Showing papers on "Capitalism published in 2000"

The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else

Abstract: Why does capitalism triumph in the West but fail almost everywhere else? Elegantly, and with rare clarity, Hernando de Soto revolutionizes our understanding of what capital is and why it has failed to benefit four-fifths of mankind -- and explains the solution. 'A revolutionary book ...may not be in the class of Das Kapital, Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations or Keynes's General Theory. But if the criteria for joining that exclusive club is a capacity not only to change permanently the way we look at the world, but also to change the world itself, then there are good grounds for thinking that this book is surely a contender.' Donald Macintyre, The Independent 'Few people in Britain have heard of Hernando de Soto ...but The Mystery of Capital has already led the cognoscenti to put him in the pantheon of great progressive intellectuals of our age.' Mark Leonard, New Statesman 'A crucial contribution. A new proposal for change that is valid for the whole world' - Javier Perez de Cuellar (Former Secretary United Nations)

Spaces of hope

Abstract: As the twentieth century drew to a close, the rich were getting richer; power was concentrating within huge corporations; vast tracts of the earth were being laid waste; and, three quarters of the earth's population had no control over its destiny and no claim to basic rights. There was nothing new in this. What was new was the virtual absence of any political will to do anything about it. "Spaces of Hope" takes issue with this. David Harvey brings an exciting perspective to two of the principal themes of contemporary social discourse: globalization and the body. Exploring the uneven geographical development of late-twentieth-century capitalism, and placing the working body in relation to this new geography, he finds in Marx's writings a wealth of relevant analysis and theoretical insight. In order to make much-needed changes, Harvey maintains, we need to become the architects of a different living and working environment and to learn to bridge the micro-scale of the body and the personal and the macro-scale of global political economy. Utopian movements have for centuries tried to construct a just society. Harvey looks at their history to ask why they failed and what the ideas behind them might still have to offer. His devastating description of the existing urban environment (Baltimore is his case study) fuels his argument that we can and must use the force of utopian imagining against all who say 'there is no alternative'. He outlines a new kind of utopian thought, which he calls dialectical utopianism, and refocuses our attention on possible designs for a more equitable world of work and living with nature. If any political ideology or plan is to work, he argues, it must take account of our human qualities. Finally, Harvey dares to sketch a very personal utopian vision in an appendix, one that leaves no doubt about his own geography of hope.

One-Dimensional Man: A Systematic Critique of Human Domination and Nature-Society Relations

Abstract: Herbert Marcuse’s critical theories outline some of the most sophisticated and powerful analyses of modern capitalism’s environmental problems. Although Marcuse’s intricately crafted critiques ofte...

The laws of the markets

Abstract: 1. On the Role of Accounting in the Structuring of Economic Behaviours: Peter Miller (The London School of Economics and Political Science). 2. Title not yet available: Michel Callon: (Ecole Nationale Superieure des Mines, Paris). 3. Does the State make the Market or the Market, the State? The Cosmologies of Railroad Kings in the United States and France: Frank Dobbin (Princeton University, USA). 4. The Proliferation of Social Currencies: V. Zelizer (Princeton University, USA). 5. Markets as Institutions: An Ethnographic Approach: Mitchel Abolafia (State University of New York). 6. The Contribution of Social Sciences to the Construction of Markets: The Case of Marketing: Frank Cochoy (Uiversiti de Toulouse). 7. Karl Polanyi Revisited: On the Great Transformation: Bruno Latour (Ecole des mines de Paris). 8. On the Constructions of Boundaries between the State and the Market: John Law (Keele University, UK). 9. The Politics of Industrial Policy and the Non--Market Governance Structure: The Case of Japan: Bai Gao (Duke University, USA). 10. How Economists Contribute to the Construction of Markets: The Case of the Cement Industry: Hervi Dumez and A. Jeunemaitre (Ecole Polytechnique, Paris). 11. Shifting Boundaries and Social Construction in the Early Electricity Industry 1876--1910: Mark Granovetter (Stanford University, USA). 12. Recombinant Property in Eastern European Capitalism: David Stark (Cornell University, USA). Index

