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Offering organizations a workable model for promoting real cooperation between their constituent members, this guide shows how ethics, psychology, and politics can combine to reform behavioral norms in institutions wedded to the imperatives of competition.

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Globalization pressures have made cooperation on a global scale both necessary and possible. But cooperation is not easy in a world dominated by individual, cultural, and national selfish interests. The opposition to cooperation means that cooperation is not natural, but must be instituted through an intellectual and social struggle against countervailing forces. This book discusses issues that are necessary to describe the nature of cooperation and how it can be promoted as a social and ethical ideal amidst a sea of competing interests. Dr. Ratner uses the framework of cooperativism, that is the system of social institutions, social philosophy, cultural psychology and politics that promotes cooperation, as a starting point. Elements of cooperativism are derived from a rigorous analysis of various sources, including the needs of tendencies of human culture and human psychology.

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Introduction To The Praxis of Cooperative Behavior.- General Aspects of Cooperation That Potentiate But Do Not Determine Concrete Cooperation.- The Dialectical Relation between Cooperation and Capitalism: Cooperation Before, During, and After The Advent of Capitalism.- Historical Roots Of Contemporary Cooperatives.- Cooperatives´ March To Modernity: Market-oriented, Apolitical Cooperation.- Cooperation in Practice: Successes and Shortcomings of The International Cooperative Movement Today.- Explaining Co-op Weaknesses In Terms of The Dominant Cooperative Paradigm.- An Enriched, Viable, Necessary Cooperative Paradigm for Our Era.

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From the reviews:

"Ratner (Institute for Cultural Research and Education) proposes that the solutions to the world problems lie within the communal roots of cooperative behaviors. He argues for a social paradigm shift, positioning cooperation as a broad praxis rooted in various social sciences. ... Ratner´s book is educational and stimulating. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals." (I. I. Katzarska-Miller, Choice, Vol. 50 (9), May, 2013)

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Dr. Ratner is a renowned cultural experience who has made original contributions to the field of cultural psychology. He has published 6 books in the field (three by Springer) along with numerous articles. He has travelled extensively internationally, having lived in China for two years, and 5 months in India at the prestigious Nehru University in New Delhi.

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