Riad Ajami | Akateeminen Kirjakauppa

Economic well-being is a necessary, but partial condition for the good life. Discourses of globalization promise economic prosperity, yet remain rather silent about non-economic aspects of the good life. This produces some tension. The international contributions of this anthology shed light on the underlying conflicts of the search for economic prosperity. People must find ways to assimilate the economic promise of global systems into the local values, activities and institutions that direct the quest for the good life for them. A blind superimposition of global processes on local polities creates severe threats to the economic, social, cultural and moral identities of local communities. The essays in this book include a wide range of interdisciplinary contributions that can help us understand this conflict in a way which affirms possibilities for a prudent assimilation of global processes into local cultures. Such understanding may affirm the promise that Adam Smith offered - that economic prosperity might find itself embedded in more profound moral horizons and possibilities for living well.