The social construction of scale

Abstract: Over the last ten years, scholars in human geography have been paying increasing theoretical and empirical attention to understanding the ways in which the production of scale is implicated in the production of space. Overwhelmingly, this work reflects a social constructionist approach, which situates capitalist production (and the role of the state, capital, labor and nonstate political actors) as of central concern. What is missing from this discussion about the social construction of scale is serious attention to the relevance of social reproduction and consumption. In this article I review the important literature on scale construction and argue for enlarging our scope for understanding scale to include the complex processes of social reproduction and consumption. I base my critique on a short case study which illustrates that attention to other processes besides production and other systems of domination besides capitalism can enhance our theorizing and improve our attempts to effect real social change.

Coloniality of Power and Eurocentrism in Latin America

Abstract: The globalization of the world is, in the first place, the culmination of a process that began with the constitution of America and world capitalism as a Euro-centered colonial/modern world power. ...

Transition and Economics: Politics, Markets, and Firms

Abstract: The transition from socialism to capitalism in former socialist economies is one of the main economic events of the twentieth century. Not only does it affect the lives of approximately 1.65 billion people, but it is contributing to a shift in emphasis in economics from standard price and monetary theory to contracting and its institutional environment. Economic research in transition shows not only that institutions matter but also how their evolution toward higher efficiency depends on initial conditions and on sustained political support.Unlike early policy literature on transition economics, which focused on the so-called Washington consensus, this book provides an overview of current research, analyzing issues raised by transition for which economic theorists and policy makers had no ready answers. It shows how research on transition contributes to our understanding of capitalism as an economic system and of the dynamics of large-scale institutional change.The book is divided into three parts. The first part looks at how large-scale reforms are decided dynamically through the political process. The second part looks at the general equilibrium and macroeconomic effects of liberalization in economies without preexisting markets. The third part looks at the economic behavior of firms in the transition from state to private ownership and compares the effects of privatization, restructuring, and financial reform. Although focused on transition economics, the discussions are relevant to topics in political economics, development, public economics, corporate finance, and micro- and macroeconomics.

Capitalism and democracy in the 21st Century: from the managed to the entrepreneurial economy*

Abstract: This paper explains how and why the developed countries are undergoing a fundamental shift away from a managed economy and towards an entrepreneurial economy. This shift is shaping the development of western capitalism and has triggered a shift in government policies away from constraining the freedom of business to contract through regulation, public ownership and antitrust towards a new set of enabling policies which foster the creation and commercialization of new knowledge. The empirical evidence from a cross-section of countries over time suggests that those countries that have experienced a greater shift from the managed to the entrepreneurial economy have had lower levels of unemployment.

A theory of capitalist regulation : the US experience : with a new postface by the author

Abstract: Aglietta's path-breaking book is the first attempt at a rigorous historical theory of the whole development of US capitalism, from the Civil War to the Carter presidency. A major document of the Regulation School of Marxist economists, it was received on publication as the boldest work in its field since the classic studies of Baran, Sweezy and Braverman. This edition includes a substantial new postface by Aglietta which brings regulation theory face to face with capitalism at the beginning of the new millennium.

Stock Market Capitalism: Welfare Capitalism: Japan and Germany Versus the Anglo-Saxons

Abstract: PART I. THE ORIGINAL JAPANESE MODEL PART II. CHANGE AND CONTROVERSY IN JAPAN PART III. GERMAN PARALLELS PART IV. CONCLUSION

Promoting the National Interest

Abstract: the continued references to the "post-Cold War period." Yet such peri ods of transition are important, because they offer strategic opportunities. During these fluid times, one can affect the shape of the world to come. The enormity of the moment is obvious. The Soviet Union was more than just a traditional global competitor; it strove to lead a universal socialist alternative to markets and democracy. The Soviet Union quaran tined itself and many often-unwitting captives and clients from the rigors of international capitalism. In the end, it sowed the seeds of its own de struction, becoming in isolation an economic and technological dinosaur. But this is only part of the story. The Soviet Unions collapse coin cided with another great revolution. Dramatic changes in information technology and the growth of "knowledge-based" industries altered

