Showing papers on "Capitalism published in 2014"

Seventeen Contradictions and the End of Capitalism

Abstract: You thought capitalism was permanent? Think again. David Harvey unravels the contradictions at the heart of capitalism: its drive, for example, to accumulate capital beyond the means of investing it, it's imperative to use the cheapest methods of production that leads to consumers with no means of consumption, and its compulsion to exploit nature to the point of extinction. These are the tensions which underpin the persistence of mass unemployment, the downward spirals of Europe and Japan, and the unstable lurches forward of China and India. Not that the contradictions of capital are all bad: they can lead to the innovations that make capitalism resilient and, it seems, permanent. Yet appearances can deceive: while many of capital's contradictions can be managed, others will be fatal to our society. This new book is both an incisive guide to the world around us and a manifesto for change.

The Zero Marginal Cost Society: The Internet of Things, the Collaborative Commons, and the Eclipse of Capitalism

Abstract: The capitalist era is passing. Rising in its wake is a new global collaborative Commons that will fundamentally transform our way of life. Bestselling author Jeremy Rifkin explains that intense competition is forcing the introduction of ever newer technologies, in turn boosting productivity to the point where the marginal cost of producing additional units is nearly zero, making the product essentially free. In turn, profits are drying up, property ownership is becoming meaningless, and an economy based on scarcity is giving way to an economy of abundance. Rifkin describes how hundreds of millions of people are already transferring parts of their economic lives from capitalist markets to networked Commons. "Prosumers" are producing their own information, entertainment, energy, and 3-D printed products at nearly zero marginal cost, and sharing them via social media sites and other venues. Students are enrolling in massive open online courses (MOOCs) that also operate at near-zero marginal cost. As a result, "exchange value" in the marketplace is increasingly being replaced by "use value" on the collaborative Commons. Identity is less bound to what one owns and more to what one shares. Cooperation replaces self-interest, access trumps ownership, and networking drubs autonomy. We are, Rifkin says, entering a world beyond markets where we are learning how to live together collaboratively and sustainably.

Buying Time: The Delayed Crisis of Democratic Capitalism

Abstract: The financial and economic crisis that began in 2008 still has the world on tenterhooks. The gravity of the situation is matched by a general paucity of understanding about what is happening and how it started. In this book, based on his 2012 Adorno Lectures given in Frankfurt, Wolfgang Streeck places the crisis in the context of the long neoliberal transformation of postwar capitalism that began in the 1970s. He analyses the subsequent tensions and conflicts involving states, governments, voters and capitalist interests, as expressed in inflation, public debt, and rising private indebtedness. Streeck traces the transformation of the tax state into a debt state, and from there into the consolidation state of today. At the centre of the analysis is the changing relationship between capitalism and democracy, in Europe and elsewhere, and the advancing immunization of the former against the latter.

On The Reproduction Of Capitalism: Ideology And Ideological State Apparatuses

Abstract: What is perhaps Louis Althusser's most famous text, "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses," published in 1970 and very influential ever since, was an extract of a much longer book published in French years after his death. Published now for the first time in English, On the Reproduction of Capitalism develops systematically Althusser's conception of historical materialism, outlining the conditions of reproduction in capitalist society and the revolutionary struggle for its overthrow. Written in the afterglow of May 1968, the text addresses a question that continues to haunt us today: in a society that proclaims its attachment to the ideals of liberty and equality, why do we witness the ever-renewed reproduction of relations of domination? Both an activist and a conceptually innovatory text, On the Reproduction of Capitalism is an essential addition to the corpus of the twentieth-century Left.

Varieties of Liberalization and the New Politics of Social Solidarity

Abstract: "This book examines contemporary changes in labor market institutions in the United States, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, and the Netherlands, focusing on developments in industrial relations, vocational education and training, and labor market policy. It finds that there are in fact distinct varieties of liberalization associated with very different distributive outcomes. Most scholarship equates liberal capitalism with inequality and coordinated capitalism with higher levels of social solidarity. However, this study explains why the institutions of coordinated capitalism and egalitarian capitalism coincided and complemented one another in the 'Golden Era' of postwar development in the 1950s and 1960s, and why they no longer do so. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, this study reveals that the successful defense of the institutions traditionally associated with coordinated capitalism has often been a recipe for increased inequality due to declining coverage and dualization. Conversely, it argues that some forms of labor market liberalization are perfectly compatible with continued high levels of social solidarity and indeed may be necessary to sustain it."

