Showing papers on "Capitalism published in 2021"

Neoliberalism: A Very Short Introduction

Abstract: Anchored in the principles of the free-market economics, 'neoliberalism' has been associated with such different political leaders as Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, Augusto Pinochet, and Junichiro Koizumi. In its heyday during the late 1990s, neoliberalism emerged as the world's dominant economic paradigm stretching from the Anglo-American heartlands of capitalism to the former communist bloc all the way to the developing regions of the global South. At the dawn of the new century, however, neoliberalism has been discredited as the global economy, built on its principles, has been shaken to its core by a financial calamity not seen since the dark years of the 1930s. So is neoliberalism doomed or will it regain its former glory? Will reform-minded G-20 leaders embark on a genuine new course or try to claw their way back to the neoliberal glory days of the Roaring Nineties? Is there a viable alternative to neoliberalism? Exploring the origins, core claims, and considerable variations of neoliberalism, this Very Short Introduction offers a concise and accessible introduction to one of the most debated 'isms' of our time.

The Essential Weber: A Reader

Abstract: Introduction to Max Weber Part 1: Comparing Civilizations and the Origins of Modernity Introduction to Part 1 1. Puritanism and the Spirit of Capitalism 2. Confucianism and Puritanism Compared 3. Introduction to the Economic Ethics of World Religions 4. Religions of Civilization and their Attitude to the World 5. Prefatory Remarks to the Collected Essays in the Sociology of Religion Further reading Part 2: Structures of Power and Stratification Introduction to Part 2 6. Politics and the State 7. The Three Pure Types of Legitimate Rule 8. The Nation 9. The Belief in Common Ethnicity 10. The Household Community 11. Capitalism in Antiquity 12. The Conditions of Maximum Formal Rationality of Capital Accounting 13. Status Groups and Classes 14. The Distribution of Power in Society: Classes, status groups and parties 15. Parties Further Reading Part 3: The Dilemmas of Modernity Introduction to Part 3 16. Intermediate Reflection on the Economic Ethics of World Religions 17. Bureaucracy: Characteristics of modern bureaucracy the technical superiority of bureaucratic organization over administration by notables 18. Formal and Substantive Rationalization: The general conditions of legal formalism 19. The Vocation of Politics 20. The Vocation of Science Further reading Part 4: Methodology of the Social Sciences Introduction to Part 4 21. Basic Sociological Concepts 22. The 'Objectivity' of Knowledge in the Social and Policy Sciences Further Reading

Making markets through digital platforms: Pearson, edu-business, and the (e)valuation of higher education

Abstract: ‘Platform capitalism’ and ‘surveillance capitalism’ describe the new business model and market form of the web. These forms of digital capitalism have begun to infuse the higher education l...

Plenty of Nothing: The Downsizing of the American Dream and the Case for Structural Keynesianism

Abstract: Business papers are in a triumphant mood, buoyed by the conviction that the economic stagnation of the last quarter of the 20th century has vanished in favour of a new age of robust growth. But if we are doing so well, many ask, why does it feel like we are working harder for less? Why, despite economic growth, does inequality between rich and poor keep rising? In this book, Thomas Palley pulls together the threads of "new liberal" economic thought to offer detailed answers to these questions. And he proposes a new economic model - structural Keynesianism - that he argues would return America to sustainable, fairly shared prosperity. The key, he writes, is to abandon the myth of a natural competitive economy, which has justified unleashing capital and attacking unions. This has resulted in an economy dominated by business. The book challenges the economic orthodoxies of the political right and centre, popularized by such economists as Milton Friedman and Paul Krugman. The author marshalls an array of economic facts and arguments to show that the interests of working families have gradually been sacrificed to those of corporations. Expanding on traditional Keynesian economics, he argues that, although capitalism is the most productive system ever devised, it also tends to generate deep economic inequalities and encourage the pursuit of profit at the expense of all else. He challenges fatalists who say we can do nothing about this - that economic insecurity and stagnant wages are the inevitable results of irresistible globalization. Palley argues that capitalism comes in a range of forms and that government can and should shape it from a "mean street" system into a "main street" system through monetary, fiscal, trade, and regulatory policies that promote widespread prosperity.