Towards a global ruling class? globalization and the transnational capitalist class

Abstract: A transnational capitalist class (TCC) has emerged as that segment of the world bourgeoisie that represents transnational capital, the owners of the leading worldwide means of production as embodied in the transnational corporations and private financial institutions. The spread of TNCs, the sharp increase in foreign direct investment, the proliferation of mergers and acquisitions across national borders, the rise of a global financial system, and the increased interlocking of positions within the global corporate structure, are some empirical indicators of the transnational integration of capitalists. The TCC manages global rather than national circuits of accumulation. This gives it an objective class existence and identity spatially and politically in the global system above any local territories and polities. The TCC became politicized from the 1970s into the 1990s and has pursued a class project of capitalist globalization institutionalized in an emergent trans- national state apparatus and in a "Third Way" political program. The emergent global capitalist historic bloc is divided over strategic issues of class rule and how to achieve regulatory order in the global economy. Contradictions within the ruling bloc open up new opportunities for emancipatory projects from global labor. IT IS WIDELY RECOGNIZED THAT WORLD CAPITALISM has been undergoing a period of profound restructuring since the 1970s, bound up with the world historic process that has come to be known as globalization (Burbach and Robinson, 1999). One process central to capitalist globalization is transnational class formation, which has proceeded in step with the internationalization of capital and the global integration of national productive structures. Given the transnational integration of national economies, the mobility of capital and the global fragmentation and decentralization of accumulation circuits, class formation is progressively less tied to territoriality. The traditional assumption by Marxists that the capitalist class is by theoretical fiat organized in nation-states and driven by the dynamics of national capitalist competition and state rivalries needs to be modified. We argue in this essay that a transnationa l capitalist class (hence- forth, TCC) has emerged, and that this TCC is a global ruling class. It is a ruling class because it controls the levers of an emergent trans-national state apparatus and of global decision making. This TCC is in the process of constructing a new global capitalist historic bloc: a new hegemonic bloc consisting of various economic and political forces that have become the dominant sector of the ruling class throughout the world, among the developed countries of the North as well as the countries of the South. The politics and policies of this ruling bloc are conditioned by the new global structure of accumulation and production. This historic bloc is composed of the transnational corporations and financial institutions, the elites that manage the supranational economic planning agencies, major forces in the dominant

Wage Inequality and Varieties of Capitalism

Abstract: This article draws on a new data set that enables the authors to compare the distribution of income from employment across OECD countries. Specifically, the article conducts a pooled cross-sectional time-series analysis of the determinants of wage inequality in sixteen countries from 1973 to 1995. The analysis shows that varieties of capitalism matter. The authors find that the qualities that distinguish social market economies from liberal market economies shape the way political and institutional variables influence wage inequality. Of particular interest to political scientists is the finding that the wage-distributive effects of government partisanship are contingent on institutional context. Union density emerges in the analysis as the single most important factor influencing wage inequality in both institutional contexts.

On the Edge: Living With Global Capitalism

Abstract: This collection of essays charts the contours of contemporary capitalism, analyses the role of the business firm in the new context of innovation and competitiveness, discuses the impact of globalisation, and considers new capitalism.

The Challenge of Global Capitalism: The World Economy in the 21st Century

Abstract: Many individuals proclaim that global capitalism is here to stay. Unfettered markets, they argue, now drive the world, and all countires must adjust, no matter how painful this must be for some. Robert Gilpin urges us, however, not to take an open and intergrated global economy for granted. Rather, we must consider the political that have enabled global markets to function and the probablity that these conditions will continue. This work is an enquiry into all major aspects of the contemporary world political economy. Beginning with the 1989 end of the Cold War and the subsquent collapse of Communism, it focuses on globalization and rapid technological change and covers a broad sweep of economic developments and political cultures. Gilpin demonstrates the fragility of a global and integrated economy and recommends what can be done to strengthen it.

