Articles by Howard Richards
We found 114 results.
Economic Theory and Community Development
Prof. Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Sep 2015
The discursive strategy of this chapter takes up again a central idea of dominant discourse: the idea that economic growth is and must be the aim of every nation. It seeks to destabilize the basic cultural structure. It seeks to destabilize the inter-related ways of acting, talking and seeing that cement injustice into place and make it immovable. But it does not only destabilize. It also includes a number of constructive proposals.
→ read full articleIndia´s Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act
Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service,
1 Jun 2015
Today “governability” is standardly defined as the overall capacity for governance of any societal entity or system. This definition has the defect of being somewhat circular since it uses the word “governance” to define the word “governability.” But before busying ourselves with improving the definition of the word, let us instead look at some of the important issues at stake in governability-talk.
→ read full articleHow to Pay for Social Programmes
Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 Mar 2015
Chapter Eight of: Economic Theory and Community Development – Where we are going with our analysis: What we need is not so much a new economics as a new psychology. We need alignment with the common good. We need community.
→ read full articleThe Imaginary World That Holds the Real World Captive
Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 Feb 2015
Chapter Six of: Economic Theory and Community Development.
→ read full articleRethinking Economics: From Scarcity to Abundance
Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service,
24 Nov 2014
The coming crash may be humanity’s golden opportunity to transition to post-economic society. Or it may be the beginning of endless misery, violence, confusion, ignorance parading as technocracy, repression and –what is worse– ecocide.
→ read full articleMemo on the Evaluation of the Community Work Program
Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service,
22 Sep 2014
This memo stresses the importance of evaluating CWP´s compliance with its mandate to use public employment to catalyse community development. It also underlines the importance of issues in economic theory that bear on CWP´s contribution to society.
→ read full articleA Key Question: How Do We Make the Economy Work for the Poor?
Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Feb 2013
We want to make a case for the claim that “unbounded organization” is a useful concept, indeed a key concept. A key opens doors. We use the word “key” to suggest that the concept of unbounded organization can be said to “open doors.” It helps to answer questions and to resolve problems regarding not just one but several theoretical problems in the social sciences. Similarly the practical question posed in the title of this chapter, “How do we make the economy work for the poor?” can be regarded as a question whose satisfactory answer would “open” answers to other crucial practical questions such as, “How can violent conflicts be transformed into peaceful cooperation?”
→ read full articleNeville Alexander, Unbounded Organisation, and the Future of Socialism
Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service,
31 Dec 2012
In the late 1980s, as apartheid neared its end, Neville Alexander called on educators to “…shape consciousness in ways that are looking forward, in ways that are preparing people for a liberated, non-racial, democratic, and socialist South Africa.” Is Neville Alexander’s life’s work a contribution to a revolution that is still happening?
→ read full articleModernity’s Other and the Transformation of the University – II
Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service,
19 Nov 2012
Short Answers to Simple Questions
→ read full articleThree Principles for Reconstructing the Economy
Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service,
24 Sep 2012
First Principle: The needs of those who need to sell something to live (to sell either their labor or some other saleable item) usually exceed effective demand. There are more sellers than buyers. Therefore, in a green, responsible, plural and caring (or “solidarity”) economy there must be work (or some other source of livelihood) that does not depend on sales.
→ read full articleModernity’s Other and the Transformation of the University – I
Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 May 2012
Society as a whole and the university as a leading part of society need to revive some of the norms of African society prior to European contact. One could say the same about traditional norms in other parts of the world. I mention Africa because we are here.
→ read full articleMuddle and Create
Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service,
12 Dec 2011
World leaders and the economists who advise them are now debating whether more stimulus or more austerity, or some combination of the two, is the path toward restoring the normal functioning of capitalist accumulation, and therefore toward higher levels of employment and economic growth. There is no solution within the terms of their debates, only an historical necessity to muddle through somehow. Nor are there well-known solutions waiting in the wings, for both central planning and social democracy are discredited by good logical reasons and by historical experience.
→ read full articleParadigm Meltdown and Opportunities for Peacebuilding
Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service,
1 Aug 2011
A question that it would seem to be reasonable to ask is how to raise wages and employ everyone who wants a job, without raising prices, without militarism, and without damage to the environment.
→ read full articleHumanizing Methodologies in Transformation
Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Jul 2010
Talk at the University of South Africa sponsored by the College of Law – 20 Jul 2010
→ read full article