Research
You will find a complete range of our monographs, muti-authored and edited works including peer-reviewed, original scholarly research across the social sciences and aligned disciplines. We publish long and short form research and you can browse the complete Bristol University Press and Policy Press archive.
Policy Press also publishes policy reviews and polemic work which aim to challenge policy and practice in certain fields. These books have a practitioner in mind and are practical, accessible in style, as well as being academically sound and referenced.
Books: Research
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A comparison of nine N schemes is presented, including one which replaces N with capabilities (Nussbaum) and one with value drives (Maccoby). Maslow’s 7 N scheme (5 of the prepotency hierarchy, cognitive and aesthetic N) is the base for comparisons. Other authors are Fromm, Deci and Ryan, Max-Neef et al, Doyal-Gough, Malinowsky, and Heller. All N are considered universal, but with ambiguities in Maslow and Maccoby. Although Marx conception of N is not included, as he didn’t formulate a list, his ideas are the subjacent guide of analysis. I identify N included by all (consensus) as well as N included only by one/few authors. Only two authors base their scheme on a conception of HE: Fromm and Malinowsky. Maslow and Max-Neef et al are the authors whose schemes go beyond a list and explicitly constitute a system. Other authors point out some specific interrelations between N. Consensus, total or partial, is found in the inclusion of physiological, sociability, and cognitive N. Aesthetic N are present only in Maslow’s scheme. Other N included only in one/few schemes are: reproduction (Malinowsky); play (Maccoby, Heller and Nussbaum); pleasure (Maccoby); alienated properly human N (money, power, fame) in Heller; and other species (Nussbaum).
Two ways of looking at the future are examined: critical theory (CT) and utopian thinking. GM critiques Marx’s Paradigm of Production (PP) and proposes its radicalisation by interpreting the distinction between productive forces and relations of production as a practical-historical distinction, linked to a socio-historical project, which is expressed in the contrast between ‘reproductive’ and ‘creative’ activities, and in the notions of continuity and progress. The possibility of CT is the reality of RN which transcend the present and point to a new social organisation. CT ceases to be an immutable ‘true doctrine’. Utopian thought is mainly seen through William Morris (WM) and the idea of ‘education of desire’. Crucial for socialism is transforming work into a pleasurable activity. Educating desire aims at enabling people to comprehend what is necessary for human realisation. For Marx, the working class is the bearer of RN; AH criticises this as proletarian N are not necessarily RN. The society of associated producers is where RN are satisfied and a new structure of N is built. Last, I broach the scientific and technical revolution (STR), describing the optimistic perspective of Richta et al who see in it the liberation of human work.
I contrast the NP with the desired state to which I want it to move. The NP has not been operationalised and was conceived before being acquainted with the subjective well-being current of thought. I propose to develop an alternative integral system of total WB (AISTWB) conjoining OWB and SWB as well as WBE and WBS, that enables us to adequately value total WB (TWB) and has a cognitive-transformative aim. A long, critical description of SWB follows to which I add the critique of WB studies by Thomson, Gill, and Goodson. Maslow’s thought on N-satisfaction and self-actualising WB is recovered and his features on self-actualisers are confronted with the components of the HE in MPhA, finding a high correspondence. I conclude that self-actualising persons not only enjoy eudaimonic WB but also hedonic WB, and that hedonic SWB has a better quality when it is accompanied with the eudaimonic dimension. I conclude that N&C are insufficient as the constitutive elements of HF, and that the four elements added by Seligman in his multidimensional WB, as well as virtues and character strengths, should be included in the AISTWB.
The question I now face is whether I am ready to submit my propositive ideas, together with those accepted from other authors, to empirical testing, or if another analytical step is required beforehand to set the stage for combining qualitative technique approaches with quantitative questionnaires. My initial reply would be to take the second path. Integrating OWB with and SWB is not only a possibility but an imperative, considering that SWB is partly the evaluative consciousness of N satisfaction which can be perceived as pleasurable, especially eudaimonic pleasure. Hedonic pleasure is upgraded when it coincides with eudaimonic pleasure. Thus I conclude that the additional analytic step must lean heavily on Maslow’s insights on the consequences of N satisfaction and his analysis of the features of self-actualising persons, incorporating the explicitly accepted ideas of Thomson, Gill, and Goodson with the changes pointed out.
