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The circular economy is a system that aims to conserve resources at every level for as long as possible with a minimization of waste. The core concept of the circular economy is to improve resource efficiency and prevent valuable materials from leaking out of the system. Better use of increasingly scarce resources can provide both economic and environmental benefits. When excess inventory, returned products, and end-of-life products are disposed of improperly, unnecessary waste is created, often with a detrimental impact to the environment. An effective system must exist to facilitate the proper handling of these products, and secondary markets are a crucial component in this system. In this chapter, we discuss the secondary markets’ role as an important mechanism for achieving a circular economy.

This is an interpretive study in the sociology of literature that explores Aeschylus’s trilogy of dramatic plays known as the Oresteia. The plays dramatize a normative argument that exemplifies the dialectical struggle between domination and democracy. Social relations are characterized by agon (struggle), domination, and contradictions brought about by learning through suffering. These social realities reflect the primary theoretical claim of radical interactionism (RI) that domination and conflict are profound, pervasive, and perennial. On the interpersonal level, the plays dramatize structure, agency, role-taking, and the Thomas Axiom. As the first drama to interrogate an inchoate polity as an object of the public’s gaze, the Oresteia anticipates the sociological importance of critical consciousness, collective decision-making, political institutions, moral and, ultimately, cultural transformation. Despite a social context of slavery, imperialism, xenophobia, ostracism, misogyny, exclusivity, and constant warfare, the Oresteia foreshadows Western civilization’s ideals of legal-rational domination, citizenship, human rights, persuasion, and justice that have been imperfectly institutionalized to reduce surplus domination. The West still struggles to realize those ideals.

This chapter explores the role of iconic architecture in the development and promotion of urban megaprojects (UMPs) in globalizing cities. Iconic architecture is defined in terms of fame and aesthetic/symbolic significance. The argument is framed within the concept of the culture-ideology of consumerism. While the focus is on two case studies – the grands projets in Paris and UMPs in major Chinese cities since the 1980s – the chapter seeks to demonstrate the increasing importance of iconic architecture for UMPs around the world. The chapter utilizes official sources, scholarly research, and reports in the mass media to support the arguments, all within the context of a theoretical framework developed over the last two decades and widely published by the author, to explain how capitalist globalization works. Within the context of the culture-ideology of consumerism, the widely accepted rationale for capitalist globalization, the production and marketing of what has been increasingly identified as iconic architecture is the main route to achieving the profits – financial, political, and cultural – deemed necessary for the success of UMPs all over the world. The chapter presents the first available analysis of the key role of the transnational capitalist class in the production and marketing of iconic architecture in urban megaprojects, thereby offering a systemic explanation of the growth and characteristics of urban megaprojects in the era of capitalist globalization.