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Showing papers on "Capitalism published in 2007"


Book
08 Jan 2007
TL;DR: A list of abbreviations for the bus can be found in this paper, where the authors discuss the California political economy, crime, croplands, and capitalism, and what is to be done.
Abstract: Preface and Acknowledgments List of Abbreviations Prologue: The Bus 1. Introduction 2. The California Political Economy 3. The Prison Fix 4. Crime, Croplands, and Capitalism 5. Mothers Reclaiming Our Children 6. What Is to Be Done? Epilogue: Another Bus Notes

1,061 citations


Book
16 Jan 2007
TL;DR: This chapter discusses the rise of Homo Sentimentalis and the role that emotion plays in the development of a person's identity.
Abstract: * Contents * Chapter 1: The Rise of Homo Sentimentalis * Chapter 2: Suffering, Emotional Fields and Emotional Capital * Chapter 3: Romantic Webs

923 citations


Book
01 Jan 2007
TL;DR: In this paper, the concept of social business is introduced, where the creative vision of the entrepreneur is applied to today's most serious problems: feeding the poor, housing the homeless, healing the sick, and protecting the planet.
Abstract: In the last two decades, free markets have swept the globe. But traditional capitalism has been unable to solve problems like inequality and poverty. In Muhammad Yunus' groundbreaking sequel to Banker to the Poor, he outlines the concept of social business--business where the creative vision of the entrepreneur is applied to today's most serious problems: feeding the poor, housing the homeless, healing the sick, and protecting the planet. Creating a World Without Poverty reveals the next phase in a hopeful economic and social revolution that is already underway.

918 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Brennan as mentioned in this paper argues that poststructuralism's infinitely interchangeable metaphors of dispersal: decentered subjects, nomadism, ambivalence, the supplement, rhizomatic identity, and the constructed self can be traced back to the rise of a neoliberalism which commoditized otherness and stripped away the buffers of the welfare state.
Abstract: to the rise of a neoliberalism which has both commoditized otherness and stripped away the buffers of the welfare state. The introduction establishes that, although Brennan critiques the formation of \"theory,\" he is not dismissive of theory in principle; he actually is deeply invested in a trajectory of theory, embodied in the Hegel-Marx line: Bakhtin, Lukács, Benjamin, Adorno, Marcuse, Gramsci, Bourdieu, and Said. Lamenting the predominance of the Nietszchèan line—in which he includes Heidegger, Deleuze and Guattari, Baudrillard, Lyotard, Derrida, Vattimo, Negri, and Virilio—Brennan blasts the celebratory and uncritical use of \"poststructuralism's infinitely interchangeable metaphors of dispersal: decentered subjects, nomadism, ambivalence, the supplement, rhizomatic identity, and the constructed self—terms whose sheer quantity nervously intimates a lack of variation.\" At such polemical textual moments, we feel the full force of Brennan's bile at a discipline that has abnegated its responsibilities; at the same time, the polemic (as all polemics do) tends to create the fantasy of an other whose totality is self-evident and whose heterogeneity is merely superficial. What, indeed, about the politically engaged work of Cary Nelson, BarrettWatten, Michael Bibby, andMichael True, among others, not to mention the intellectuals left of Noam Chomsky, whose dissident work may share the anarchism of the academic left, but whose consequences have been real and whose relationship to dissenting movements in the US and throughout the world is undeniable? (Chomsky gets three short mentions in this book.) Brennan's relative exclusion of contemporary examples of Gramscian intellectuals actively engaged with social movements makes Wars ofPosition a difficult book, because it offers few models for emerging from the malaise that the academy seems to Detailfrom cover suffer from. Yet Brennan is clearly at his best when he is arguing against the received versions of theorists, engaging his Hegelian impulses to reverse the unexamined consensus. His critical reassessment of Orientalism (1978), for example, suggests that Said's foundational text on the Western fantasies of the Middle East has been misread as a Foucauldian project; rather, for Brennan, while Orientalism clearly borrows heavily from Foucault, Said ultimately is arguing against the poststructuralist doxa that underwrite much of contemporary postcolonial theory. Said, in Brennan's reading, is a crucial figure not only for his resistance to the sacred cows of poststructuralism, but also for his embrace of the public responsibilities of the intellectual.