The Invention of Capitalism: Classical Political Economy and the Secret History of Primitive Accumulation

Abstract: The originators of classical political economy - Adam Smith, David Ricardo, James Steuart, and others - created a discourse that explained the logic, the origin, and, in many respects, the essential rightness of capitalism. But, in the great texts of that discourse, these writers downplayed a crucial requirement for capitalism's creation: for it to succeed, peasants would have to abandon their self-sufficient lifestyle and go to work for wages in a factory. Why would they willingly do this? Clearly, they did not go willingly. As Michael Perelman shows, they were forced into the factories with the active support of the same economists who were making theoretical claims for capitalism as a self-correcting mechanism that thrived without needing government intervention.Directly contradicting the laissez-faire principles they claimed to espouse, these men advocated government policies that deprived the peasantry of the means for self-provision in order to coerce these small farmers into wage labour. To show how Adam Smith and the other classical economists appear to have deliberately obscured the nature of the control of labour and how policies attacking the economic independence of the rural peasantry were essentially conceived to foster primitive accumulation, Perelman examines diaries, letters, and the more practical writings of the classical economists.He argues that these private and practical writings reveal the real intentions and goals of classical political economy - to separate a rural peasantry from their access to land. This rereading of the history of classical political economy sheds important light on the rise of capitalism to its present state of world dominance. Historians of political economy and Marxist thought will find that this book broadens their understanding of how capitalism took hold in the industrial age.

Without a Map: Political Tactics and Economic Reform in Russia

Abstract: Recent commentators on Russia's economic reforms have almost uniformly declared them a disappointing and avoidable—failure. In this book, two American scholars take a new and more balanced look at the country's attempts to build capitalism on the ruins of Soviet central planning. They show how and why the Russian reforms achieved remarkable breakthroughs in some areas but came undone in others. Unlike Eastern European countries such as Poland or the Czech Republic, to which it is often compared, Russia is a federal, ethnically diverse, industrial giant with an economy heavily oriented toward raw materials extraction. The political obstacles it faced in designing reforms were incomparably greater. Shleifer and Treisman tell how Russia's leaders, navigating in uncharted economic terrain, managed to find a path around some of these obstacles. In successful episodes, central reformers devised a strategy to win over some key opponents, while dividing and marginalizing others. Such political tactics made possible the rapid privatization of 14,000 state enterprises in 1992-1994 and the defeat of inflation in 1995. But failure to outmaneuver the new oligarchs and regional governors after 1996 undermined reformers' attempts to collect taxes and clean up the bureaucracy that has stifled business growth. Renewing a strain of analysis that runs from Machiavelli to Hirschman, the authors reach conclusions about political strategies that have important implications for other reformers. They draw on their extensive knowledge of the country and recent experience as advisors to Russian policymakers. Written in an accessible style, the book should appeal to economists, political scientists, policymakers, businesspeople, and all those interested in Russian politics or economics.

Industrial constructions : the sources of German industrial power

Abstract: 1. Introduction: problems with the German model 2. Blending in: decentralized industrialization in Germany 3. Repositioning organized capitalism into regions: autarkic industrial order in Germany 4. The national context: 1871-1945 5. Return to regions: the development of the decentralized industrial order since 1945 6. Autarkic industrial order: 1945-1994 7. The national context: 1945-1994 Notes List of interviewees Bibliography Appendix: Maps.

The Macroeconomics of Labor and Credit Market Imperfections

Abstract: Labor market frictions are not the only possible factor responsible for high unemployment. Credit market imperfections, driven by microeconomic frictions and impacted upon by macroeconomic factors such as monetary policy, could also be to blame. This paper shows that labor and credit market imperfections interact in a complementary way - which may explain why European and US unemployment differ so much when labor markets have become more similar at the margin in Europe and the US. To develop this idea, we build a search model that treats credit and labor market imperfections in a symmetrical way. We introduce specificity in credit relationships, and assume that credit to potential entrepreneurs is rationed due to endogenous search frictions, in the spirit of Diamond (1990). These imperfections mirror the job search frictions that we introduce, a la Mortensen- Pissarides (1994), in the labor market.

