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Showing papers on "Capitalism published in 2020"


Book
17 Mar 2020
TL;DR: In this article, Anne Case and Angus Deaton explain the overwhelming surge in these deaths and shed light on the social and economic forces that are making life harder for the working class.
Abstract: A New York Times BestsellerA Wall Street Journal BestsellerA New York Times Notable Book of 2020A New York Times Book Review Editors’ ChoiceShortlisted for the Financial Times and McKinsey Business Book of the YearA New Statesman Book to ReadFrom economist Anne Case and Nobel Prize winner Angus Deaton, a groundbreaking account of how the flaws in capitalism are fatal for America's working classDeaths of despair from suicide, drug overdose, and alcoholism are rising dramatically in the United States, claiming hundreds of thousands of American lives. Anne Case and Angus Deaton explain the overwhelming surge in these deaths and shed light on the social and economic forces that are making life harder for the working class. As the college educated become healthier and wealthier, adults without a degree are literally dying from pain and despair. Case and Deaton tie the crisis to the weakening position of labor, the growing power of corporations, and a rapacious health-care sector that redistributes working-class wages into the pockets of the wealthy. This critically important book paints a troubling portrait of the American dream in decline, and provides solutions that can rein in capitalism's excesses and make it work for everyone.

480 citations



Journal ArticleDOI
Ida Danewid1
TL;DR: In the last few years, an emergent body of International Relations scholarship has taken an interest in the rise of global cities and the challenges they bring to existing geographies of power as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: Over the last few years, an emergent body of International Relations scholarship has taken an interest in the rise of global cities and the challenges they bring to existing geographies of power. I...

94 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
03 Jun 2020-Antipode
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that the governance of gig work under conditions of financialised platform capitalism is characterized by a process that they call "dual value production", where the monetary value produced by the service provided is augmented by the use and speculative value of the data produced before, during, and after service provision.
Abstract: In this article, we argue that the governance of gig work under conditions of financialised platform capitalism is characterised by a process that we call “dual value production”: the monetary value produced by the service provided is augmented by the use and speculative value of the data produced before, during, and after service provision. App-governed gig workers hence function as pivotal conduits in software systems that produce digital data as a particular asset class. We reflect on the production of data assets and the unequal distribution of opportunities for their valorisation, after which we survey a number of strategies seeking data-centric worker empowerment. These strategies, we argue, are crucial attempts to push back against platform capitalism’s domination, bankrolled by what we term “meta-platforms”. Ultimately, it is the massive wealth and synergetic capacities of meta-platforms that constitute the most formidable obstacle to worker power and social justice in increasingly data-driven societies.

92 citations



Journal Article
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that the asset-meaning anything that can be controlled, traded, and capitalized as a revenue stream-has become the primary basis of technoscientific capitalism.
Abstract: In this book, scholars from a range of disciplines argue that the asset-meaning anything that can be controlled, traded, and capitalized as a revenue stream-has become the primary basis of technoscientific capitalism. An asset can be an object or an experience, a sum of money or a life form, a patent or a bodily function. A process of assetization prevails, imposing investment and return as the key rationale, and overtaking commodification and its speculative logic. Although assets can be bought and sold, the point is to get a durable economic rent from them rather than make a killing on the market. Assetization examines how assets are constructed and how a variety of things can be turned into assets, analyzing the interests, activities, skills, organizations, and relations entangled in this process. The contributors consider the assetization of knowledge, including patents, personal data, and biomedical innovation; of infrastructure, including railways and energy; of nature, including mineral deposits, agricultural seeds, and "natural capital"; and of publics, including such public goods as higher education and "monetizable social ills." Taken together, the chapters show the usefulness of assetization as an analytical tool and as an element in the critique of capitalism. Contributors Thomas Beauvisage, Kean Birch, Veit Braun, Natalia Buier, Beatrice Cointe, Paul Robert Gilbert, Hyo Yoon Kang, Les Levidow, Kevin Mellet, Sveta Milyaeva, Fabian Muniesa, Alain Nadai, Daniel Neyland, Victor Roy, James W. Williams

82 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
Jens Beckert1
TL;DR: Scharpf and Scharpf as discussed by the authors distinguish between input-oriented and output-oriented legitimacy, and make a distinction between the two types of legitimacy between input and output legitimacy.
Abstract: The distinction between input-oriented legitimacy and output-oriented legitimacy (Scharpf, Fritz W, 1997. Economic Integration, Democracy and the Welfare State. Journal of European Public Policy, 4...

