, a position for which he was extremely unqualified. Using his obnoxious and overbearing attitude he exercised rigid control of his department and all employees were afraid of him. He took credit for every discovery and blaming incompetence on some poor unfortunate in his department for things that went wrong. When the biological weapon his department came up with as a deterrent to any possible biological attack by Saddam in the Iran/Irac war proved too slow the project was given to his rival. He was devastated, but for the first time in his life he came up with an idea, which boded ominous for the West. "A Division between Friends." Pat Morgan and Bill MacLean grew up on the same street in Belfast and were the best of friends despite the fact that Pat was a catholic and Bill was protestant. As religious strife increased from the late 1960s into the 1970s Pat and Bill gradually became separated and became leaders in sections of their individual religions. Pat sent his only son to America but Bill's son stayed in Belfast. Both sons die within a few days of each other. First Bills son is killed in Belfast and an IRA source claims responsibility. Then Pat learns his son is seriously ill in a hospital in Los Angeles and his son dies an hour after he arrives at his bedside. "Is it a Miracle" This is a true story and does not pass as a miracle, but you might have a lot of difficulty convincing the young couple involved. A young man in England lost his job and the couple were unable to pay their mortgage went through their usual routine of letters requesting payment without response and eventually applied to the court for a foreclosure, which was granted. The district manager was passing by the house the day before the couple were to give up possession and they were ready to move. They were allowed to stay in the house
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