Neoliberalism: A Critical Reader

Abstract: "Bravo! Some of the most incisive students of neoliberalism gather together to present a stunning indictment of the destructiveness of the already discredited right-wing economic regime." Professor Michael Perelman, California State University, Chico "Across its thirty chapters, covering theoretical, empirical, policy and political aspects for different regions of the world, this collection of essays on neo-liberalism establishes that it is not merely a temporary phase of contemporary capitalism. Rather, it is the reflection of deep-rooted structures and processes, forging a rhythm in capitalist development that inevitably releases appalling consequences albeit in historically specific circumstances. In short, neo-liberalism, like imperialism, underdevelopment, fascism, world wars and so on, is not some aberration but an immanent aspect of capitalism." Professor Ben Fine, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London "This scholarly yet deeply engaged book will do much to to put the record straight on what neoliberalism is and what its actual effects have been on those who have gained from it and the much larger numbers who have been afflicted by it. The geographical scope and analytical sophistication of the contributions make it one of the few really reliable guides to this complex and life-threatening ideology." Professor Leslie Sklair, London School of Economics Neoliberalism is the dominant ideology shaping our world today. It dictates the policies of governments, and shapes the actions of key institutions such as the WTO, IMF, World Bank and European Central Bank. Its political and economic implications can hardly be overstated. Yet there are obvious problems with the neoliberal project. This book is a perfect introduction to neoliberalism that is ideal for anyone seeking a critical perspective. It explains the nature, history, strengths, weaknesses and implications of neoliberalism from the point of view of radical political economics. Short, self-contained chapters are written by leading experts in each field. The books is organised in three parts: the first section outlining neoliberal theory, the second exploring how neoliberalism has affected various policy areas, and a third looking at how neoliberal policies have played out in particular regions of the world. Using a broad range of left economic perspectives, from post-Keynesian to Marxist, this is a great resource for students of politics and economics, and anyone looking for a grounded critical approach to this broad subject.

Economic freedom of the world: an accounting of the literature

Abstract: I. INTRODUCTION AND HISTORICAL BACKGROUND The Economic Freedom of the World (EFW) index was first produced by Gwartney. Block, and Lawson (1996) and has been updated annually since. (1) The EFW index has found a place as one of the top resources for academics. policy makers, and journalists who are looking for indicators on national economic policies around the world. Academically, the EFW index has been cited in hundreds of articles. Many. but not all, of these articles have a strong economic policy component to them and thus should be of interest to the readers of this journal. Here, we provide an accounting and description of this literature. The EFW index is designed to measure the consistency of a nation's policies and institutions with economic freedom. The EFW index places the concept of economic freedom within the classical liberal tradition that emphasizes the importance of private property, rule of law, free trade, sound money, and a limited role for government. Higher scores are accorded to nations with more secure property, freer trade, more stable money and prices, less government spending, and fewer regulations. The EFW index was conceived as a result of a 1984 Mont Pelerin Society meeting session in which George Orwell's book, 1984, was being discussed. (2) The question of the session was whether Orwell's dystopic depiction of the future had come true. Some discussants at the meeting thought Orwell was clearly wrong as democracy and human rights were well protected, at least in the Western nations that concerned Orwell. Others, most notably Michael Walker, the founder and then-Executive Director of Canada's Fraser Institute, countered that while that might be true of political and civil liberties, economic liberties are under increasing attack. According to Walker, economic life was becoming increasingly Orwellian. Further, he argued even our political and civil liberties were not out of the woods just yet. Walker quoted Milton Friedman, who wrote in Capitalism and Freedom (1962, p. 9): Historical evidence speaks with a single voice on the relation between political freedom and a free market. I know of no example in time or place of a society that has been marked by a large measure of political freedom, and that has not also used something comparable to a free market to organize the bulk of economic activity. Among the participants at this meeting was Milton Friedman himself, who noted that the debate on the floor about whether economic freedom was growing or eroding suffered from a critical lack of empirical data. The debaters employed little more than isolated anecdotes to make their points. As a result of this experience. Walker and Rose and Milton Friedman organized a meeting sponsored by Liberty Fund to discuss the prospects for creating some kind of measure of economic freedom. This first meeting ultimately led to a series of six meetings. The participants at these early meetings included a veritable Who's Who of classical-liberal scholars including Armen Alchian, Peter Bauer, Gary Becker, Arthur Denzau, Stephen Easton, David Friedman, John Goodman. Herb Grubel, Ronald Jones, Richard Rahn, Henri LePage, Henry Manne. Charles Murray, and Douglass North. At the fourth conference, held in Sea Ranch, California, Gwartney, Block, and Lawson (1992) presented a prototype index for 79 countries. The organizers briefly pursued the idea of doing a survey-based economic freedom index, but that effort failed, and they eventually asked Gwartney, Block, and Lawson to complete a publishable index. The index was finally released in 1996, 10 years after the original conference, as Economic Freedom of the World: 1975-1995. (3) Milton Friedman's "Foreword" in the first volume is worth reprinting here: Freedom is a big word, and economic freedom not much smaller. To talk about economic freedom is easy; to measure it, to make fine distinctions, assign numbers to its attributes. …