695 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: A review of the relationship between markets and the moral order can be found in this paper, where the authors evaluate how today's scholarship approaches the relationship and argue that a moralized view of markets has become increasingly prominent in economic sociology.
Abstract: Upon what kind of moral order does capitalism rest? Conversely, does the market give rise to a distinctive set of beliefs, habits, and social bonds? These questions are certainly as old as social science itself. In this review, we evaluate how today’s scholarship approaches the relationship between markets and the moral order. We begin with Hirschman’s characterization of the three rival views of the market as civilizing, destructive, or feeble in its effects on society. We review recent work at the intersection of sociology, economics, and political economy and show that these views persist both as theories of market society and moral arguments about it. We then argue that a fourth view, which we call moralized markets, has become increasingly prominent in economic sociology. This line of research sees markets as cultural phenomena and moral projects in their own right, and seeks to study the mechanisms and techniques by which such projects are realized in practice.

598 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Baumol, Litan, and Schramm as mentioned in this paper argue that the answers to these questions lie within capitalist economies, though many observers make the mistake of believing that capitalism is of a single kind.
Abstract: Imagine this: a mere century ago, the purchasing power of an average American was one-tenth of what it is today. But what will it take to sustain that growth through the next century? And what can be said about economic growth to aspiring nations seeking higher standards of living for their citizens? In Good Capitalism, Bad Capitalism, and the Economics of Growth and Prosperity, William J. Baumol, Robert E. Litan, and Carl J. Schramm contend that the answers to these questions lie within capitalist economies, though many observers make the mistake of believing that capitalism is of a single kind. Writing in an accessible style, the authors dispel that myth, documenting four different varieties of capitalism, some Good and some Bad for growth. The authors identify the conditions that characterize Good Capitalism the right blend of entrepreneurial and established firms, which can vary among countries as well as the features of Bad Capitalism. They examine how countries catching up to the United States can move faster toward the economic frontier, while laying out the need for the United States itself to stick to and reinforce the recipe for growth that has enabled it to be the leading economic force in the world. This pathbreaking book is a must read for anyone who cares about global growth and how to ensure America's economic future.

529 citations


Journal Article
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors discuss how the macro-economics of EMU influenced different European models of capitalism, how the Single Market was received in the different institutional regimes in European capitalism, welfare and labour market reforms are debated and implemented, and how European capitalism travelled east after 1989.
Abstract: Since the early 1990s, Europe's economies have been facing several new challenges: the 1992 single market programme, the collapse of the Berlin wall and eastward enlargement, and monetary unification. Building on the influential Varieties of Capitalism (VoC) perspective, first elaborated in detail in the book Varieties of Capitalism (OUP, 2001), this book critically analyzes these developments in the European political economy and their effects on the continental European economies. Leading political economists from Europe and the US debate how VoC can help understand the political-economic challenges that Europe is facing today and how understanding these new challenges can in turn enrich and enhance the VoC perspective. Thematically, the contributions to this volume are organised in four sections: * how the macro-economics of EMU influenced different European models of capitalism, * how the Single Market programme was received in the different institutional regimes in European capitalism, * how welfare and labour market reforms are debated and implemented, * how European capitalism travelled east after 1989. Preceding this is a spirited defence of the VoC approach by Peter Hall, and an introduction from the volume editors, considering the approach, and proposing extensions and amendments. This book demonstrates that the VoC approach remains, as the editors put it in their introduction, a rich seam to mine, capable of accommodating new developments, and theoretically flexible enough to branch out into new arguments.

489 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors analyzed the key features and origins of three variants of transnational capitalism emerging in Central-Eastern Europe: a neoliberal type in the Baltic states, an embedded neoliberal type embedded in the Visegrad states, and a neocorporatist type in Slovenia.
Abstract: This article analyses the key features and origins of three variants of transnational capitalism emerging in Central-Eastern Europe: a neoliberal type in the Baltic states, an embedded neoliberal type in the Visegrad states, and a neocorporatist type in Slovenia. These regimes are characterised by their institutions and performances in marketisation, industrial transformation, social inclusion, and macroeconomic stability. Explanations for regime diversity are developed at two levels. First, it is argued that the legacies of the past, and their perceptions as either threats or assets to these countries' future, have had deep impact on regime types. Legacies and initial choices were no less crucial for the degree of democratic inclusion, and the different patterns of protest and patience on the paths towards the new regimes. Second, the article demonstrates the importance of transnational influences in industrial transformation and social inclusion.