80 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, a geographical agenda through the concept of post-capitalism is further explored, outlining its contours across three terrains of transformation between capitalism and post-Capitalism.
Abstract: This paper aims to further a geographical agenda through the concept of postcapitalism. We outline its contours across three terrains of transformation between capitalism and postcapitalism: creati...

72 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors explores how to build a critical analysis of post-crisis capitalism by moving beyond Marx, Foucault and Callon's approaches, which is crucially important because powerful technocra...
Abstract: This introduction explores how to build a critical analysis of post-crisis capitalism by moving beyond Marx, Foucault and Callon's approaches. This is crucially important because powerful technocra...

66 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The study of race and racism in the digital society must produce theoretically distinct and robust formulations of Internet technologies as key characteristics of the political economy as mentioned in this paper, and the authors of this paper are among the pioneers in this direction.
Abstract: The study of race and racism in the digital society must produce theoretically distinct and robust formulations of Internet technologies as key characteristics of the political economy. The author ...

64 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The structural and super-structural relations between global capitalism and health, incorporating both historical and contemporary capit... as mentioned in this paper, have been conceptualized in the context of health and finance.
Abstract: This introduction to the special issue aims to conceptualize the structural and super-structural relations between global capitalism and health, incorporating both historical and contemporary capit...

Journal ArticleDOI
Gavin Wright1
TL;DR: The authors argue that the Williams thesis applies with equal force to nineteenth-century America and that after two decades of war, abolition, and Reconstruction, cotton prices returned to their prewar levels.
Abstract: British and American debates on the relationship between slavery and economic growth have had little interaction with each other. This article attempts intellectual arbitrage by joining these two literatures. The linkage turns on the neglected part two of the ‘Williams thesis’: that slavery and the slave trade, once vital for the expansion of British industry and commerce, were no longer needed by the nineteenth century. In contrast to recent assertions of the centrality of slavery for US economic development, the article argues that part two of the Williams thesis applies with equal force to nineteenth‐century America. Unlike sugar, cotton required no large investments of fixed capital and could be cultivated efficiently at any scale, in locations that would have been settled by free farmers in the absence of slavery. Cheap cotton was undoubtedly important for the growth of textiles, but cheap cotton did not require slavery. The best evidence for this claim is that after two decades of war, abolition, and Reconstruction, cotton prices returned to their prewar levels. In both countries, the rise of anti‐slavery sentiment was not driven by the prospect of direct economic benefits, but major economic interest groups acquiesced in abolition because they no longer saw slavery as indispensable.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Uber and Airbnb have advanced into emblematic cases in debates in which the new digital capitalism is framed in terms of the so-called sharing economy as mentioned in this paper. But while this strand of inquiry has produced a w...
Abstract: Uber and Airbnb have advanced into emblematic cases in debates in which the new digital capitalism is framed in terms of the so-called sharing economy. While this strand of inquiry has produced a w...


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors examine the discourses underlying this view and find that education within capitalism too often reproduces social and economic inequalities, and that schools are depicted as failing and teachers are blamed, and conclude that "teachers are often blamed".
Abstract: Education within capitalism too often reproduces social and economic inequalities. Schools are depicted as failing and teachers are blamed. In this paper, I examine the discourses underlying this s...