The New Way of the World: On Neo-Liberal Society

Abstract: Exploring the genesis of neoliberalism, and the political and economic circumstances of its deployment, Pierre Dardot and Christian Laval dispel numerous common misconceptions Neoliberalism is neither a return to classical liberalism nor the restoration of "pure" capitalism To misinterpret neoliberalism is to fail to understand what is new about it: far from viewing the market as a natural given that limits state action, neoliberalism seeks to construct the market and make the firm a model for governments Only once this is grasped will its opponents be able to meet the unprecedented political and intellectual challenge it poses

Geographies of Economies

Abstract: (Re)constituting economic geographies the dialect of culture and economy - the economization of culture and the culturization of economy the invention of regional culture the cultural production of economic forms economies of power and space nature as artifice, nature as artefact - development, environment and modernity in the late 20th century a tale of two cities? - embedded organizations and embodies workers in the city of London re-thinking restructuring - embodiment, agency and identity in organizational change economic non-economic replacing class in economic geographies - possibilities for a new class politics local politics, anti-essentialism and economic geography true stories? - global nightmares, global dreams and writing globalization globalization, socioeconomics, territoriality unpacking the global local food/global food - globalization and local restructuring excluding the other - the production of scale and scaled politics globalisation and geographies of workers' struggle in the late 20th century globalization of R & D in the electronics industry - the recent experience of Japan falling out of the world economy? - theorizing "Africa" in world trade notes on a spatialized labour politics - scale and the political geography of dual unionism in the US east coast longshore industry theories of accumulation and regulation - bringing life back into economical geography regional economies as relational assets divergence, instability and exclusion - regional dynamics in Great Britain the posy-Keynesian state and the space economy bringing the qualitative state into economic geography the end of mass production and of the mass collective worker? experimenting with production, employment and their geographies the role of supply chain management strategies in the "Europeanisation" of the automobile production system breaking the old and constructing the new? geographies of uneven development in central and eastern Europe California rages - regional capitalism and the politics of renewal informal cities? women's work and the informal activities on the margins of the European union.

Can society be commodities all the way down? Polanyian reflections on capitalist crisis

Abstract: In his classic 1944 book, The Great Transformation, Karl Polanyi traced the roots of capitalist crisis to efforts to create "self-regulating markets" in land, labor, and money. The effect was to turn those three fundamental bases of social life into "fictitious commodities".The inevitable result, Polanyi claimed, was to despoil nature, rupture communities, and destroy livelihoods. This diagnosis has strong echoes in the 21st century: witness the burgeoning markets in carbon emissions and biotechnology; in child-care, schooling, and the care of the old; and in financial derivatives. In this situation, Polanyi's idea of fictitious commodification affords a promising basis for an integrated structural analysis that connects three dimensions of the present crisis, the ecological, the social, and the financial. This paper explores the strengths and weaknesses of Polanyi's idea.