Colonial global economy: towards a theoretical reorientation of political economy

Abstract: Standard accounts of the emergence of the modern global economic order posit its origins in the expansion of markets or in the changing nature of the social relations of capitalist production. Each...

Listening to Black lives matter: racial capitalism and the critique of neoliberalism

Abstract: This article explores left critiques of neoliberalism in light of the Black Lives Matter movement’s (BLM) recourse to the notion of ‘racial capitalism’ in their analyses of anti-Black oppression. Taking a cue from BLM, I argue for a critical theory of racial capitalism that historicizes neoliberalism within a longue duree framework, surfacing racialized continuities in capitalism’s violence. I begin by revealing how neo-Marxist and neo-Foucaultian approaches to neoliberalism, particularly that of David Harvey and Wendy Brown, respectively, partition race from the workings of contemporary capitalism. Such analyses obscure neoliberalism’s differential impact on non-white racialized populations, while simultaneously casting anti-racist struggles as divisive. In contrast, I then trace how the Movement for Black Lives policy platform invokes Cedric Robinson’s work on racial capitalism, investigating the utility of this framework for the movement’s demands. Building on BLM’s turn to the concept of racial capitalism, I finally offer an outline of a critical theory of racial capitalism to better theorize neoliberalism. By historicizing neoliberalism within racial capitalism’s historical arc, such a theory unravels the qualitatively different mechanisms through which racialized populations are pressed into circuits of capital accumulation. It also paves the way to move past the entrenched class-versus-identity debate on the American left.

The urban process under racial capitalism: Race, anti-Blackness, and capital accumulation

Abstract: This paper employs racial capitalism as a framework for understanding the urban process. The purpose of this paper is two-fold: (1) to center the racial character of the urban process within a broader political economy of racial capitalism and (2) to position capitalism and racism as mutually dependent systems of exploitation. The paper begins by discussing the omission of race and racism within urbanization processes. Here, the work of David Harvey is critiqued in order to highlight not only the contradictions of capitalism, but also those of Marxist scholars in understanding urban development. The paper then discusses the forms of racial capitalism through modalities of dispossession and displacement, the agents engaged in this process, and the competing ideologies that structure the urban political economy, particularly in the U.S. The paper ends with suggestions for future research to consider the constitutive nature of capitalism and racism in producing urbanization processes.

Between communism and capitalism: long-term inequality in Poland, 1892–2015

Abstract: We construct the first consistent series on the long-term distribution of income in Poland by combining tax, household survey and national accounts data. We document a U-shaped evolution of inequalities from the end of the nineteenth century until today: (1) inequality was high before WWII; (2) abruptly fell after the introduction of communism in 1947 and stagnated at low levels during the whole communist period; (3) experienced a sharp rise with the return to capitalism in 1989. We find that official survey-based measures strongly under-estimate the rise in inequality since 1989. Our results highlight the prominent role of capital income in driving the U-shaped evolution of top income shares. The unique inequality history of Poland speaks to the central role of institutions and policies in shaping inequality in the long run.

Welfare models and demand-led growth regimes before and after the financial and economic crisis

Abstract: Connecting comparative political economy (CPE) approaches, as the Varieties of Capitalism (VoC) theory, with post-Keynesian (PK) research on different demand and growth regimes in modern capitalism...

The Americanization of West Virginia: Creating a Modern Industrial State, 1916-1925

Abstract: " Hennen explores West Virginia's integration into America's corporate political economy during and after World War I. Far from being isolated during America's transformation into a world power, West Virginia was squarely in the mainstream. The state's people and natural resources served crucial functions as producers and fuel for the postwar economy. Hennen examines a formative period in West Virginia's modern history that has been largely neglected beyond the traditional focus in the coal industry. Hennen looks at education, reform, and industrial relations in the state of the context of war mobilization, postwar instability, and national economic expansion. The First World War, he argues, consolidated the dominant positions of professionals, business people, and political capitalists as arbiters of national values. Corporate leaders employed public relations tactics that the Wilson administration had refined to gain public support for the war. Free-market business principles became synonymous with patriotic citizenship. Americanization, therefore, refers less to the assimilation of immigrants into the mainstream than to the attempt to encode values that would guarantee a literate and loyal producing class.