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This article argued that the emerging new spatiality of the global economy has prompted the need for new discursive frames and geopolitical lines of reasoning, and that this need is fulfilled by the geo-category state capitalism, which acts as a powerful tool in categorizing and hierarchizing the spaces of world politics.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors draw on established views of CSR dysfunctionalities to show how and why CSR is regularly observed to be both shaped by and supportive of capitalism, and they present a post-capitalist approach to CSR that overcomes (1) the ill-defined separation of the economy and society, (2) the capitalist bias towards economic rationalities, and (3) the overidentification of society with its political system.
Abstract: In this article, we draw on established views of CSR dysfunctionalities to show how and why CSR is regularly observed to be both shaped by and supportive of capitalism. We proceed to show that these dysfunctionalities are maintained by both the pro- and anticapitalist approaches to CSR, both of which imply an ill-defined separation of the economy and society as well an overly strong problem or solution focus on political and economic issues. Finally, we present a post-capitalist approach to CSR that overcomes (1) the ill-defined separation of the economy and society, (2) the capitalist bias towards economic rationalities, and (3) the overidentification of society with its political system; this approach thus helps to manage the abovementioned CSR dysfunctionalities.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: A growing body of research has analysed the variegation of financialization processes and the role of states as important actors as discussed by the authors, and the authors of this paper argue that states are not important actors in financialization.
Abstract: A growing body of research has analysed the variegation of financialization processes and the role of states as important actors therein. Contributing to this literature, this paper argues that mor...

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The Virocene is thus a battleground for social and ecological justice as mentioned in this paper, and the outcomes of society's responses to the pandemic depend on how human agency, as an embodiment of social, ecological, and metaphysical relations, transforms the relations now shaped by capitalism and racism.
Abstract: COVID-19 has ushered in a new planetary epoch—the Virocene. In doing so, it has laid bare the limits of humanity's power over nature, exposing the vulnerability of 'normal' ways of living and their moral and pragmatic bankruptcy in coping with those vulnerabilities. 'Normal' is powerless against the virus and has not worked for a majority of the world's human and non-human population. Whatever new normal humanity fashions depends on the socio-ecological change set in motion by mutations between human and non-human species. The outcomes of society's responses to the pandemic depend on how human agency, as an embodiment of social, ecological, and metaphysical relations, transforms the relations now shaped by capitalism and racism—the two mutually reinforcing processes at the root of the Virocene's social and ecological vulnerabilities. A deeper understanding of vulnerabilities is necessary to avoid recreating a 'new normal' that normalizes the current oppressive and vulnerable social order, while inhibiting our ability to transform the world. At the same time, the sweeping possibilities of alternative ways of organizing humanity's mutual wellbeing and nature lie at our fingertips. The emancipatory political consciousness, rationalities, and strategies inherent in such intuitively sensible and counter-hegemonic approaches, first and foremost, are matters of justice, embodied in the power that shapes human-nature metabolism. The Virocene is thus a battleground for social and ecological justice. To be effective partners in these struggles for justice, political ecology needs a universal perspective of social and ecological justice that functions both as a form of critical inquiry—that is, as a way to understand how social and ecological inequalities and justices arise and function—and as a form of critical praxis—that is, as a way to reclaim and transform capitalism and racism's power in valuing and organizing social and ecological wellbeing. Key Words: Virocene; political economy of health; capitalism; racism, vulnerability, pandemic

Book
Min Ye1
05 Mar 2020
TL;DR: In this paper, Min Ye reevaluates the common tendency to attribute China's Belt and Road to individual leaders' strategic ambitions, using state-mobilized globalization as a comparative framework and investigative tool to understand Chinese capitalism.
Abstract: From 1998 to 2018, China had three political-economic crises, resulting in bureaucratic paralysis. It was at such junctures that China's leadership launched initiatives, like the Western Development Program, that mobilized state and market actors to expedite globalization and revive economic growth. In The Belt Road and Beyond, Min Ye reevaluates the common tendency to attribute China's Belt and Road to individual leaders' strategic ambitions, using state-mobilized globalization as a comparative framework and investigative tool to understand Chinese capitalism. State-mobilized globalization has helped sustain China's high-growth economy and social-political stability, while also sparking some political backlash. In order to succeed in globalization, the author argues, China's state mobilization must readapt to global circumstances. She sheds light on the tactics China used to spring from a crisis-stricken middle economy to a formidable global power, implicating not only China, but also the world.