The Rise and Decline of General Laws of Capitalism

Abstract: Thomas Piketty’s (2013) book, Capital in the 21st Century, follows in the tradition of the great classical economists, like Marx and Ricardo, in formulating general laws of capitalism to diagnose and predict the dynamics of inequality. We argue that general economic laws are unhelpful as a guide to understand the past or predict the future, because they ignore the central role of political and economic institutions, as well as the endogenous evolution of technology, in shaping the distribution of resources in society. We use regression evidence to show that the main economic force emphasized in Piketty’s book, the gap between the interest rate and the growth rate, does not appear to explain historical patterns of inequality (especially, the share of income accruing to the upper tail of the distribution). We then use the histories of inequality of South Africa and Sweden to illustrate that inequality dynamics cannot be understood without embedding economic factors in the context of economic and political institutions, and also that the focus on the share of top incomes can give a misleading characterization of the true nature of inequality.

Reinventing State Capitalism: Leviathan in Business, Brazil and Beyond

Abstract: The wave of liberalization that swept world markets in the 1980s and 90s altered the ways that governments manage their economies. Reinventing State Capitalism "analyzes the rise of new species of state capitalism in which governments interact with private investors either as majority or minority shareholders in publicly-traded corporations or as financial backers of purely private firms (the so-called "national champions"). Focusing on a detailed quantitative assessment of Brazil's economic performance from 1976 to 2009, Aldo Musacchio and Sergio Lazzarini examine how these models of state capitalism influence corporate investment and performance.According to one model, the state acts as a majority investor, granting the state-owned enterprise (SOE) financial autonomy and allowing professional management. This form, the authors argue, has reduced many agency problems commonly faced by state ownership. According to another hybrid model, the state uses sovereign wealth funds, holding companies, and development banks to acquire a small share of equity ownership in a corporation, thereby potentially alleviating capital constraints and leveraging latent capabilities.Both models have benefits and costs. Yet neither model has entirely eliminated the temptation of governments to intervene in the operation of natural resource industries and other large strategic enterprises. Nevertheless, the longstanding debate over whether private ownership is superior or inferior to state capitalism has become irrelevant, Musacchio and Lazzarini conclude. Private ownership is now mingled with state capital on a global scale.

Beyond the Creative City: Cognitive–Cultural Capitalism and the New Urbanism

Abstract: Scott A. J. Beyond the creative city: cognitive–cultural capitalism and the new urbanism, Regional Studies. Creativity is a concept whose time has come in economic and urban geography. It is also a concept that calls for enormous circumspection. An attempt is made to show that the interdependent processes of learning, creativity and innovation are situated within concrete fields of social relationships. Because much existing research on creative cities fails adequately to grasp this point, it tends to offer a flawed representation of urban dynamics and leads in many instances to essentially regressive policy advocacies. Cognitive–cultural capitalism is a more robust theoretical framework through which contemporary urbanization processes can be described. The framework of cognitive–cultural capitalism shapes the peculiar logic of learning, creativity and innovation that are observed in cities today but also has many wider and deeper impacts on urban outcomes. It has important policy implications so a criti...

Signs and Machines: Capitalism and the Production of Subjectivity

Abstract: "Capital is a semiotic operator": this assertion by Flix Guattari is at the heart of Maurizio Lazzarato's Signs and Machines, which asks us to leave behind the logocentrism that still informs so many critical theories. Lazzarato calls instead for a new theory capable of explaining how signs function in the economy, in power apparatuses, and in the production of subjectivity. Moving beyond the dualism of signifier and signified, Signs and Machines shows how signs act as "sign-operators" that enter directly into material flows and into the functioning of machines. Money, the stock market, price differentials, algorithms, and scientific equations and formulas constitute semiotic "motors" that make capitalism's social and technical machines run, bypassing representation and consciousness to produce social subjections and semiotic enslavements. Lazzarato contrasts Deleuze and Guattari's complex semiotics with the political theories of Jacques Rancire, Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt, Paolo Virno, and Judith Butler, for whom language and the public space it opens still play a fundamental role. Lazzarato asks: What are the conditions necessary for political and existential rupture at a time when the production of subjectivity represents the primary and perhaps most important work of capitalism? What are the specific tools required to undo the industrial mass production of subjectivity undertaken by business and the state? What types of organization must we construct for a process of subjectivation that would allow us to escape the hold of social subjection and machinic enslavement? In addressing these questions, Signs and Machines takes on a task that is today more urgent than ever.