Assets and assetization in financialized capitalism.

Abstract: In the wake of the global financial crisis of 2007–09, political economists have typically identified and interrogated speculative logics and credit-debt relations as the markers of financialized c...

Knowledge socialism: the rise of peer production - collegiality, collaboration, and collective intelligence

Abstract: The terms ‘knowledge economy’ and ‘knowledge capitalism’ have been used with increasing frequency since the 1990s as a way of describing the latest phase of capitalism in in the process of global r...

Party-State Capitalism in China

Abstract: The “state capitalism” model, in which the state retains a dominant role as owner or investor-shareholder amidst the presence of markets and private firms, has received increasing attention, with China cited as the main exemplar. Yet as models evolve, so has China’s “state capitalism.” We argue that a resurgent party-state, motivated by a logic of political survival, has generated political-economic dynamics that better resemble “party-state capitalism” than familiar conceptualizations of state capitalism. We demonstrate this by examining three prominent manifestations of China’s unique model: party-state encroachment on markets; a blending of functions and interests of state and private ownership; and politicized interactions with foreign capital. Nevertheless, there remain deficits in the party-state’s hold over capital, some of which themselves result from Beijing’s logic of control. By probing the comparative and historical context of this evolution of China’s model, we suggest directions for further inquiry on the consequences of party-state capitalism.

Uneven and combined state capitalism

Abstract: This article contributes to the development of state capitalism as a reflexively critical project focusing on the morphology of present-day capitalism, and particularly on the changing role of the ...

Hidden Abodes in Plain Sight: the Social Reproduction of Households and Labor in the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract: This article deploys a feminist political economy approach centered on social reproduction to analyze the reconfiguration and regeneration of multiple inequalities in households and the labor markets during the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on this approach, the analysis unpacks the multiple trajectories of fragility the current crisis is intervening on and reshaping in the home and in the world of work, and their gendered and racialized features across the world. It shows how the pandemic and the measures to contain it have further deepened the centrality of households and reproductive work in the functioning of capitalism and argues that the transformative potential of the crisis can only be harnessed by framing policy and political responses around social reproduction and its essential contributions to work and life.

What Is “Authoritarian” About Authoritarian Capitalism? The Dual Erosion of the Private–Public Divide in State-Dominated Business Systems:

Abstract: The “return of the state” as an economic actor has left scholars at a lack of theoretical tools to capture the characteristics of state-dominated business systems. This is reflected in the fact tha...

Future-Proofing Capitalism: The Paradox of the Circular Economy for Plastics

Abstract: The marine plastics crisis sparked a wave of corporate interest in the circular economy, a sustainable business model that aims to eliminate waste in industrial systems through recycling, reduction, reuse, and recovery. Drawing on debates about the role of corporations in global environmental governance, this article examines the rise of the circular economy as a dominant corporate sustainability concept, focusing on the flagship example of the circular economy for plastics. It argues that corporations across the plastics value chain have coordinated their efforts to contain the circular economy policy agenda, while extending their markets through developing risky circular economy technologies. These corporate strategies of containment and proliferation represent attempts to “future-proof” capitalism against existential threats to public legitimacy, masking the implications for environmental justice. The paradox of the circular economy is that it seems to offer radical challenges to linear “take-make-waste” models of industrial capitalism, backed by international legislation, but it does not actually give up on unsustainable growth. We need to tackle the plastics crisis at its root, dramatically reducing the global production of toxic and wasteful plastics.

De-territorialized digital capitalism and the predicament of the nation-state: Netflix in Arabia:

Abstract: In 2018, Saudi Arabia and Netflix were forced to confront the limits of freedom of speech online. The kingdom requested that the streaming giant remove a critical episode of the satirical show Patr...

Developmental State or Economic Statecraft? Where, Why and How the Difference Matters

Abstract: A peculiar set of discontinuities and contradictions has recently emerged in the institutions-oriented literature that spans comparative capitalism, developmental states, and strategic techno-indus...