Book
19 May 2020
TL;DR: In this paper, Fuchs outlines a communicative materialism that is a critical, dialectical, humanist approach to theorising communication in society and in capitalism and renews Marxist Humanism as a critical theory perspective on communication and society.
Abstract: ‘An authoritative analysis of the role of communication in contemporary capitalism and an important contribution to debates about the forms of domination and potentials for liberation in today’s capitalist society.’ — Professor Michael Hardt, Duke University, co-author of the tetralogy Empire, Commonwealth, Multitude, and Assembly ‘A comprehensive approach to understanding and transcending the deepening crisis of communicative capitalism. It is a major work of synthesis and essential reading for anyone wanting to know what critical analysis is and why we need it now more than ever.’ — Professor Graham Murdock, Emeritus Professor, University of Loughborough and co-editor of The Handbook of Political Economy of Communications Communication and Capitalism outlines foundations of a critical theory of communication. Going beyond Jurgen Habermas’ theory of communicative action, Christian Fuchs outlines a communicative materialism that is a critical, dialectical, humanist approach to theorising communication in society and in capitalism. The book renews Marxist Humanism as a critical theory perspective on communication and society. The author theorises communication and society by engaging with the dialectic, materialism, society, work, labour, technology, the means of communication as means of production, capitalism, class, the public sphere, alienation, ideology, nationalism, racism, authoritarianism, fascism, patriarchy, globalisation, the new imperialism, the commons, love, death, metaphysics, religion, critique, social and class struggles, praxis, and socialism. Fuchs renews the engagement with the questions of what it means to be a human and a humanist today and what dangers humanity faces today.

Book
25 Nov 2020
TL;DR: In this paper, Antonios Broumas argues that we are in urgent need of a new legal regime that recognizes the intellectual commons, peer production and sharing as the primary practices of intellectual production, distribution and consumption.
Abstract: ‘With clarity and sophistication, Antonios Broumas presents a bold new theory of intellectual commons and powerful arguments for a new body of supportive law. This book not only reveals the misleading logic of intellectual property law in our time; it reveals the rich possibilities for constructive change that legally protected commoning can bring. Highly recommended!’ — David Bollier, Director, Reinventing the Commons Program, Schumacher Center for a New Economics. ‘Liberating the Intellectual Commons from the fetters of capital accumulation and appropriation, would give us a renaissance of creative energies and empowered communities: exactly what the world needs to move away from the social and ecological devastations of our times. This book is a thoughtful and compelling argument for making this possible through the works of the law and the redesign of public domain as a common space.’ — Massimo De Angelis, Professor of Political Economy and Social Change, Co-director of the Centre for Social Justice and Change, University of East London. ‘In this pioneering book, Antonios Broumas argues that philosophically, morally, politically and economically we are in urgent need of a new legal regime that recognizes the intellectual commons, peer production and sharing as the primary practices of intellectual production, distribution and consumption. I cannot imagine a more urgent task today. A legally protected intellectual commons will lead to greater scientific and cultural innovation and creativity and will lead to an urgently needed second Enlightenment. This book should be read by lawyers, critical theorists, economists and the many professionals of science, culture and the academy.’ — Costas Douzinas, Professor of Law, Birkbeck, University of London. ‘Antonios Broumas’ book is an excellent critical analysis of the cultural commons and a must-read for everyone interested in understanding what the commons, the cultural commons, and the digital commons are all about. This work brilliantly outlines the foundations of an empirically grounded critical theory of the commons and the cultural commons in the context of the interactions of law and society.’ — Christian Fuchs, Professor of Media and Communication Studies, author of Communication and Capitalism: A Critical Theory (2020). ‘Broumas takes us on a spellbinding tour of how and why the law could and should change to accommodate the creative multitude, which engages into an emerging mode of production. He tells a vibrant story that makes us shout: “Lawmakers of the world, unite!”’ — Vasilis Kostakis, Professor of P2P Governance, Tallinn University of Technology, Faculty Associate at Harvard Law School. At the cutting edge of contemporary wealth creation people form self-governed communities of collaborative innovation in conditions of relative equipotency and produce resources with free access to all. The emergent intellectual commons have the potential to commonify intellectual production and distribution, unleash human creativity through collaboration and democratise innovation with wider positive effects for our societies. Contemporary intellectual property laws fail to address this potential. We are, therefore, in pressing need of an institutional alternative beyond the inherent limitations of intellectual property law. This book offers an overall analysis of the moral significance of the intellectual commons and outlines appropriate modes for their regulation. Its principal thesis is that our legal systems are in need of an independent body of law for the protection and promotion of the intellectual commons, in parallel to intellectual property law. In this context, the author of the book proposes the reconstruction of the doctrine of the public domain and the exceptions and limitations of exclusive intellectual property rights into an intellectual commons law, which will underpin a vibrant non-commercial zone of creativity and innovation in intellectual production, distribution and consumption alongside commodity markets enabled by intellectual property law.