Varieties of Capitalism and the Euro Crisis

Abstract: This article examines the role played by varieties of capitalism in the euro crisis, considering the origins of the crisis, its progression, and the response to it. Deficiencies in the institutional arrangements governing the single currency are linked to economic doctrines of the 1990s. The roots of the crisis are linked to institutional asymmetries between political economies. Northern European economies equipped to operate export-led growth models suitable for success within a monetary union are joined to southern economies whose demand-led growth models were difficult to operate successfully without the capacity to devalue. The response to a tripartite crisis of confidence, debt, and growth is explained in terms of the interaction of institutions, interests, and ideas, and its importance for the future of European integration is explored.

Network Society and Future Scenarios for a Collaborative Economy

Abstract: PART I: THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK 1. Capitalism as a Creative Destruction System 2. Beyond the End of History: Three Competing Value Models 3. The P2P Infrastructures: Two Axes and Four Quadrants PART II: COGNITIVE CAPITALISM 4. Netarchical Capitalism 5. Distributed Capitalism 6. The Social Dynamics of the Mixed Model of Neo-feudal Cognitive Capitalism PART III: THE HYPOTHETICAL MODEL OF MATURE PEER PRODUCTION: TOWARDS A COMMONS-ORIENTED ECONOMY AND SOCIETY 7. Resilient Communities 8. Global Commons 9. Transition Proposals Towards a Commons-oriented Economy and Society Conclusions

Where in the world does neoliberalism come from

Abstract: Neoliberalism is generally understood as a system of ideas circulated by a network of right-wing intellectuals, or as an economic system mutation resulting from crises of profitability in capitalism. Both interpretations prioritize the global North. We propose an approach to neoliberalism that prioritizes the experience of the global South, and sees neoliberalism gaining its main political strength as a development strategy displacing those hegemonic before the 1970s. From Southern perspectives, a distinct set of issues about neoliberalism becomes central: the formative role of the state, including the military; the expansion of world commodity trade, including minerals; agriculture, informality, and the transformation of rural society. Thinkers from the global South who have foregrounded these issues need close attention from the North and exemplify a new architecture of knowledge in critical social science.

Commons against and beyond capitalism

Abstract: This essay contrasts the logic underlining the production of 'commons' with the logic of capitalist relations, and describes the conditions under which 'commons' become the seeds of a society beyond state and market. It also warns against the danger that 'commons' may be co- opted to provide low-cost forms of reproduction, and discusses how this outcome can be prevented.

Informalizing the Economy: the Return of the Social Question at a Global Level

Abstract: The classical conceptualization of the working class, of workers’ collective action and, especially, of trade unionism, was implicitly or explicitly based on the Standard Employment Relationship that, for a few decades, has been dominant in North America, Europe, Japan and Australasia. The ‘classical’ model of collective bargaining, which has shaped the world’s traditional labour movements, was based on this conceptualization. However, it is now increasingly undermined by the rapid spread of ‘informal’ or ‘precarious’ labour in the global North. It is our contention that the ‘classical’ view of the working class and workers’ collective action is fundamentally biased and takes as a norm or standard what was in fact an historical exception. The real norm or standard in global capitalism is insecurity, informality or precariousness, and the Standard Employment Relationship is an historical phenomenon which had a deep impact in a limited part of the world for a relatively short period of time. If, as we argue, the ‘Rest’ is not now becoming like the ‘West’, but the other way round, then the ‘traditional’ forms of collective action that have developed in the North Atlantic region during the last two centuries are gradually losing much of their impact. New forms of collective action are emerging, though these are often still at an embryonic stage. It is, therefore, high time to rethink the concept of the working class and the ways in which it can further its interests.

