Freedoms and Solidarities: In Pursuit of Human Rights

Blau (president, US chapter of Sociologists without Borders) and Moncada (president, Sociologists without Borders) counterpose the notion of collective freedom to individual liberal freedom and argues for its superiority. Whereas liberal freedom verges on zero-sum outcomes, collective freedom is "indivisible and inclusive of collective goods, and has affinities to other collective goods such as sustainable environment, transparent government, popular democracy, public health, human rights, and peace." They also argue that there is an emerging global consciousness of the promise of collective freedom that is embodied in such vehicles as international nongovernmental organizations, popular movements, networked nongovernmental organizations, and the World Social Forum. Annotation c2007 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Judith Blau is professor of sociology at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and president of the US chapter of Sociologists without Borders. She is the author of Architects and Firms, The Shape of Culture, Social Contracts and Economic Markets, and Race in the Schools, editor of The Blackwell Companion to Sociology, and co-editor, with Keri Iyall Smith, of The Public Sociologies Reader. She has published over 75 articles in scholarly journals, and was the president of the Southern Sociological Society.

Alberto Moncada is president of Sociologists without Borders/Sociologos Sin Fronteras and Vice-President of UNESCO-Valencia He has degrees in law, sociology and education, and is the author of over 30 books in Spanish, including three on Hispanics in the U. S. He is frequently interviewed by the Spanish media.