Following the highly respected first volume, this book continues to provide a holistic view of Julio Boltvinik’s vast and important work on poverty conceptualisation and measurement. While the previous book introduced the author’s widely adopted Integrated Poverty Measurement Method (IPMM), this new volume outlines his Marxian approach to poverty and human flourishing, focusing on what he conceptualises as human poverty.
Bringing together 20 years of research, this interdisciplinary book provides an alternative to Sen’s Capability approach and details its internal consistency, solid foundations and promising perspectives for applicability.
After describing the contents of the book and its structure, the introduction states that the book provides a new/better reply to the question on the constitutive element of the good-life/good-society, which is founded on Marxian Philosophical Anthropology (MPhA) as formulated by Marx and György Márkus: centred around humans’ life-activity: work understood as a mediated-need-satisfaction activity and as propeller of the development of human capacities. The new reply is holistic, unbounded by any discipline or orthodoxy, although it is a Marxian-inspired approach it is also completely transdisciplinary as it is enhanced by modern/contemporary sciences, and borrows freely from different schools of thought. It is founded on a critical study of HN and leans on a holistic conceptual map of the need-satisfaction process, comprised by interrelated sets of N, satisfiers, and well-being sources. It is contrasted with two contemporary vigorous currents of thought: subjective well-being (SWB) and the one presented in Thomson, Gill, and Goodson’s book (2021). Before adopting MPhA as its positive foundation, it is submitted to two tests: vis-à-vis contemporary palaeoanthropology and Hurka’s book Perfectionism. The introduction continues the description of the rest of the book.
This chapter shows the lack of a satisfactory reply to the question on the constitutive element(s) of the good-life/good-society. It addresses utility; opulence/real income, Rawls’ primary goods; and capabilities-functionings (Sen/Nussbaum). I take up Rawls’ critique of utilitarianism (expensive and offensive tastes critiques) and Sen’s cheap tastes critique. This triple critique defeats utilitarianism. I add a critique of neoclassical consumer theory, which shows that it explicitly rejects N but is forced to reintroduce them surreptitiously; this theory does not resist the introduction of N; some of its axioms are invalid for both the poor and the upper class. I address Sen’s (SCA) and Nussbaum’s (NCA) capabilities approaches. Critiques of SCA by various authors and my own are synthesised: among other things SCA is an empty theory; minimises the passive side of humans; overestimates the role of freedom; identifies as capabilities something different from capacities (C); the only capabilities that fit in it are derived from the possession of goods; it is a mechanistic-reductionist approach. NCA differs from Sen’s and is closer to my NP. I also raise two critiques to NCA: the non-problematisation of life in capitalism and her failed attempt to reduce all constitutive elements to capabilities. It also broaches poverty definitions and conceptual maps.
Following MPhA this chapter defines the good for our species as HF, that is, the development and satisfaction/application of N and C. Distinguishes human from economic wealth/poverty (HW/P), (EW/P). Within each, it distinguishes the structural dimension of being (ser in Spanish) and the circumstantial/contingent dimension of being (estar in Spanish). The beingser of HW/P characterises those who N much/little and have/haven’t developed their C. The beingestar of HW/P is defined by the degree of satisfaction of currently developed N and application of effectively developed C. HF is conceived as the realisation of the HE in individual existence. Under alienation social multilaterality coexists with individual’s unilaterality. Both the societal and individual levels are to be evaluated, specified as the human flourishing axis (HFA) and the standard of living axis (SLA). Four concepts of P/W are identified: 1) human beingser; 2) human beingestar; 3) economic beingser; 4) economic beingestar. By introducing C to constitute the N-C pair, and deriving the SLA from the HFA, the study of poverty, standard of living & HF, are radically transformed. A consequence of the NA is a radical break of the usual disciplinary boundaries and overcoming the concepts built within them.
