Capitalism

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

Contested Exchange: New Microfoundations for the Political Economy of Capitalism:

Abstract: SINCE World War II economics has shifted from being the spearhead of the left’s critique of capitalism to its Achilles heel while neoliberals and the right have come to wield economics as a powerful political weapon. The contemporary left in the advanced capitalist countries is nearly unanimous in advocating forms of popular participation that make the exercise of power democratically accountable. Replacing capitalism with a democratic economy figures prominently in this program. Yet the left lacks a compelling account of the exercise of power in the economy, never having convincingly responded to the proposition that in a system of voluntary contractual exchanges no agent has power over any other simply because a buyer or seller can walk away from any transaction with impunity. Thus the Left has not effectively countered the notion that, because markets provide ample opportunities for individual exit, the demand for a collective voice in economic life is misplaced.

Beyond household economies: articulations and spaces of economic practice in postsocialism:

Abstract: While there has already been an engaged critique of the `transition to capitalism', less work has explored the limits of the dominant capitalocentric accounts of postsocialism. In this paper, we argue that capitalist development in postsocialist societies should be seen as one part of a diverse economy, constituted by a host of economic practices articulated with one another in dynamic and complex ways and in multiple sites and spaces. To make this argument, we develop three interlinked points. First, we suggest that many of the prevailing conceptualizations of diverse economic practices in postsocialism fail to address adequately the multiple geographies within which such practices are constituted, enabled and constrained. Second, we argue that in much of the literature only limited attention has been paid to the articulation of capitalist and non-capitalist economies and to the mutually constitutive sets of social relations that underpin the diverse economies of postsocialism. Lastly, we focus on the po...

French capitalism ­transformed, yet still a third variety of capitalism

Abstract: Rather than one or two varieties of capitalism, this paper argues that there are still at least three in Europe, following along lines of development from the three post-war models: market capitalism, characteristic of Britain; managed capitalism, typical of Germany; and state capitalism, epitomized by France. While France’s state capitalism has been transformed through market-oriented reforms, it has become neither market capitalist nor managed capitalist. Rather, it has moved from ‘state-led’ capitalism to a kind of ‘state-enhanced’ capitalism, in which the state still plays an active albeit much reduced role, where CEOs exercise much greater autonomy, and labour relations have become much more market-reliant.

The impossibility of capitalist markets in higher education

Abstract: For more than two decades, governments around the world, led by the English-speaking polities, have moved higher education systems closer to the forms of textbook economic markets. Reforms include corporatisation, competitive funding, student charges, output formats and performance reporting. But, no country has established a bona fide economic market in the first-degree education of domestic students. No research university is driven by shareholders, profit, market share, allocative efficiency or the commodity form. There is commercial tuition only in parts of vocational training and international education. While intensified competition, entrepreneurship and consumer talk are pervasive in higher education, capitalism is not very important. At the most, there are regulated quasi-markets, as in post-Browne UK. This differs from the experience of privatisation and commercialisation of transport, communications, broadcasting and health insurance in many nations. The article argues that bona fide market refo...

Why has Japan succeeded

Abstract: This book, by a distinguished Japanese economist now resident in the West, offers a new interpretation of the current success of the Japanese economy. By placing the rise of Japan in the context of its historical development, Michio Morishima shows how a strongly-held national ethos has interacted with religious, social and technological ideas imported from elsewhere to produce highly distinctive cultural traits. While Professor Morishima traces the roots of modern Japan back as far as the introduction of Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism from China in the sixth century, he concentrates his observations on the last 120 years during which Japan has had extensive contacts with the West. He describes the swift rise of Japan to the status of a first-rate power following the Meiji Revolution after 1867, in which Japan broke with a long history of isolationism, and which paved the way for the adoption of Western technology and the creation of a modern Western-style nation state; and a similarly meteoric rise from the devastation of the Second World War to Japan's present position. A range of factors in Japan's economic success are analysed: her characteristic dualistic social structure - corresponding to the divide between large and medium/small enterprises - the relations of government and big business, the poor reception of liberalism and individualism, and the strength of the Japanese nationalism. Throughout, Professor Morishima emphasises the importance of the role played in the creation of Japanese capitalism by ethical doctrines as transformed under Japanese conditions, especially the Japanese Confucian tradition of complete loyalty to the firm and to the state. This account, which makes clear the extent to which the economic rise of Japan is due to factors unique to its historical traditions, will be of interest to a wide general readership as well as to students of Japan and its history.