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors argue that political corporate social responsibility (PCSR), while hailed by many as a solution to societal problems not dealt with by government, reflects both a triumph of neoliberal corporate and a failure of social responsibility.
Abstract: We argue that political corporate social responsibility (PCSR), while hailed by many as a solution to societal problems not dealt with by government, reflects both a triumph of neoliberal corporate


DOI
01 Jan 2020
TL;DR: The influence of imperialism capitalism through liberalism in economics become the new reality that had never happened in Indonesia after independence of the Republic of Indonesia sovereignty as mentioned in this paper, and this research is a normative law by using regulation approaches and conceptual approaches.
Abstract: The influence of imperialism capitalism through liberalism in economics become the new reality that had never happened in Indonesia after independence of the Republic of Indonesia sovereignty. In this globalization era, Indonesia is facing with the two big ideologies in the world that currently maintaining its development, liberalism which is espoused by western countries and socialism which is espoused by the countries of the communist. Development of capitalist ideology with liberalism indicated by the strong pull of free markets and foreign investments in Indonesia. Dealing with these pressures, developing countries tend to be frail, even almost helpless. The same thing applies to communist ideology which adheres to socialism. In reality, socialism also use a similar pattern with the pattern that is applied by liberalism, by counting on the free market in world trade and applying the prepotency of powers towards developing countries. In Indonesia, Pancasila has values that embodied in it are as the vision of life for the nation and the country to face any threats of globalization, including economic globalization. This research is a normative law by using regulation approaches and conceptual approaches. This research is also analytical descriptive by using qualitative data analysis. In conclusion, globalization in economy is a process of integrating the global economic systems that will force a country, including Indonesia to adjust their economic policies according to international regulations that tend to espouse economic liberalism, thus resulting amendment of economic systems whose being adhered by nation and the country of Indonesia. Deployment of Pancasila as a life vision for the nation of Indonesia become a filtration towards the influence of globalization process that is happening in economic sector, by providing guidance and actualizing each value of Pancasila on the implementation of national development, including the formation of legislation that will become law principles in determining every regulations in the economy issued by the government.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the emergence of shadow banking since 2009 and the growth of fintech since 2013 as forms of "non-bank credit intermediation" have catalysed market catalysing market.
Abstract: China's financial system is rapidly evolving. Both the emergence of shadow banking since 2009 and the growth of fintech since 2013 as forms of ‘non-bank credit intermediation’ have catalysed market...

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Contrary to the expectations of liberal and neoclassical economists, as well as many Marxists, the deepening and extension of capitalism appear to be heightening the prevalence of unfree labor.
Abstract: Contrary to the expectations of liberal and neoclassical economists, as well as many Marxists, the deepening and extension of capitalism appear to be heightening the prevalence of unfree labor. By ...

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors explore depictions of work in Cokaygne, a utopian tradition dating back to the 12th century, and William Morris's 19th century News from Nowhere, and draw on eco-feminist analyses of capitalism to argue that by challenging labour productivity growth we can also challenge wider forces of oppression.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors focus on the socioeconomic context of CSR's starting place, broadly speaking capitalism, and develop a more nuanced understanding of corporate social responsibility in the contemporary neoliberal political economy.
Abstract: Sometimes it is helpful to stop and remind ourselves of the context in which a field of study started, and to sense-check on where it is going in relation to that starting place. The role of business in society has attracted considerable research interest over the past decades. Next to themes such as sustainability, social entrepreneurship, multistakeholder initiatives, and business ethics, corporate social responsibility (CSR) has become a prominent domain in it its own right within management and organizational research. It is our intention in this special issue to kick start the reconsideration of the socioeconomic context of CSR’s starting place, broadly speaking capitalism, and to develop a more nuanced understanding of CSR in the contemporary neoliberal political economy. CSR as a modern management practice emerged in the United States as a strategic response to the New Deal and its wide reaching impact on the laissez faire approach to capitalism which had previously led to the economic crisis