Digital prosumption labour on social media in the context of the capitalist regime of time

Abstract: So-called social media such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Weibo and LinkedIn are an expression of changing regimes of time in capitalist society. This paper discusses how corporate social media are related to the capitalist organization of time and the changes this organization is undergoing. It uses social theory for conceptualizing changes of society and its time regime and how these changes shape social media. These changes have been described with notions such as prosumption, consumption labour, play labour (playbour) and digital labour. The paper contextualizes digital labour on social media with the help of a model of society that distinguishes three subsystems (the economy, politics, culture) and three forms of power (economic, political, culture). In modern society, these systems are based on the logic of the accumulation of power and the acceleration of accumulation. The paper discusses the role of various dimensions of time in capitalism with the help of a model that is grounded in Karl Marx’s works. It points out the importance of the category of time for a labour theory of value and a digital labour theory of value. Social media are expressions of the changing time regimes that modern society has been undergoing, especially in relation to the blurring of leisure and labour time (play labour), production and consumption time (prosumption), new forms of absolute and relative surplus value production, the acceleration of consumption with the help of targeted online advertising and the creation of speculative, future-oriented forms of fictitious capital.

Sugar and the Expansion of the Early Modern World-Economy Commodity Frontiers, Ecological Transformation, and Industrialization*

Abstract: article attempts to restore and operationalize the concept of the frontier for the study of world capitalist expansion and its structural tendency towards environmental degradation. World-sys- tems analysts have paid considerable attention to the ways in which the world-economy expands. The bulk of this work has been given over to the study of long waves, the reorganization of production units, state-formation, and other important processes. The ecological dimension, though acknowledged from time to time, has been un- deremphasized. I will trace the development and expansion of sugar cane production and trade in order to illustrate the centrality of en- vironmental dynamics as a way of rethinking the early modern history of capitalist expansion. The history of sugar production and trade is well-known. Despite the existence of a vast literature, how- ever, the environmental history of sugar has not been given the attention it deserves, nor has the link between ecological transforma- tion and the expansionary logic of world capitalism. My goal is to suggest ways of rethinking early modern capitalist expansion as a

Skills and inequality: partisan politics and the political economy of education reforms in Western welfare states

Abstract: Skills and Inequality studies the political economy of education and training reforms from the perspective of comparative welfare state research. Highlighting the striking similarities between established worlds of welfare capitalism and educational regimes, Marius R. Busemeyer argues that both have similar political origins in the postwar period. He identifies partisan politics and different varieties of capitalism as crucial factors shaping choices about the institutional design of post-secondary education. The political and institutional survival of vocational education and training as an alternative to academic higher education is then found to play an important role in the later development of skill regimes. Busemeyer also studies the effects of educational institutions on social inequality and patterns of public opinion on the welfare state and education. Adopting a multi-method approach, this book combines historical case studies of Sweden, Germany, and the United Kingdom with quantitative analyses of macro-level aggregate data and micro-level survey data.

Crisis? Capitalism is Doing Very Well. How is Critical Theory?

Abstract: There is no crisis of capitalism, only a crisis of critique. I claim that Critical Social Theory of Frankfurt School origins does stand guilty of a failure to develop a body of valiant critique of the political economy of neoliberal capitalism in the course of the latter’s ascent in the 1980s and 1990s. The first part of my analysis addresses the crisis of capitalism as a distinct object of critique, in order to identify the direction a critique of contemporary capitalism is to take. The second part examines the analytical equipment at Critical Theory’s disposal for undertaking such an endeavor. Within an inventory of some of the key achievements of the tradition both in terms of its object and method of critique, some conceptual deficiencies are identified – namely, the reduced attention to what I describe as “systemic domination,” and the diminished reliance on a critique of the political economy of capitalism. The third part adumbrates a proposal for recasting Critical Theory by way of (a) redefining the normative content of emancipation; (b) effecting a realist-pragmatic turn within the communicative turn; (c) bringing the critique of political economy back into critical social theory.

The Political Economy of Myanmar’s Transition

Abstract: Since holding elections in 2010, Myanmar has transitioned from a direct military dictatorship to a formally democratic system and has embarked on a period of rapid economic reform. After two decades of military rule, the pace of change has startled almost everyone and led to a great deal of cautious optimism. To make sense of the transition and assess the case for optimism, this article explores the political economy of Myanmar’s dual transition from state socialism to capitalism and from dictatorship to democracy. It analyses changes within Myanmar society from a critical political economy perspective in order to both situate these developments within broader regional trends and to evaluate the country’s current trajectory. In particular, the emergence of state-mediated capitalism and politico-business complexes in Myanmar’s borderlands are emphasised. These dynamics, which have empowered a narrow oligarchy, are less likely to be undone by the reform process than to fundamentally shape the contours of re...