Rethinking the Role of the State in Employment Relations for a Neoliberal Era

Abstract: Over the past 30 years, state intervention to reshape employment relations has become a generalized feature of contemporary capitalism. A broad neoliberal reconstruction of the market order has gon...

Commodity frontiers and the transformation of the global countryside: A research agenda

Abstract: Over the past 600 years, commodity frontiers – processes and sites of the incorporation of resources into the expanding capitalist world economy – have absorbed ever more land, ever more labour and ever more natural assets. In this paper, we claim that studying the global history of capitalism through the lens of commodity frontiers and using commodity regimes as an analytical framework is crucial to understanding the origins and nature of capitalism, and thus the modern world. We argue that commodity frontiers identify capitalism as a process rooted in a profound restructuring of the countryside and nature. They connect processes of extraction and exchange with degradation, adaptation and resistance in rural peripheries. To account for the enormous variety of actors and places involved in this history is a critical challenge in the social sciences, and one to which global history can contribute crucial insights.

Slavery, capitalism, incorporation and the Close Harbour Company of Jamaica, circa 1800

Abstract: Levels of incorporation of joint-stock companies were far lower between 1790 and 1860 than in the American South, let alone New England and the British Isles, suggesting that slavery had a direct a...

The End of Laissez-Faire: The Economic Consequences of the Peace

Abstract: John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946) was the most influential economist of the first half of the twentieth century. During both world wars he was an adviser to the British treasury, and his theory of government stimulation of the economy through deficit spending influenced Franklin D. Roosevelt's "New Deal" administration. The mass unemployment caused by the Great Depression inspired his most famous work, General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (1935-36). Keynes first gained widespread prominence immediately following World War I, when he attended the Versailles peace conference as an economic adviser to British Prime Minister David Lloyd George. Disgusted with the harshly punitive and unrealistic provisions of the Versailles Treaty, as well as the political chicanery and general incompetence of the chief participants, he published The Economic Consequences of the Peace in 1919. This book gained a good deal of notoriety because of its withering portraits of both French premier Georges Clemenceau and U.S. President Woodrow Wilson. Keynes described Clemenceau as motivated only by shortsighted nationalistic goals and vindictiveness, which aimed at crippling Germany for generations no matter what the consequences to the rest of Europe. He found fault with Wilson for his ivory tower idealism, lack of diplomatic savvy, and unfamiliarity with the political realities of Europe. This ineffectual combination ultimately dashed his best hopes for a League of Nations and a just resolution to the war in Europe. In a point-by-point analysis Keynes makes clear the ruinous consequences of the treaty to all of Europe and proposes substantial modifications. Unfortunately, few appreciated Keynes's prescience, and he saw his worst fears realized in the rise of Hitler and the devastation of World War II. In The End of Laissez-Faire (1926) he presents a brief historical review of laissez-faire economic policy. Though he agrees in principle that a marketplace of free individuals pursuing their own self-interest without government interference has a better chance of improving society's economic situation than socialist alternatives, he suggests that government can play a constructive role in protecting individuals from the worst harms of capitalism's cycles, especially as concerns unemployment. Other useful government functions are the dissemination of information relating to business conditions, encouraging savings and investment along "nationally productive channels," and forming a national policy about the size of population. Keynes's brilliant mind and lucid writing are evident on every page. Both of these works are still well worth reading for his many stimulating ideas and profound knowledge of economics.

Three Tensions in the Theory of Racial Capitalism

Abstract: In this essay the author assesses the relevance of scholarship on racial capitalism for sociological theory. The author highlights three tensions within the existing literature: (1) whether “race” ...

Unthinking knowledge production: from post-Covid to post-carbon futures

Abstract: The past years have witnessed a growing awareness of the role of institutions of knowledge production in reproducing the global climate crisis, from research funded by fossil fuel companies to the role of mainstream economics in fuelling the idea of growth. This essay argues that rethinking knowledge production for post-carbon futures requires engaging with the co-determination of modes of knowing and modes of governing. The ways in which knowledge production is embedded in networks of global capitalism shapes how we (can) think about the future. The essay argues for an attentivity to the material and infrastructural sides of knowledge production, which will enable us to re-think transition to post-carbon futures in ways that recognize the deep structural, spatial and social inequalities underpinning knowledge production.