Capitalism

About: Capitalism is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 27714 publications have been published within this topic receiving 858042 citations.

A future for socialism

Abstract: Many people point to recent events-the collapse of the Soviet Union, the electoral defeat of the Sandinistas-as proof that capitalism has triumphed over socialism once and for all. In A Future for Socialism, a noted economist argues that socialism is not dead but merely in need of modernizing. John Roemer believes that the hallmark of socialism is egalitarianism-equality of opportunity for self-realization and welfare, for political influence, and for social status-and he reminds us that capitalist societies face increasingly difficult problems of poverty and social inequality. Reenergizing a debate that began with Oskar Lange and Friedrich Hayek in the late 1930s, he brings to important questions of political economy a new level of sophistication in line with contemporary theories of justice and equality. Roemer sees the solution of the principal-agent problem as the key to developing a decentralized market-socialist economy. This would be capable of maintaining efficiency and technological innovation while supporting a substantively more equal distribution of income than is achieved in capitalist economies. Roemer defends his views against skeptics on the right, who believe that efficiency and innovation are incompatible with egalitarianism, and skeptics on the left, who believe that socialism is incompatible with markets. Because of its interdisciplinary approach, A Future for Socialism will appeal to a general social science audience, including economists, political scientists, sociologists, and political philosophers. It is also accessible to the interested reader.

Laws for Sale: Evidence from Russia

Abstract: How does regulatory capture affect growth? We construct measures of the political power of firms and regional regulatory capture using microlevel data on the preferential treatment of firms through regional laws and regulations in Russia during the period 1992--2000. Using these measures, we find that: (1) politically powerful firms perform better on average; (2) a high level of regulatory capture hurts the performance of firms that have no political connections and boosts the performance of politically connected firms; (3) capture adversely affects small-business growth and the tax capacity of the state; and (4) there is no evidence that capture affects aggregate growth. "oligarchy ... throws a close network of dependence relationships over all the economic and political institutions of present-day bourgeois society without exception... ." --Vladimir Lenin, "Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism" (1916) Copyright 2005, Oxford University Press.

Weighing in: Obesity, food justice, and the limits of capitalism

Abstract: In the case of obesity, writes Julie Guthman, ‘the solution in some sense wags the dog of the problem statement’ (p. 16). In this compelling book, Guthman offers a lucid account of the ‘obesity epidemic’ said to plague the USA. The book’s core argument is twofold: first, that obesity is an ecological condition, and second, that the political, sociocultural and economic dimensions of ecologies have been largely absent from both popular and scholarly discussions about obesity. At the outset, Guthman is clear that the book’s purpose ‘is not to falsify myths * or even necessarily to reveal another certain explanation’ in terms of the purported causes of weight gain trends (p. 16). This is what is perhaps most crucial about Weighing In. It is not another attempt to explain away the field of possible causes and feel-good solutions for weight gain, in favour of a magic bullet. To be sure, it is a well-researched book about public health, food systems and alternative food movements. But it is at its heart a book about capitalism, and as such offers health scholars of all methodological stripes an outstanding example of how to foreground the political. Conceptually, the book traces how late twentieth-century neoliberal ideologies permeated American socio-economic structures, and how the infusion of freemarket values into public goods shifted city planning, labour conditions, environmental regulations and agricultural policies. In this same space, Guthman argues, neoliberal ideals of self-governance, self-control, interpersonal competition and personal risk management transformed aesthetic values of thinness into matters of good health. This political ecological framework acknowledges that people may be getting bigger, but it also asserts that many definitions of the obesity ‘problem’ (often unintentionally) inhibit social justice and leave weight gain and its ‘logical’ fixes as foregone conclusions. If obesity is the material result of capitalism in neoliberal times, then we must reckon with how ‘bodies as material entities are literally absorbing the conditions and externalities of production and consumption’ (p. 182). The book’s structure examines specific potential causes and consequences of obesity. Chapter 2 asks how we know obesity to be a problem, and unravels the politics of body mass index that underlie the medicalisation of body size. Chapter 3 examines some of the discursive threads that constitute the notion of ‘healthy lifestyle’, namely the concept of ‘healthism’ as an ideology that pins the responsibility for good health onto individuals. Guthman contextualises healthism Global Public Health Vol. 7, No. 8, September 2012, 911 913

Ecology As Politics

Abstract: Introduction: Two Kinds of Ecology. 1. Ecology and Freedom. Ecological realism Political economy and ecology: Marx and Illich Ecology and the inversion of tools Ecology and the crisis of capitalism The poverty of affluence Equality and difference Social self-regulation and regulation from outside Seven theses by way of conclusion. A possible utopia. 2. Ecology and Society. Reinventing the future Affluence dooms itself The social ideology of the motorcar Socialism or ecofascism Twelve billion people? 3. The Logic of Tools. Nuclear energy: a preeminently political choice From nuclear electricity to electric fascism Boundless Imperialism: the multinationals Labour and the 'quality of life' 4. Medicine, Health and Society. Introduction. Medicine and illness Health and society Science and class: the case of medicine. Epilogue: The Continuing American Revolution.