Temporary Work: The Gendered Rise of a Precarious Employment Relationship

Abstract: In these 278 pages, Leah F. Vosko describes and analyses the political economy of temporary work in Canada and its remarkable growth over the past three decades as part of the increasing non-standardization of labour processes to achieve flexible and just-in-time production and service delivery. What is particularly valuable in this study is the intertwining of a feminist analysis of this process as the protagonists in this story overwhelmingly emerge as women, although it is acknowledged that there is growing gender parity in some industries marked by a "race to the bottom."In order to lay bare the inner workings of contemporary work relationships, Vosko has chosen to conduct a detailed case study of the temporary help industry (THI) in the twentieth century, beginning from 1897, when the first legislation on private employment agencies was adopted, to 1997 when the ILO abandoned its traditional support of the standard employment relationship (SER) and its bias against labour market intermediaries. This revealed its apparent tolerance for temporary employment relationships (TER) thus creating the appropriate context within which various types of non-standard labour processes, including temporary work relationships, could proliferate.At a theoretical level, the author argues that with the preponderance of temporary employment relationships (TER), workers more and more become like "commodities." Of course, from a Marxist perspective, all labour power is commodified under capitalism. However, the slogan "labour is not a commodity" endorsed by the ILO had provided a discursive space for several decades to promote workers' rights and to regulate temporary employment agencies nationally and internationally. With the granting of legitimacy to such agencies in 1997, the illusory nature of such slogans, the classed nature of organizations such as the ILO and states/governments and the fragility of workers' rights became crystal clear. The discursive shift announced the acceptance by states and some labour organizations of the need to not hinder, if not encourage, the expansion of what has come to be known as "precarious employment."The book furthers feminist research, in particular extending the concept of feminization of the labour market, ironically in an industry which has a growing number of men working in it. Vosko argues that despite the latter trend, the varieties of jobs available for temporary workers are clearly gendered in terms of the division of labour, i.e., who gets to do what kind of job, the kinds of the salary and working conditions each has and the overall feminized character of all temporary work relationships which is based on the old image of the "Kelly Girl." She demonstrates that there is also a racialized division of labour as immigrant women and men and women of colour are also concentrated at the lower end. However, she does not elaborate on whether this represents a racialization of temporary work relationships to the same extent as she develops the feminization thesis. The racialization thesis could be further developed since she presents the material to argue that viewpoint. …

Inside the Economy of Appearances

Abstract: ndonesia’s profile in the international imagination has completely changed. From the top of what was called a “miracle,” Indonesia fell to the bottom of a “crisis.” In the middle of what was portrayed as a timeless political regime, students demonstrated, and, suddenly, the regime was gone. So recently an exemplar of the promise of globalization, overnight Indonesia became the case study of globalization’s failures. The speed of these changes takes one’s breath away—and raises important questions about globalization. Under what circumstances are boom and bust intimately related to each other? If the same economic policies can produce both in quick succession, might deregulation and cronyism sometimes name the same thing—but from different moments of investor confidence? Such questions run against the grain of economic expertise about globalization, with its discrimination between good and bad kinds of capitalism and policy. Yet the whiggish acrobatics necessary to show how those very economies celebrated as miracles were simultaneously lurking crises hardly seem to tell the whole story. A less pious attitude toward the market may be necessary to consider the specificities of those political economies, like that of Suharto’s Indonesia, brought into being together with international finance.1

Pension Fund Capitalism

Abstract: The State in Retreat Pension Fund Capitalism Functional and Spatial Structure of investment Management Competition and Innovation in Investment Management Pension Fund Trustee Decision Making Corruption and Investment Decision Making Four models of Financial Intermediation Provision of Urban Infrastructure Contested Terrain Community and Solidarity

Graduated Sovereignty in South-East Asia:

Abstract: What fundamental changes in the state, and in the analysis of the state, have been stimulated by economic globalization? In the course of interactions with global markets and regulatory agencies, so-called Asian tiger countries like Malaysia and Indonesia have created new economic possibilities, social spaces and political constellations, which in turn condition their further actions. The shifting relations between market, state, and society have resulted in the state's flexible experimentations with sovereignty. Graduated sovereignty refers to a) the different modes of governing segments of the population who relate or do not relate to global markets; and b) the different mixes of legal compromises and controls tailored to the requirements of special production zones. The Asian financial crisis further demonstrates the concept of graduation in that the market-oriented agenda can mean different things, strengthening state power and protections in certain areas, but not in others.