The Hybrid Spatialities of Transition: Capitalism, Legacy and Uneven Urban Economic Restructuring

Abstract: This paper conceptualises post-socialist urban economic geographies through the notion of hybrid spatialities that emerge from the mutual embeddedness of neoliberalism and socialist legacies. While the dismantling of state socialism was a massive moment towards the exacerbation of uneven development, ironically it is the socialist-era spatial legacy that has become the single major differentiating factor for the economic status of cities. This superficial overdetermination, however, masks the root causes of uneven development that must be seen in the logic of capitalism and its attendant practices which subsume legacy, recode its meaning, and recast the formerly equalitarian spaces as an uneven spatial order. The authors argue that the socialist legacy, rather than being an independent carrier of history, has been alienated from its history to become an infrastructure of neoliberalisation, conducive to capitalist process. The paper draws specifically on the experiences of Russia, although its reflections should reverberate much more broadly.

Global Capitalism and the Crisis of Humanity

Abstract: This exciting new study provides an original and provocative expose of the crisis of global capitalism in its multiple dimensions - economic, political, social, ecological, military, and cultural. Building on his earlier works on globalization, William I. Robinson discusses the nature of the new global capitalism, the rise of a globalized production and financial system, a transnational capitalist class, and a transnational state and warns of the rise of a global police state to contain the explosive contradictions of a global capitalist system that is crisis-ridden and out of control. Robinson concludes with an exploration of how diverse social and political forces are responding to the crisis and alternative scenarios for the future.

New Capitalism in Turkey

Abstract: New Capitalism in Turkey explores the changing relationship between politics, religion and business through an analysis of the contemporary Turkish business environment.

Literature and the Creative Economy

Abstract: For nearly twenty years, social scientists and policy makers have been highly interested in the idea of the creative economy. This book contends that mainstream considerations of the economic and social force of culture, including theories of the creative class and of cognitive and immaterial labor, are indebted to historic conceptions of the art of literary authorship. What's more, it shows how contemporary literature has been involved in and has responded to creative-economy phenomena, including the presentation of artists as models of contentedly flexible and self-managed work, the treatment of training in and exposure to art as a pathway to social inclusion, the use of culture and cultural institutions to increase property values, and support for cultural diversity as a means of growing cultural markets. Contemporary writers have not straightforwardly bemoaned these phenomena in a classic rejection of the instrumental application of art. Rather, they have tended to explore how their own critical capacities have become compatible with or even essential to a neoliberal economy that has embraced art's autonomous gestures as proof that authentic self-articulation and social engagement can and should occur within capitalism. Taking a sociological approach to literary criticism, Brouillette interprets major works of contemporary fiction by Monica Ali, Aravind Adiga, Daljit Nagra, and Ian McEwan alongside government policy, social science, and theoretical explorations of creative work and immaterial labor.

Academic Capitalism in the Age of Globalization

Abstract: Today, nearly every aspect of higher education - including student recruitment, classroom instruction, faculty research, administrative governance, and the control of intellectual property - is embedded in a political economy with links to the market and the state. Academic capitalism offers a powerful framework for understanding this relationship. Essentially, it allows us to understand higher education's shift from creating scholarship and learning as a public good to generating knowledge as a commodity to be monetized in market activities. In Academic Capitalism in the Age of Globalization, Brendan Cantwell and Ilkka Kauppinen assemble an international team of leading scholars to explore the profound ways in which globalization and the knowledge economy have transformed higher education around the world. The book offers an in-depth assessment of the theoretical foundations of academic capitalism, as well as new empirical insights into how the process of academic capitalism has played out. Chapters address academic capitalism from historical, transnational, national, and local perspectives. Each contributor offers fascinating insights into both new conceptual interpretations of and practical institutional and national responses to academic capitalism. Incorporating years of research by influential theorists and building on the work of Sheila Slaughter, Larry Leslie, and Gary Rhoades, Academic Capitalism in the Age of Globalization provides a provocative update for understanding academic capitalism. The book will appeal to anyone trying to make sense of contemporary higher education.