FROM ALLEVIATION TO EMPOWERMENT: RUMINATIONS ON POVERTY, CAPITALISM, AND COMMUNITIES (Hardcover)

This book focuses on a community as a grassroots bargaining unit with requisite skills and capacities sufficient to restore some balance with governments and enterprises, specifically relating to resource allocation and land-use. Specifically, it presents a deployable operational platform for communities to represent their contributions and the value of their assets. Three fundamental requirements anchor the platform: (1) a specific boundary of a community defined in terms of its physical habitat and its ecological-economic-social linkages, (2) an underlying ideology synthesizing theories on epistemology, growth, development, evolution, sociobiology, human settlements, and integral thinking, and (3) a supportive community-based valuation system depicting the value of community assets, incorporating ecological dimensions. A compendium of updated papers, essays, and project reports, this book is based principally on a program by economist/community activist Sixto Roxas, who championed poverty eradication in impoverished communities for nearly 30 years. Readers will see this advocacy and grounded work not only in terms of a fruitful discourse but as an opportunity for an engaged reality.

GERARDO R UNGSON is a Professor Emeritus at the Lam Family College of Business, San Francisco State University. He formerly held the Y F Chang Endowed Chair and Professor of International Business. He was also the Victor P Morris Professor at the Lundquist College of Business, University of Oregon. Professor Ungson was a visiting professor at the Tuck School at Dartmouth, Nijenrode School of Business, the International University of Japan, Rotterdam Business School, and the National University of Vietnam. He was a speaker or faculty in several executive management programs in the United States, Canada, the Netherlands, South Korea, Vietnam, Grenada, the Philippines, and South Africa. He has served on the Editorial Board of the Academy of Management Review and the Journal of High Technology and Marketing. In addition to several academic publications, he co-authored 9 books, including Rough Diamonds, awarded the 2013 Best Book on Globalization, by Strategy and Business. His research includes emerging markets, poverty, co-creation, entrepreneurship, blockchain, and sustainable development. He was a graduate of the first class of BS Management Engineering at the Ateneo de Manila University in the Philippines. He received his MBA and PhD from the Pennsylvania State University.

SIXTO K ROXAS (Collaborating Contributor) is the former Chairman of the Maximo T Kalaw Institute for Sustainable Development in the Philippines. He was a trailblazing economist, visionary, and the founder of Bancom Development Corporation, the Philippines' first investment bank. In the mid-1950s, he served in various governmental positions: as Chair of the National Economic Council, and a cabinet member of two previous presidential administrations. At Bancom, he introduced a vibrant money market on Treasury Bonds. He was the Executive Vice President of a Philippine petroleum company and the first Filipino president of the Asian Institute of Management. Internationally, his corporate leadership includes being the Vice Chairman of American Express Bank in New York, and the Chairman of Amex Bank in London. After retiring from business in 1982, Dr Roxas became deeply committed to sustainable development and poverty eradication. Focusing on managing and establishing not-for-profit foundations, he developed an ecosystems-based, community-centered organization and management system, which prioritized community stakeholder welfare over enterprise stockholder interest. He has authored two books, Jueteng Gate and Bancom Memoirs. A product of Jesuit education, he graduated Summa Cum Laude with an A B degree from Ateneo de Manila University, Philippines and earned an MA in Economics at Fordham University. He was awarded an honorary PhD degree, Humane Letters, by the Ateneo de Manila University in 1975.