456 citations



Book
17 Sep 2007
TL;DR: The Age of Turbulence as discussed by the authors is the third in Klein's trilogy of anti-capitalist, anti-globalist books, No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies (2000), which
Abstract: By pure chance, two significant books on capitalism were published within weeks of one another in the early fall of 2007. The first (The Age of Tur bulence: Adventures in a New World), by the consummate insider, Alan Greenspan, examines the inner workings of the capitalist system from the perspective of one who was perhaps as responsible as anyone for its spectacular successes in the 1990s. The second (The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism), by activist outsider Naomi Klein, chronicles capitalism's excesses and its dark side. Each author approaches capitalism and globalization from a completely different perspective. For Greenspan, globalization presents challenges but also a whole spectrum of opportunities for increased prosperity and the improvement of the human condition. Klein views capitalism and glo balization as evolving in ways to present greater and greater threats and obstacles to these goals. Greenspan's view of the world from the seat of power is remarkably optimistic: ".. .we are living in a new world?the world of a global capital ist economy that is vastly more resilient, open, self-correcting, and fast changing than it was even a quarter century earlier. The Age of Turbulence is my attempt to understand the nature of this new world: how we got here, what we are living though and what lies over the horizon for good and for ill" (pp. 10-11). This is the third in Klein's trilogy of anti-capitalist, anti-globalist books. Her first was No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies (2000), which

415 citations



Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This article explored the costs of American corporate capitalism and its focus on self-interest, competition, hierarchical wage labor, and strong desire for financial profit and economic growth, and found that these costs often conflict with human pursuits such as caring about the broader world, having close relationships with others, and, for many people, feeling worthy and free.
Abstract: Psychology rarely examines the effects of economic systems on people's lives. In this target article, we set out to explore some of the costs of American corporate capitalism and its focus on self-interest, competition, hierarchical wage labor, and strong desires for financial profit and economic growth. Specifically, we apply recent cross-cultural research on goal and value systems (Schwartz, 1996; Grouzet et al. 2006), as well as a variety of other types of evidence, to demonstrate how the aims and practices that typify American corporate capitalism often conflict with pursuits such as caring about the broader world, having close relationships with others, and, for many people, feeling worthy and free. We hope that by bringing to light the value and goal conflicts inherent in this economic system, psychologists might begin to systematically investigate this pervasive yet paradoxically ignored feature of contemporary culture.

Book
12 Apr 2007
TL;DR: In this paper, a new political imagination for post-colonization world is proposed, based on the Ship of Fools and De-essentializing development: capital and governmentality.
Abstract: 1. Introduction: Rethinking Capitalist Development 2. Ship of Fools 3. Accumulation as Development: The Arising of Capital 4. De-essentializing Development: Capital and Governmentality 5. Difference as Hegemony: Capital and the Need Economy 6. Conclusion: Towards a New Political Imaginary for Post-colonial World

Book
01 Mar 2007
TL;DR: Barber's "Consumed" is a portrait of how adults are infantilised in a global economy that overproduces goods and targets children as consumers in a market where there are never enough shoppers as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: "Consumed" offers a portrait of how adults are infantilised in a global economy that overproduces goods and targets children as consumers in a market where there are never enough shoppers. Driven by a frantic imperative to sell, consumer capitalism specialises today in the manufacture not of goods but of needs. This provocative culmination of Benjamin R. Barber's lifelong study of democracy and capitalism shows how the infantilist ethos deprives society of responsible citizens and displaces public goods with private commodities. Traditional liberal democratic society is colonised by an all-pervasive market imperative. Barber confronts the likely consequences for our children, our freedom and our citizenship, and shows how citizens can resist and transcend the civic schizophrenia with which consumerism has infected them.

Journal ArticleDOI
Clare Bambra1
TL;DR: The purpose of this paper is to provide public health researchers with an up-to-date overview of the welfare state regime literature so that it can be reflected more accurately in future research.
Abstract: International research on the social determinants of health has increasingly started to integrate a welfare state regimes perspective. Although this is to be welcomed, to date there has been an over-reliance on Esping-Andersen’s The three worlds of welfare capitalism typology (1990). This is despite the fact that it has been subjected to extensive criticism and that there are in fact a number of competing welfare state typologies within the comparative social policy literature. The purpose of this paper is to provide public health researchers with an up-to-date overview of the welfare state regime literature so that it can be reflected more accurately in future research. It outlines The three worlds of welfare capitalism typology, and it presents the criticisms it received and an overview of alternative welfare state typologies. It concludes by suggesting new avenues of study in public health that could be explored by drawing upon this broader welfare state regimes literature.

