Capitalism

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

The Contentiousness of Markets: Politics, Social Movements, and Institutional Change in Markets

Abstract: While much of economic sociology focuses on the stabilizing aspects of markets, the social movement perspective emphasizes the role that contentiousness plays in bringing institutional change and innovation to markets. Markets are inherently political, both because of their ties to the regulatory functions of the state and because markets are contested by actors who are dissatisfied with market outcomes and who use the market as a platform for social change. Research in this area focuses on the pathways to market change pursued by social movements, including direct challenges to corporations, the institutionalization of systems of private regulation, and the creation of new market categories through institutional entrepreneurship. Much contentiousness, while initially disruptive, works within the market system by producing innovation and restraining capitalism from destroying the resources it depends on for survival.

Re-forming capitalism : institutional change in the German political economy

Abstract: Introduction: Institutional Change, Capitalist Development PART I: GRADUAL CHANGE: FIVE SECTORAL TRAJECTORIES 1. Five Sectors 2. Industry-wide Collective Bargaining: Shrinking Core, Expanding Fringes 3. Intermediary Organization: Declining Membership, Rising Tensions 4. Social Policy: The Rise and Fall of Welfare Corporatism 5. Public Finance: The Fiscal Crisis of the Postwar State 6. Corporate Governance: The Decline of Germany Inc. PART II: SYSTEMIC CHANGE: PATTERNS AND CAUSES 7. Systemic Change: Five Parallel Trajectories 8. From System to Process 9. Endogenous Change: Time, Age, and the Self-Undermining of Institutions 10. Time's Up: Positive Externalities Turning Negative PART III: DISORGANIZATION: BRINGING CAPITALISM BACK IN 11. Disorganization as Liberalization 12. Convergence, Non-convergence, Divergence 13. 'Economizing' and the Evolution of Political-Economic Institutions 14. Internationalization 15. German Unification 16. History 17. Bringing Capitalism Back In

A theory of global capitalism : production, class, and state in a transnational world

Abstract: In this book, sociologist William Robinson offers a theory of globalization that follows the rise of a new capitalist class - and a new type of state formation. He explains how global capital mobility has allowed capital to reorganize production worldwide in accordance with a whole range of considerations that allow for maximizing profit-making opportunities. This worldwide decentralization and fragmentation of the production process has taken place alongside the centralization of command and control of the global economy in transnational capital. In turn, this economic reorganization finds a political counterpart in the rise of the transnational state. In the future, Robinson argues, hegemony will be exercised not by a particular nation-state but by the new global ruling class who, regardless of their nationality, tend to share similar lifestyles and interact through expanding networks of this transnational state. In this way, the process of globalization is unifying the world into a single mode of production that is increasingly integrating different countries and regions into a new global economy and society. Robinson concludes that, because the new global capitalism is rife with contradictions, the twenty-first century is likely to harbor ongoing conflicts and disputes for control between the new transnational ruling group and the expanding ranks of the poor and the marginalized.

A road map for natural capitalism.

Abstract: No one would run a business without accounting for its capital outlays. Yet most companies overlook one major capital component--the value of the earth's ecosystem services. It is a staggering omission; recent calculations place the value of the earth's total ecosystem services--water storage, atmosphere regulation, climate control, and so on--at $33 trillion a year. Not accounting for those costs has led to waste on a grand scale. But now a few farsighted companies are finding powerful business opportunities in conserving resources on a similarly grand scale. They are embarking on a journey toward "natural capitalism," a journey that comprises four major shifts in business practices. The first stage involves dramatically increasing the productivity of natural resources, stretching them as much as 100 times further than they do today. In the second stage, companies adopt closed-loop production systems that yield no waste or toxicity. The third stage requires a fundamental change of business model--from one of selling products to one of delivering services. For example, a manufacturer would sell lighting services rather than lightbulbs, thus benefitting the seller and customer for developing extremely efficient, durable lightbulbs. The last stage involves reinvesting in natural capital to restore, sustain, and expand the planet's ecosystem. Because natural capitalism is both necessary and profitable, it will sub-sume traditional industrialism, the authors argue, just as industrialism sub-sumed agrarianism. And the companies that are furthest down the road will have the competitive edge.