From shareholder value to present-day capitalism

Abstract: This article introduces a journal special issue which examines how shareholder value and financialization have changed priorities and behaviours in present-day capitalism. This article opens the debate by reviewing three key issues: first, it considers the impact of shareholder value on national capitalisms in France, Germany and the USA; second, it analyses the effects of financialization on corporate strategy and sectoral performance; and, third, it reviews current conjectures about a finance-led macroeconomy and the possibility of a wealth-based growth regime.

Environmental Crises and the Metabolic Rift in World-Historical Perspective:

Abstract: This article proposes a new theoretical framework to study the dialectic of capital and nature over the longue duree of world capitalism. The author proposes that today’s global ecological crisis has its roots in the transition to capitalism during the long sixteenth century. The emergence of capitalism marked not only a decisive shift in the arenas of politics, economy, and society, but a fundamental reorganization of world ecology, characterized by a “metabolic rift,” a progressively deepening rupture in the nutrient cycling between the country and the city. Building upon the historical political economy of Marx, Foster, Arrighi, and Wallerstein, the author proposes a new research agenda organized around the concept of systemic cycles of agro-ecological transformation. This agenda aims at discerning the ways in which capitalism’s relationship to nature developed discontinuously over time as recurrent ecological crises have formed a decisive moment of world capitalist crisis, forcing successive waves of restructuring over long historical time.

The Economics and Management of Intellectual Property

Abstract: This unique book – informed by ten years’ research – focuses on intellectual property and charts the global transition towards intellectual capitalism with technology-based corporations as prime movers. The book gives a comprehensive overview of the history and fundamentals of intellectual property as well as a textbook introduction to the

What the Change of System From Socialism to Capitalism Does and Does Not Mean

Abstract: rT s wo systems can be said to have dominated the 20th century: the capitalist system and the socialist system.' However, this judgement is not selfevident. It usually encounters three objections. The first objection is that it is exaggerated and unjustified to mention the socialist system alongside the capitalist system, almost in parallel with it. In terms of world history, the socialist system was a brief interlude, a temporary aberration in the course of historical events. That view could well be the one that historians take in 200 years, but it is not the way we who live in the 20th century see things. The establishment, existence and partial collapse of the socialist system have left a deep and terrible scar on this century. The socialist system persisted for quite a long time and still persists to a great extent in the world's most populous country, China. Its rule extended, at its height, over a third of the world's population. The Soviet Union was considered a superpower, possessed of fearful military might. The socialist system weighed not only on the hundreds of millions who were subject to it, but on the rest of the world's population as well. The second objection questions whether there were only two systems. Is it not possible to talk of a third system that is neither capitalist nor socialist? I am not enquiring here into the question of whether it might be desirable to establish some kind of third system. I do not know what the 21st or 22nd century may bring. All

Hungry for profit : the agribusiness threat to farmers, food, and the environment

Abstract: The agrarian origins of capitalism, Ellen Meiksins Wood Liebig, Marx, and the depletion of soil fertility - relevance for today's agriculture, John Bellamy Foster, Fred Magdoff agriculture and monopoly capital, William D. Heffernan ecological impacts of industrial agriculture and the possibilities for sustainable farming, Miguel A. Altiery the maturing of capitalist agriculture - farmer as proletarian, R.C. Lewontin new agricultural biotechnologies - the struggle for democratic choice, Gerard Middendorf et al global food politics, Philip McMichael rebuilding local food systems from the grassroots up, Elizabeth Henderson want amid plenty - from hunger to inequality, Janet Poppendieck, alternative agriculture works - the case of Cuba, Peter M. Rosset the importance of land reform in the reconstruction of China, William Hinton the great global enclosure of our times - peasants and the agrarian question at the beginning of the 21st century farmworkers in the United States - from unionization to immigration, Linda C. Majka, Theo J. Majka