Journal Article
TL;DR: The authors argue that in the past three decades, a new dimension of the capitalist production of nature has considerably transformed the social relationship with the natural world, and that nature has become an accumulation strategy.
Abstract: A commodity, according to the classical political economists, comprises and combines a use value and an exchange value. Value, they recognized, was the product of human labour; for Marx it was measured by socially necessary labour time. Capital, he argued, was 'value in motion', and capital accumulation was the process by which capitalist societies multiplied social value through the exploitation of labour. Capitalism has always employed labour power to invest value in use values harvested from nature, and so what could it mean to suggest, as the title of this paper does, that nature has become an accumulation strategy? It is increasingly evident, I want to argue that in the past three decades a new dimension of the capitalist production of nature has considerably transformed the social relationship with the natural world.

Journal ArticleDOI
Tasha Goldberg1

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The shift in gravity of economic activity from production (and even from much of the growing service sector) to finance is thus one of the key issues of our time as mentioned in this paper, which raises the question: has capitalism entered a new stage?
Abstract: Changes in capitalism over the last three decades have been commonly characterized using a trio of terms: neoliberalism, globalization, and financialization. Although a lot has been written on the first two of these, much less attention has been given to the third.* Yet, financialization is now increasingly seen as the dominant force in this triad. The financialization of capitalism-the shift in gravity of economic activity from production (and even from much of the growing service sector) to finance—is thus one of the key issues of our time. More than any other phenomenon it raises the question: has capitalism entered a new stage? This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website , where most recent articles are published in full. Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.

Posted Content
TL;DR: In this paper, the theoretical and heuristic value of the concepts of formalsubsumption, real subsumption and general intellect for any interpretation of the present change of the capital/labour relation in cognitive capitalism is discussed.
Abstract: Since the crisis of Fordism, capitalism has been characterised by the ever more central role ofknowledge and the rise of the cognitive dimensions of labour. This is not to say that the centralityof knowledge to capitalism is new per se. Rather, the question we must ask is to what extent we canspeak of a new role for knowledge and, more importantly, its relationship with transformations inthe capital/labour relation. From this perspective, the paper highlights the continuing validity ofMarx's analysis of the knowledge/power relation in the development of the division of labour. Moreprecisely, we are concerned with the theoretical and heuristic value of the concepts of formalsubsumption, real subsumption and general intellect for any interpretation of the present change ofthe capital/labour relation in cognitive capitalism. In this way, we show the originality of the generalintellect hypothesis as a sublation of real subsumption. Finally, the article summarises keycontradictions and new forms of antagonism in cognitive capitalism.


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the theoretical and heuristic value of the concepts of formal subsumption, real subsumption and general intellect for any interpretation of the present change of the capital/labour relation in cognitive capitalism is discussed.
Abstract: Since the crisis of Fordism, capitalism has been characterised by the ever more central role of knowledge and the rise of the cognitive dimensions of labour. This is not to say that the centrality of knowledge to capitalism is new per se. Rather, the question we must ask is to what extent we can speak of a new role for knowledge and, more importantly, its relationship with transformations in the capital/labour relation. From this perspective, the paper highlights the continuing validity of Marx's analysis of the knowledge/power relation in the development of the division of labour. More precisely, we are concerned with the theoretical and heuristic value of the concepts of formal subsumption, real subsumption and general intellect for any interpretation of the present change of the capital/labour relation in cognitive capitalism. In this way, we show the originality of the general intellect hypothesis as a sublation of real subsumption. Finally, the article summarises key contradictions and new forms of antagonism in cognitive capitalism.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present an analysis of three cases: Danish labor markets, vocational training, and industrial policy, showing that the institutional complementarities associated with such hybridization are based on institutional heterogeneity rather than homogeneity.
Abstract: The varieties of capitalism literature maintains that advanced capitalist countries whose institutions best fit either the liberal or coordinated market economy types will perform better than countries whose institutions are mixed. This is because hybrids are less likely to yield functionally beneficial institutional complementarities. The authors challenge this assertion. Denmark has performed as well as many purer cases during the 1990s. And Denmark has recently developed a more hybrid form than is generally recognized by (a) increasing the exposure of actors to market forces and (b) decentralizing collective learning and decision making. The institutional complementarities associated with such hybridization have contributed to its success; however, these complementarities are based on institutional heterogeneity rather than homogeneity. This is demonstrated by analyses of three cases: Danish labor markets, vocational training, and industrial policy. The implication of the authors’ argument is that the ...



Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The role of the state is at the heart of the divergence among european coordinated market economies as discussed by the authors, where macrocorporatist forms of coordination are characterized by national-level institutions for fostering cooperation and feature a strong role for the state.
Abstract: This article investigates the politics of change in coordinated market econo\mies, and explores why some countries (well known for their highly cooperative arrangements) manage to sustain coordination when adjusting to economic transformation, while others fail. the authors argue that the broad category of “coordinated market economies” subsumes different types of cooperative engagement: macrocorporatist forms of coordination are characterized by national-level institutions for fostering cooperation and feature a strong role for the state, while forms of coordination associated with enterprise cooperation more typically occur at the level of sector or regional institutions and are often privately controlled. although these diverse forms of coordination once appeared quite similar and functioned as structural equivalents, they now have radically different capacities for self-adjustment. The role of the state is at the heart of the divergence among european coordinated countries. a large public sector affects the political dynamics behind collective outcomes, through its impact both on the state’s construction of its own policy interests and on private actors’ goals. although a large public sector has typically been written off as an inevitable drag on the economy, it can provide state actors with a crucial political tool for shoring up coordination in a postindustrial economy. the authors use the cases of denmark and germany to illustrate how uncontroversially coordinated market economies have evolved along two sharply divergent paths in the past two decades and to reflect on broader questions of stability and change in coordinated market economies. the two countries diverge most acutely with respect to the balance of power between state and society; indeed, the danish state—far from being a constraint on adjustment (a central truism in neoliberal thought)—plays the role of facilitator in economic adjustment, policy change, and continued coordination.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that policy makers should pay more attention to the dynamics of the cognitive-cultural production system as such, and that in the interests of shaping viable urban communities in contemporary capitalism we must be more resolute in attempts to rebuild sociability, solidarity and democratic participation.
Abstract: critique of the currently fashionable idea of the "creative city." I advance the claim that we need to go beyond advocacies about local economic development that prescribe the deployment of packages of selected amenities as a way of attracting elite workers into given urban areas. Instead, I propose that policy makers should pay more attention to the dynamics of the cognitive-cultural production system as such, and that in the interests of shaping viable urban communities in contemporary capitalism we must be more resolute in attempts to rebuild sociability, solidarity and democratic participation.

Journal Article
TL;DR: The second, and more significant, challenge emanates from the rise of non-democratic great powers: the West's old Cold War rivals China and Russia, now operating under authoritarian capitalist, rather than communist, regimes as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: TODAY'S GLOBAL liberal democratic order faces two challenges. The first is radical Islam-and it is the lesser ofthe two challenges. Although the proponents of radical Islam find liberal democracy repugnant, and the movement is often described as the new fascist threat, the soci eties from which it arises are generally poor and stagnant. They represent no viable alternative to modernity and pose no significant military threat to the developed world. It is mainly the potential use of weapons of mass destruction-particularly by nonstate actors-that makes militant Islam a menace. The second, and more significant, challenge emanates from the rise of nondemocratic great powers: the West's old Cold War rivals China and Russia, now operating under authoritarian capitalist, rather than communist, regimes. Authoritarian capitalist great powers played a leading role in the international system up until 1945. They have been absent since then. But today, they seem poised for a comeback. Capitalism's ascendancy appears to be deeply entrenched, but the current predominance of democracy could be far less secure. Capitalism has expanded relentlessly since early modernity, its lower-priced goods and superior economic power eroding and transforming all other socioeconomic regimes, a process most memorably described by Karl Marx in The Communist Manifesto. Contrary to Marx's expectations, capitalism had the same effect on communism, eventually "burying"

Book ChapterDOI
TL;DR: The former state socialist countries of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union have been transformed into capitalist systems, albeit with substantial differences among them and from advanced capitalist systems elsewhere as mentioned in this paper, and the value of an institutional approach has gained recognition as neoclassical economics proved a poor guide to forms of economic development and performance.
Abstract: The former state socialist countries of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union have been transformed into capitalist systems, albeit with substantial differences among them and from advanced capitalist systems elsewhere. The value of an institutional approach has gained recognition as neoclassical economics proved a poor guide to forms of economic development and performance. Defining these capitalisms has followed three broad routes. One follows Polanyi, embedding them in social and political development without showing links to economic performance. A second follows Hall and Soskice’s two varieties of capitalism, but this fits poorly with countries in the process of creating institutional forms. Adaptations include suggestions for new varieties. Countries of the former Soviet Union prove particularly difficult to fit into existing classifications. A third approach starts from forms of international integration and seeks institutional preconditions rather than determinants. Institutions then appear as one factor, albeit an important one, determining economic performance.


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that the history of how the concept of capitalism was invented is an example of the influence of accounting ideas on economic and sociological thinking, and that the notion of capitalism itself is rooted in accounting notions.